{"id":2018,"date":"2015-02-24T17:20:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T00:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=2018"},"modified":"2015-02-24T17:22:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T00:22:36","slug":"remember-when-claire-underwood-was-a-princess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/remember-when-claire-underwood-was-a-princess\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember When Claire Underwood Was a Princess?"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK I know this is \"PrincessBride_buttercup350\"<\/a>facile and a little silly maybe, but House of Cards <\/a>starts Friday and when\u00a0The Princess Bride<\/em> <\/a>theme slid onto my Spotify feed last week, I remembered\u00a0that\u00a0Robin Wright<\/a>, (Princess Buttercup!)\u00a0is now\u00a0the notorious Claire Underwood:\u00a0monstrous friend, cold\u00a0manipulator\u00a0and, of course, ruthless First Lady.<\/p>\n

\"Claire<\/a>Art imitates life, right? \u00a0This is a great reflection – hugely distorted and grotesque though it is, of what has happened to so many of us — \u00a0women and<\/em> men –particularly but not only in public life.<\/p>\n

We walk such thin lines most of the time. \u00a0We flee innocence and dependence in pursuit of ourselves. \u00a0We watch what appears to be the slow crumbling of every trusted institution. \u00a0We struggle to learn how to be — and remain, moral, whole adults, able to stand alone, able to love and share, able to support, able to seek and accept help when we need it. \u00a0And still, we feel –\u00a0women and<\/em> men and<\/em> our country itself\u00a0– that we’re losing\u00a0what’s best in us.<\/p>\n

Claire has jettisoned most of these qualities, if she ever had them. \u00a0 The conspiracy she shares with her husband has tethered her to his malignant\u00a0pursuit of power at any cost. \u00a0Their “arrangement” is beyond\u00a0toxic;\u00a0even a desired\u00a0pregnancy must be sacrificed.\u00a0\u00a0What would Princess Buttercup – or\u00a0even the Dread Pirate Roberts –\u00a0think of these two?<\/p>\n

The Princess Bride<\/em> was released nearly thirty years ago, in September of 1987. \u00a0It’s possible that was a nicer time. \u00a0 The 5 top grossing films that year were 1) 3 Men and a Baby<\/em> (corny\/cute), 2) Fatal Attraction<\/em> (boiled bunnies – not so cute), 3) Beverly Hills Cop 2<\/em> (bloodshed and mayhem\u00a0amid the jokes – also not so cute), 4) Good Morning Vietnam<\/em> (Robin Williams, war, music, grief and rebelliousness celebrated in the film but not so popular today), and 5) Moonstruck<\/em> (love, family, fairytale new beginnings.) \u00a0Also among the top ten were the venal comedy The Secret of My Success (7)<\/em>, Lethal Weapon <\/em>(see Beverly Hills Cop<\/em> above) (9)<\/em> and, perhaps a distant cousin to The Princess Bride<\/em>, Dirty Dancing<\/em> (class, romance, first love, politics, music)\u00a0(10.) \u00a0<\/em>Cumulatively not\u00a0as dark\u00a0a worldview\u00a0as in\u00a0House of Cards, <\/em>but not all sweet little stories, either. \u00a0<\/em>Even so, add\u00a0Dirty Dancing to\u00a0<\/em>The Princess Bride <\/em>and Moonstruck<\/em> and 1987 offered us\u00a0at least three fairy tales. \u00a0No fairy tales dare show their faces at the Underwood caucus,\u00a0do they?<\/p>\n

Even more interesting are the films IMDB denizens\u00a0took the time to vote for that year. \u00a01) Full Metal Jacket <\/em>(more war), 2) Predator<\/em> (Arnold Schwarzenegger), and, 3)The Princess Bride<\/em> herself! \u00a0Behind her, The Untouchables<\/em> (Costner as Ness), Lethal Weapon<\/em> (see high grossing: cop comedies), RoboCop<\/em> (robot – um\u00a0– cop), and – again – Dirty Dancing<\/em>. \u00a0Wrapping up the top ten, Spaceballs<\/em> (funny space stuff), Wall Street<\/em> (“Greed — is good.”) and The Running Man<\/em>. (more Arnold.) \u00a0Probably Oliver Stone’s Wall Street<\/em> comes closest to our current Netflix White House.<\/p>\n

Last year, when the Underwoods took over the presidency, the highest grossing films, not a fairy tale among them, included\u00a0six sci-fi\/fantasy films including three from Marvel, a witch, a Hobbit and some Transformers. \u00a0The list concludes\u00a0with two animations, an American sniper and one Dystopian teen rebellion.<\/p>\n

Those garnering the\u00a0most IMDB votes included eight sci-fi\/fantasy films including five<\/em>\u00a0from Marvel, an\u00a0end-of-the-world time\/space and time travel adventure\u00a0and\u00a0two outer space monster invasions. \u00a0That list concludes with a fancy old hotel, icky, nasty Gone Girl and … \u00a0a different\u00a0Dystopian teen rebellion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not altogether sure what all this means except that we’ve lost much of our 1987\u00a0capacity to cherish\u00a0whimsy and gentle humor, Grand Budapest Hotel or not. \u00a0OH and that we need <\/em>all that escape these days — really badly. \u00a0If I were to guess, I’d say what we’re escaping from is a world where, although certainly not in the White House,\u00a0the\u00a0Underwoods have\u00a0taken over, for real.<\/span><\/p>\n

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OK I know this is facile and a little silly maybe, but House of Cards starts Friday and when\u00a0The Princess Bride theme slid onto my Spotify feed last week, I remembered\u00a0that\u00a0Robin Wright, (Princess Buttercup!)\u00a0is now\u00a0the notorious Claire Underwood:\u00a0monstrous friend, cold\u00a0manipulator\u00a0and, of course, ruthless First Lady. Art imitates life, right? \u00a0This is a great reflection – … Continue reading Remember When Claire Underwood Was a Princess?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,27,28,7,9,97],"tags":[3201,2962,3180,3181,3182,3198,2775,3203,3183,3200,3184,2858,3185,3196,3186,3187,3188,3204,3202,3197,3189,3190,3191,3192,3193,3194,3199,3195],"class_list":["post-2018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-current-affairs","category-film","category-life","category-politics","category-television","tag-3201","tag-2962","tag-american-sniper","tag-big-hero","tag-captain-america-the-winter-soldier","tag-claire-underwood","tag-divergent","tag-dread-pirate-roberts","tag-edge-of-tomorrow","tag-frank-underwood","tag-godzilla","tag-gone-girl","tag-guardians-of-the-galaxy","tag-house-of-cards","tag-interstellar","tag-maleficent","tag-marvel-comics","tag-netflix","tag-princess-buttercup","tag-robin-wright","tag-the-amazing-spider-man","tag-the-grand-budapest-hotel","tag-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies","tag-the-hunger-games-mockingjay-part-1","tag-the-lego-movie","tag-transformers-age-of-extinction","tag-underwood","tag-x-men-days-of-future-past"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-wy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2018"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3000,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions\/3000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}