11th, November: New lifestyles, old problems

‘Cortes Island’ and ‘You're Ugly Too’ may be both focusing mostly on effects of careerism on people, and as far as I remember, it was the 90’s when serious concerns first sprang up about this matter. The so-called ‘one-person group’ seems to be the main reason corrupting the marriage of the young couple in the former, and keeping Zoe lonely in the latter.

It’s implied in Cortes Island that the younger couple ends up the same as the old one, but it doesn’t seem that the reasons are the same – except for the old lady having a spirit as individual as a modern carreerist woman’s. They’re just ordinary married modern people who start their lives in a cheap apartment, believing that living and thinking completely different from their parents’ generation will prevent them ending up anything like them, but it seems we’re susceptible to the same mistakes, whatever the cultural background; if one lifestyle doesn’t lead there, another will. The husband appears to be hard-working, and gives all the financial and emotional support that seems necessary, but doesn’t look much after his wife’s less relevant needs – it may be even a little old-fashioned, but with an individualistic attitude. The triangle of wife, husband and the old man holds strong resemblance to that of Catherdal’s, only in a perverted, sexist, so-nineties-ish version.

Carreersim in ‘You’re Ugly Too’ is much more pronounced; Zoe is in a kind of dead end. She obviously focused on her carrier, but now her ruined private life undermined her emotional balance which, in turn, began to undermine her mental balance, and now she’s not even really good at teaching. Her health problems may have been derived from those circumstances, and she begins to feel there’s no way out. Earl seems to be her male counterpart, and while he blames careerist women, I’m not convinced that he was the victim of his divorce. Their expressions of their problems are ridiculously obvious: Earl is obsessed with getting laid, while Zoe wants the world know that she’s doomed. Such an infantile way of self-expression may be connected with careerist people lacking social skills.