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Why can’t we just be friends? |
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Friday, 13 October 2006 |
By D. W. O'Dell
 I’m no different from most men. Like almost everyone (except maybe Antonio Banderas and Brad Pitt) I’ve had lots of women tell me that they valued my friendship too much to risk it by sleeping with me. Yep, if only I had a dollar for every woman who told me that steady, long-term friendship with me was far more rewarding than a night of steamy, sweaty passion, I’d be richer than Donald Trump. Okay, maybe not, but I could at least buy a new DVD player . . . .
But of course the rules are different on television. Most actors in Hollywood are attractive, and most actresses are too, and when a male actor and a female actress star in a television program, of course their characters are expected to want to sleep with each other. Some shows play out the sexual tension over many seasons (Niles and Daphne on Frasier); some hold off the urge to consummate things and continue for nearly a decade (Scully and Mulder on The X-Files); on most shows the ratings start to fall within 30 seconds of the characters hitting the sheets (Sam and Diane on Cheers; Maddie and Addison on Moonlighting).
The risks of having characters hop into bed are well known to TV producers, but they can’t seem to resist the siren song of conjugal bliss for their creations. The latest series to take the plunge, with predictably disastrous results, was Gilmore Girls. After 5 years of ‘shipping, Luke and Lorelai became a couple. Then they uncoupled, and fans are in an uproar. As they should be.
At the TCA convention new GG show runner David Rosenthal described Luke and Lorelai as “soul mates.” Right. Luke is an anal-retentive control freak with definite intimacy issues (he only seems relatively sane because Star‘s Hollow is comprised of “colorful” characters like Kirk and Taylor). Lorelai is an impetuous free spirit who has always lived life on her own terms. As friends they complemented each other nicely; as a couple they were a train wreck waiting to happen.
Okay, many of you are out there screaming about opposites attracting or some such nonsense. Look, it didn’t work for Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett, so why should it work for any other couple? I know some couples who have some minor differences of opinion, but their basic personalities are in sync. People with approaches to life as different as Luke and Lorelai have no common ground to work with.
Making things worse is the fact that what they do have in common is mutually reinforcing trust issues. Lorelai has torpedoed several relationships because she insisted on keeping information about the relationship from key people. She didn’t trust Max enough to give him a key to her house. Her relationship with Digger was scuttled by her not telling her parents about it, even though he was her father’s business partner and he came from a family of whom her parents would have approved. She kept her feelings about Christopher to herself when his girlfriend got pregnant.
Luke is the same way. His brief marriage to his lawyer was doomed because he couldn’t even commit to sharing living quarters. And of course this past season he decided to keep the existence of a 12 year old daughter a secret from his fiancée, as if there was a possibility that she’d go away if only he waited long enough (I suppose if he waited 6 years, she‘d go off to college).
Luke and Lorelai were great as friends; she could rely on his rock hard pragmatism when things looked like they were spinning out of control; she brought a little sunshine into his button-downed life. But as bedmates? Rob and Laura Petrie displayed more passion in their twin beds than Luke and Lorelai ever did sharing his or her king bed.
Lorelai was right to dump Luke in the sixth season finale of Gilmore Girls. He had lied to her for months about his daughter; he said they were “rushing” into marriage after knowing each other for over a decade; he was completely oblivious to Lorelai’s obvious angst over wedding preparations; and ultimately he refused her demand that they get married immediately even though he professed undying love for her. Generally speaking, any woman should run from any man who says they are “rushing into” anything after ten years together.
Not that I’m a Christopher/Lorelei ‘shipper. No, my choice for Lorelai was Digger. I thought she and Digger made a great couple; he was the only man who “got” her, who was nearly as crazy as she was. But there aren’t many of us Digger/Lorelei ‘shippers out here.
Actually, I do know the ideal man for Lorelai Gilmore. He’s handsome, intelligent, clever, thoughtful, and funny. Of course I’m a real person and she’s a fictional character, but somehow I know we can overcome our differences and make it work. |
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