This is a column about love, I promise. But before love, I need to talk about death.
It was an impressive death to watch, I can’t lie. In slow motion, while the camera held steady on a close-up of his face, a shard of metal appeared in the middle of a man’s forehead. The tip of the bullet pierced out from inside his skull, while a bead of bright red liquid – his blood – traced the tear in his flesh. His head shattered open, and he fell to the concrete. Dead. Just one more baddie wiped off the path of the hero’s mission.
Earlier that day I’d watched a snippet from an upcoming zombie movie, where rotting but rehabilitated corpses lurched through an apocalypse, ripping off people’s faces with their surprisingly good teeth. The bite of the living dead.
I watched this gory movie in-between flipping through the news on my laptop, taking in all the real-life stories of violence and mayhem. So when I was asked to write about Valentine’s Day and love, I couldn’t help but think about that bullet and those zombies.
After many years of writing about sex and love, it never fails to strike me how brutal, cold-blooded violence is considered entertainment or important discourse, while almost anything portraying human sexuality or the naked, vulnerable body is considered objectionable or immoral. As for love and romance?
Unless it’s a heartbreaking ‘art movie’ involving crisis and loss, these topics are considered – by edgy types especially – to be sentimental, superficial dross.
Every year, when the candied hearts come out and restaurants put up their Valentine’s Day specials with their special prices, the same sulky, cynical naysayers start shaking their heads and deploring the day and the worst of its crimes: The Terrible Commercialisation of It All. I know what I’m talking about. I was once one of those sulky, cynical naysayers.
Although I’ve been softening towards this ‘day of love’ over the past few years, I can now say I’m 100 per cent in its favour, commercialisation and all. Maybe it was that slow-mo bullet marking the millionth human killing I’d seen on a screen that tipped me over the edge. Or maybe it was that last zombie screaming into a broken car window.
But as the usual eye-rolling geared up alongside this year’s Valentine’s Day store preparations, I started wondering what the hell was wrong with throwing money at something sweeter than hell on earth? Why is the commercialisation of humankind’s death wish okay, but not a little bit of light, frilly love fun?
Why are we okay with companies making a buck off our insecurities and fears…but not love? Why the beef with Valentine’s Day?
If we’re cool with exploiting and having fun with the worst of humankind’s characteristics, surely we can find it in ourselves to be cool with some chocolate and red balloons to celebrate the best.
I don’t know about you, but I’m perfectly capable of expressing my love every day of the week, and still managing a little extravagance on special days. I like to imagine a great weighing scale in the sky, where every ‘I love you’ and Chinese-import pink teddy exchanged on Valentine’s Day goes some way to balancing out the bullets and zombies we celebrate every other day of the year.
Or maybe I’m just more partial to flowers and Lindt than most. Either way, happy Valentine’s Day, lovers. Hope you make the most of it.
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