Meditation on "Memoirs of a Geisha"

I saw 'Memoirs of a Geisha' with a friend of mine yesterday. Decent movie. Very atmospheric. Unlike Kingdom of Heaven, the careful cinematography and art direction was backed up with a plot and character development. In fact, the cinematography even enhanced the plot. Which was nice.

There was one shot in particular, where just the interaction of acting, lighting, and camera angles appeared to bring the main character, Sayuri/Chiyo, from childhood into adolescence. Her face, a childs, seemed for a moment completely ageless.

In a word, it was neat.

Anyway. That the movie had a pleasing plot and good narrative drive isn't worth talking about, because it was based on a novel that had both. I'm also not going to talk about the implications of using chinese and malaysian actresses instead of japanese, because, well, I dunno.

But. It did bring up some issues. Like...why aren't their courtesans anymore? Or geisha? Or really, really high-class prostitutes? Why isn't there a demimonde?

Because of fucking romantic fucking marriage. Or, the expectation of romantic marriage. Men expect their wives to like them, fuck them and make conversation, rather than expecting their wives to cook and clean and breed. So we're left with prostitution, because men still can't expect consistent sex throughout marriage, and straight unmarried men keep refusing to have sex with each other, as god intended.

And the sad result of this perverse modern inovation is that being charming, talented, and easy is no longer a career option for women. You have to be charming, talented, and easy for free, or pretend to be so for a few weeks or months, and then return to your dismal skanky self once a commitment is made. Men and women expect to fulfill all (or the majority of) each other's opposite sex needs. Men and women occupy similar worlds, due to feminism. There is no upperclass male world of art, letters, and dirty jokes with a separate supportive domestic female world. Thus, there is no neccessity for a segment of women to cross over into the male world.

If men have a reasonable expectation that their legally sanctioned heterosexual relationships will be in any way fulfilling, the career of professional mistress is dead. It's simply too expensive to keep two women when one will do. Especially now that one woman can be expected to be self-supporting. Why buy the cow when you can marry the milk while she continues working and pays for the cable?

Too bad. I mean, feminism is great and everything, but...I'd really, really like to be witty, learned, and slutty and nothing else, and, you know, eat cheese like nobody's business.