The Way We Are... Or the Way We Want to Be?

I finally watched The Way we Were last night, and oh my god, what an amazing film! Supergirl (nee "my friend I" – I have rebranded her) and I swooned over a very young and very gorgeous Robert Redford, although Supergirl managed to ruin the fantasy by googling his height mid-film, and moaning throughout that he was only 5"10.

I think the film raised some very interesting issues about what I shall loosely term performativity. Every reference to the film that I have ever seen or read (including that travesty episode of Sex and the City) has focused on the notion that men are simple creatures who avoid complication and confrontation at all costs, and may be passionate about strong, intelligent women, but will ultimately end up marrying the doll-like, intellectually unchallenging bimbo. And the film is about all those things, but so much more, too.

Leaving aside the obvious point (which I am tired of making) that you cannot categorise and simplify sex and gender in that manner, I think the film goes beyond this. Far from suggesting that Hubble and Katie are best off sticking to what comes naturally to them – he as a womanising, gorgeous, commitment-free lurve object, and she as a curly haired, ungroomed social rights campaigner – and that by being together, they are denying their true selves, I think the film does a good job of problematising categories of identity (which is my "thing"!).

Katie has started ironing her hair before she runs into Hubble again and gets it on with him. She may have made the (nauseating) effort to run around after him laundering his uniform, spending her food ration on steaks for him and generally being a bit giggly and flirtatious, but what he was attracted to – before, during and after they were together – was her leftish feistiness and political engagement. He still loves her at the end of the film when she goes back to unironed hair and shouty politics. Hubble can see beyond whether she has groomed or wild hair, and in turn Katie loves him whether he is being a lazy sod or a successful writer.

Ultimately, though, 3 things win: (1) political commitment over living happily ever after with Robert Redford (an heroic – if somewhat dubious – win); (2) going for the safe relationship over the passionate, exciting one (Hubble with the Mute Barbie and Katie with the faceless Step-Father to her child, who lets her walk around with that awful hair), and (3) while both characters struggle with their inner contradictions, actually, the woman is the powerful one who gets what she wants, while poor old Robert Redford ends up miserable, I think. Katie manages to nail her man thrice; she has him wrapped around her little finger, and she is simultaneously independent, fiercely supportive of her man, feminine, gorgeous (some of the clothes are amazing, as are Barbra Streisand’s cheekbones), highly intelligent, lovable, articulate, dynamic, etc etc. She gets to be a mother as well (good for her, if this is what she wants), and strengthens her matriarchal genealogy by naming her daughter after her mother. She ends up with her tragic hair in its natural state and even though Robert Redford leaves her, she finds a man who adores her unequivocally enough to take on the fathering of her daughter. Robert Redford ends up miserable, missing her and shagging a Mute Barbie. I know who I’d rather be.

Interestingly, though, the film turns a lot of popularly-held stereotypes on its head. Hubbell’s weakness is not other women – he only has one affair while with Katie, towards the end of their relationship. His weakness is Katie herself. The relationship is doomed from the beginning, and they split up at least twice, but he keeps on going back to her. He knows that no one will ever match up to her, and even his friend acknowledges (when his own partner has left him) that Katie is a special woman, and that being a man whom she has left must be particularly devastating. Another cliché the film turns on its head is that of the woman feminising herself to bag her man. Katie doesn’t need to do this. Although she transforms herself into a bit of a babe who cooks and irons for her man, what he is most attracted to is her feistiness and her passion and her mind (even at the end of the film) – although ultimately, it is all these things in the end which make them too different and make the relationship unworkable.

It’s just so depressing, isn’t it? Attraction: not enough. Lights on, windows open: not enough. I guess if two people are too different, the relationship can work for a while, but not forever. The worst thing is that Hubbell knows that no one will ever understand him or love him or support him in the way that Katie did - but he will still choose the easy option over her.

Where does that leave us, girls?