I have nine pairs of blue jeans. I just counted them now. Somehow though, I’m always wearing the same one. But after I read an interview with Sandy Powell, the Oscar-winning costume designer, I no longer have hang-ups about it.
Powell told the Times of London that the minute she agrees to create costumes for a film, she reads the script and then breaks it down into days and nights, weeks, months and years. “I’ll look at all the characters and work out how many times each person has to change and why. It annoys me in films when you have a character in a new outfit every time they’re on screen. In real life, most of us wear the same jeans for days on end – well I do,” she said.
Yes, yes. I jabbed at the paper. So do I! It is comfortable and comforting to reach out for the same pair of jeans every morning. First off, because that’s one less decision to make in life, and secondly because the more you wear the same jeans the better they fit. When they are just fresh from the laundry they are tight and taut, the day after, and the day after that, they are just like a delightful extra layer of skin.
The point I want to make is this: movies. They are terribly unrealistic but they sneakily make us believe that that’s the way it is. Last week, Angela Abela, head of the Department of Family Studies at the University of Malta, cautioned that the media often presents an over-romanticised portrayal of affection between couples.
“If you have a secure relationship, chances are you don’t necessarily look at the media as your point of reference. However, the media can have a negative impact on vulnerable people who feel they have a bad relationship because happy couples in movies are always embracing or because advertising portrays couples at their best, receiving costly gifts,” she said.
Yes indeed. Rom-com movies show us that couples never squabble, apart from the beginning when they still have not realised that they are a match. And incidentally, the heroine, no matter how feminist she is, will always become totally dependent on the hero from the very first time he rescues her from certain death. And the hero always gives her diamonds, and her eyes always shine at the sight of them.
But there are other things too that we subconsciously absorb, such as the fact that movie women always wear make-up to bed, and wake up with hair and face completely intact.
Lead characters always wear jeans for a ‘normal’ scene. Alas, the next thing we know, they’re kitted in another way more sophisticated outfit
When I don’t clean off my mascara I wake up the next day looking like a panda with glued eyes (to go with the gorilla hair). And how come in movies they never get pillow lines? Are their pillows special, just like the L-shaped top sheet that reaches up to the armpit on women but only to the waist on men?
And how is it they never get morning breath? How come they never rush to brush their teeth quickly the morning after they first sleep with someone? How come they don’t fart? Or how come they don’t pee in the morning? Come to think of it I’ve yet to see a film where the actors rush home desperate for a wee. In my life story, that would be peak of all the scenes. Instead, no one pees, apart from villains (and they do it against the wall).
Which brings me to the baddies. I watched the action movie Run all Night last week, which is what happens when you’re outnumbered by men in the household. Surprise, surprise, no matter how dead we thought the bad guy was, he still got up at least three more times.
And when the villain captured the hero he paused for half an hour to tell the hero every detail of his plan to destroy and rule the earth, including times, dates and addresses. As you do. You’ll be happy to know that in the end the baddie dies, shot by a wounded hero on the brink of death. And in all of this, the only woman in the script stood wide-eyed, holding hand to mouth.
Women do a lot of standing around, in fact. They always stand and watch the cars that are about to run them over, or the bad guys that are about to shoot them.
Of course, not all movies are about guns and shooting. Some just depict scenes of things we do in real life. But how is it no one is grimacing because they’re laden with heavy shopping? How is it they all carry brown bags with green carrot tops and a French baguette sticking out of it? I need to have a word with my greengrocer: why are my carrots always topless?
The good thing is that the lead characters always wear jeans for a ‘normal’ scene like this. But, alas, the next thing we know, they’re kitted in another – way more sophisticated – outfit. They need to go to some ball or other, of course.
Why, don’t we all?
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Twitter: @KrisChetcuti