How Marriage Has Changed My Television-Viewing Habits

Marriage is an enriching experience. I have been married for less than a year, but I noticed a big difference even within the first week. I realized that every minute of my day was now no longer my own, but would also be shared with my wife. In theory, this sounds like a no-brainer; in reality, it takes some getting used to.

For example, I enjoy watching movies. I watch a movie on television every few nights or so. My wife, however, prefers to watch a movie every month. Also, she usually likes to fall asleep during the middle of it.

So, for us to watch a movie together is not so much a relaxing little treat as it is a rare miracle. Through experience, I realize that my wife enjoys humorous movies with a lot of action. If the movie does not have enough action in a scene, she is bound to fall asleep and to remain asleep until the following morning. However, I also realize that there are certain films that I no longer watch since I have married her, whether they are action-filled or not. In considering these films, I realize that whether they have won academy awards, are cult classics, or are whether they have earned hundreds of millions of dollars, the growth of my marriage is more important that a few hours of entertainment.

Goodfellas

I actually did try to watch this film with my wife once. If you're a movie buff, like I am, you may think that a knockout movie like Goodfellas by director-of-directors Martin Scorcese is a MUST-SEE movie. Don't try to convince my wife of that. She watched nearly half of the movie with me, and seemed to be fairly entertained. Then, somewhere near the middle, she said that she needed to go visit her sister for the rest of the evening.

I asked her if the movie offended her with its violence and cursing, and she admitted that it did somewhat. Suddenly, I realized, "She's right. We don't need to see this movie."

This was a liberating feeling. What I realized with this epiphany was that although this movie had resonated with me when I had seen it during its theatrical release, for my wife it was just a brutal, two-dimensional fairy tale.

The prerequisite of a happy marriage is not that a husband make a wife watch a movie about guys stealing money and shooting each other.

Pulp Fiction

Here's another movie in the same vein. It is also another movie that I showed a section of to my wife.

When it was originally released, I used to work at a theater where it was playing. Invariably, a handful of people would always walk out during the first hour. It became such a regular occurrance that I even began to check inside the theater to see which scenes were playing when they walked out. I supposed they were probably leaving because of the R-rated elements of the film. However, after checking inside and after asking the patrons themselves, I realized that the top 2 scenes they walked out on were 1.) the Jackrabbit Slim's scene during which Uma Thurman enjoys a "moment of silence" with John Travolta, and 2.) Christppher Walken's famous cameo, in which he holds a watch beside his face on the screen. People walked out of the first scene because "the characters weren't talking about anything," and they walked out of the second scene because "the film was out of focus." People were not so offended that the dialogue was vulgar as they were by the fact that it was not contrived; as a result, it forced them to think rather than to be entertained. This made certain movie-goers uncomfortable.

All of this was lost on my wife, who responded to it in the same way that she did Goodfellas. The tragic violence simply hurt her feelings.

We put the movie away, I apologized, and we went out and enjoyed the rest of our day.

Boogie Nights

This is a film that I haven't seen in years, but it's a film that I thought was finely made.

What I liked most about it was that everyone involved in making it seemed to realize a delicate balance between comedy and tragedy with it. Characters were played to be empathized with by the audience; actors didn't simply get in front of the camera and make a mockery of the material.

My favorite actor in the film is Don Cheadle. I didn't notice his contribution much the first time I saw the film, but his performance stood out on other viewings for its sincerity. He played a man whose heart ached with unfulfilled longing, chasing after misguided dreams. This performance alone is worth seeing the film for.

However, I am certain that if I see this film with my wife, she will not appreciate these subtle aesthetic qualities of the film as much as she will think that I am inviting her to get freaky with me.

I respect my wife, and I don't want to send her mixed signals.

The Exorcist

I consider this film one of the greatest horror films of all time. In rewatching it several years ago, I noticed that the bulk of the movie consists of a quiet buildup of tension, almost in the style of a documentary film, or even a movie like Ghandi. Nobody talks much about these scenes (which take up about an hour and a half of The Exorcist) when they remember the movie. Very few people even know what an "exorcist" is. However, everybody knows how freaky it is to see a little girl's head to spin around and for her to shoot vomit out of her mouth all over the room.

My wife is a devout Catholic, and I am 95% sure that she will have nightmares if she sees the movie. We've watched Jaws, The Shining, and Poltergeist together, but I simply see no reason to watch The Exorcist with her. My biggest complaint about The Exorcist is that while it is a stimulating battle between good and evil, it is a rather pointless battle from a theological perspective. The exorcist himself is rather singleminded in his goal to purge evil from the girl who is possessed by a demon in the film, and if you pretend to watch the film from his perspective, you can see that good is going to triumph sooner or later. So, the only point in having the possessed girl act so lewd in the movie is to pack theaters.

My wife has a good heart, and I don't want to expose her to a theological struggle that doesn't have any relation to reality.

If there's anything I've learned at all from being married, it's that movies need to be put into perspective if life is going to have any meaning at all.