Eat, Pray, Love...Rant!!

I haven’t gone to see the movie yet but I have read many of the reviews on Yahoo Movies and, just like with the movie Riding in Cars with Boys, men generally suck at reviewing chick flicks… frankly.

So many people are bashing this woman’s true life story because she “left a perfectly good man” that she wasn’t happy with. Apparently, it is criminal to leave an unhappy situation with someone you don’t hate, who doesn’t beat, cheat or regularly berate you. How appallingly ungrateful it is not to accept the perfectly nice guy as he is and live happily ever after. I know plenty of people who fit the “perfectly fine/nice” description, men and women alike, who don’t beat, cheat or berate me but that doesn’t mean that I’d want to spend the rest of my life as their mate. And if you feel like that makes me spoiled and ungrateful, kindly get the fuck out of here. It’s as if they all feel that, with the extremely high rate of male infidelity/indecision/inability to settle, any woman would be a plum fool to walk out on a nice guy in exchange for being alone. Being alone gets such a bad rap! It’s so unfortunate.

Allow me to put on my feminist t-shirt for just a moment and point out that unmarried women outlive their married counterparts, and unmarried men die before their married counterparts. Why? Because the married woman (God bless her heart) is typically signing up for a life of hard domestic labor. She is no longer just taking care of the household, no. In today’s day she is also out there bringing home the bacon and, after a long day among pigs, expected to come home and fry it up, as well cater to a grown man and kid(s). Add to that the stresses of pregnancy, childbirth, post partum depression, post-baby body image, and crying, needy children and…well, any woman who claims that she’d gladly to take all that on in exchange for living like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love, is a bold faced liar or a fool. That is not to say that all marriages or relationships operate this way, but the vast majority of them are fixed on this 1950s-meets-new-millenium model. Was Liz Gilbert being selfish? Yes, and? Who doesn't do anything that doesn't satisfy them? Who can honestly claim to be a true martyr? Every gift you've given or received was for your benefit. What do you do that is completely selfless? I'd love to know.

These Yahoos (movie reviewers) are also angry that she was fortunate enough to not have anything stopping her from traveling to and living in three countries for an entire year. Downright angry over it, even, lol. Whoever said the truth can be stranger than fiction was a genius, yet these movie critics can’t seem to see beyond their own honking noses. I happened to like the book. No, I do not have the money or time to spend a year living in three countries, but I know some folks who very likely could if they wanted to. Nor, am I white, blonde, or over 6 feet tall, either. I do admit that somewhere along the time she spent in India and just after she arrived in Indonesia, I put the book down for more than 6 months, only picking it up again when I found out that they were turning it into a movie. But that does not negate the many valuable lessons in it, which made it a joy for me to read. I have more than a handful of the pages earmarked for quick access to sage gems. Now, according to some of the positive reviews, Hollywood left out the main message of the story and decided to glamorize it out, as they often do. If this is indeed true, and the movie is devoid of any substance, rendering it a truly nauseating chick flick (the kind I don’t like, lol) then, okay. I will accept a smidgen of defeat and allow (some of) the Yahoo movie critics their say, unchallenged. I can deal with Javier Bardem being cast as the 50 year old Felipe. But if I go see this movie and it is even a little bit wonderful, I’m bashing the hell out of those backwards, chauvinistic Yahoos.