February 2021: The Art of Heart-Shaped Nineties Nostalgia
Dear lovely readers,
To borrow the words of the illustrious Moira Rose, I am, on most days, a “disgruntled pelican.”
But even I can appreciate a good love story.
Wading through the artifacts of my childhood, I can draw maps from one film to another, pinpointing the miles of cinematic heartache that I have traversed throughout the years.
Maybe it all started when I was nine and I first watched P.J. Hogan’s Peter Pan (2003) in a wonderfully cold Miami movie theater. There, a bittersweet version of J.M. Barrie’s story unraveled. It was a surprisingly contemplative, dark tale that delved into the subtle sorrows of growing older and confronting the reality that some people, some moments, you inevitably leave behind as you venture into adulthood.
In this film, Wendy and Peter battle a tension they do not have the words for or quite understand. When they dance in a blue forest, fairies glowing like light-bugs in the night, they look at each other, feeling something, an emotion that is bigger than themselves or their childhood. And James Newton Howard’s score flutters, soft, then bursts forth, quick-witted and caustic like Tinker Bell, pushing forward in a momentous crescendo. His song, “Fairy Dance,” captures burgeoning love like a firecracker diving into a lake—it’s bursting in your eardrums, then abruptly drowning, a flickering flame, full of yearning and things left unsaid.
When Wendy says her final goodbye to Peter (and they both know it is final), there is both regret and resolution in their eyes. Wendy no longer feels pressured to grow up, but instead wants to, choosing that path with discerning eyes. Peter, of course, is content to cling to his past, compelled to relive it over and over again with fierce glee.
I’m telling you, guys, this movie damn near broke my nine-year-old heart.
Perhaps it was later, when I was fifteen, a freshman in high school, watching Buffy fall in love with Angel. Even then, I knew that many fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer preferred other characters because they were flashier, quippy, blunt. But I always rooted for Angel. He always supported and trusted Buffy, even when others questioned her. He fought for her, even when he couldn’t fight for himself. Angel saw Buffy, profoundly, for who she was—not who she pretended to be, fluffy and unperturbed—or who she wanted to be, who she thought it would be easier to be, rigid like a block of stone. He saw her darkness and her light and he understood both.
During my numerous re-watches, I inevitably return to Season 2. It contains, to this day, my favorite moments of the series. When Angel loses his soul, his alter ego, Angelus, is a ruthless, reckless type of villain. He is Buffy’s biggest weakness. Not just because she loves him, but because he once loved her. It is during this season, too, that Buffy truly grows into a canny, complicated hero. She has never wanted to be a savior, well-aware that it has cost her the irreplaceable opportunity of youth. When she first fights Angelus, she cannot bear to kill him. She’s not ready—not yet.
Then, however, as his violence festers, marking the ones she loves, Buffy’s hands grow steady.
In a sunlit courtyard, Buffy and Angelus swordfight, pirouetting back and forth across a stone pathway. She falls, she’s on the ground, and it seems as if all of her strength, her will, has abandoned her. She looks so, so tired.
Angelus taunts Buffy and says, “No weapons…no friends…no hope. Take all that away and what’s left?”
Right as he aims his sword at her face, she catches the blade with her hands. She looks up at him.
She says, “Me.”
It is a scene that remains tangled up in my ribcage, a fierce sort of pain and brightness. And, like Peter Pan, the show’s score builds upon and actively expands Angel and Buffy’s storyline. Christophe Beck’s “Close Your Eyes” is a haunting melody, one that hits like a sword in the chest.
But then again, maybe it was a year later, when I joined my high school production of Romeo & Juliet. Contrary to my ambitions, I was certainly not one of the play’s protagonists (I was an illiterate servant, but I promise you, I totally stole the show in Act 1, scene ii). Here, Shakespeare’s story of embattled love finally acquired greater complexity. The playwright introduces a pair of lovers who subvert gendered expectations. They both fall easily, quickly, but it is Romeo who makes overwrought promises, comparing his love to the moon, centering his words on a childish type of infatuation. It is Juliet who has the self-assertive lines, interrupting Romeo’s poetry and telling him not to involve the moon—because the moon waxes and wanes, it changes, unpredictable. She wants a stable love. She wants something durable.
Unfortunately, the story of Romeo and Juliet has oversaturated pop culture, sanitizing the raw edges of the actual content. They are two young people who deeply love each other. Their love, in the end, becomes unsustainable due to external forces, due to the hatred of their elders, due to a city and a family that chooses animosity over peace. Their love is tragic because it is, ultimately, avoidable.
When I sat cross-legged backstage, watching my version of Romeo and Juliet bound across a black velvet backdrop, flickering lights glued onto the felt like stars, I saw it: an impulsive, all-encompassing hope. Maybe it was a young hope, a naïve hope, but it was also something goodhearted and sturdy. They tried, they tried so hard, to overcome the obstacles put in place by others.
That’s hardcore, man.
Perhaps it was all of these moments, all of these films, all of these stories.
But, really, it was Brad Silberling’s Casper (1995).
I can’t tell you when I first saw it. Like many movies you watch as a kid, it simply entered my bloodstream and never left.
Recently, I re-watched the film with a group of friends in October. In one scene, as Kat falls asleep, Casper keeps talking, asking questions. Eventually, he whispers, “Can I keep you?”
One of my friends immediately scoffed, “Creepy.”
On its face, sure, I get it. Especially now, as an adult, it can be easy to watch these types of moments with adult blinders, forgetting the deeper facets of this question uttered by a lonely child to another lonely child.
As someone who probably watched this film as early as kindergarten, I sympathized with both Casper and Kat. I can see the bittersweet enchantment of their friendship. I remember how it felt as a child myself, when the world felt big and mysterious and ripe with possibility.
Prior to this moment, Casper pulls Kat out of her bedroom window, scoops her up, and flies her to the roof of a lighthouse. The moon glows in the night, casting a white light over the rolling waves and black rocks. There, Kat asks Casper about his childhood, about his parents, about his favorite memories. To her shock, he remembers almost nothing. “Is that bad?” he whispers. It is a poignant question—he suddenly recognizes that he should know more about his past, that time has worn down not only his memories, but also his personal investment in maintaining those memories. He forgot that he should care. When Kat reminds him, their solemnity lingers in the cold ocean air. There is a deep grief in this interaction.
Later, when they return to Kat’s bedroom, she shares her own fears about forgetting her mother, who died when she was young. She recites the things she still remembers—the perfume and the lullaby and the lipstick—as if she practices these words in the mirror, tethering them to her heart, reminding herself not to forget. Both Casper and Kat have experienced an adult kind of anguish and loss. They understand each other. So when Kat finally begins to fall asleep, caught between that blurry magic of awake and not-awake, and Casper whispers, “Can I keep you?” it is a recognition of their connection. Casper doesn’t want to forget Kat. His question, his “Can I keep you?” is a child trying to hold onto his new memories of someone he loves. In context, there is nothing possessive or “creepy” about it. It is a wistful, yearning type of love. And, again, the film score further develops this chest-expanding type of longing. James Horner’s “Casper’s Lullaby” will wash over you, a haunting music.
Maybe I’ve never been, truly, a disgruntled pelican.
Maybe, instead, I’ve always been a hopeful one.
Because that’s the type of story I remember. The honest ones. A star-crossed love story, even the tragic ones, are filled with the most complicated, contradictory versions of hope and loss and grief and, then, hope again. In the end, Wendy cannot run away with Peter because she chooses her own future, one that is full and difficult and, ultimately, joyous in its multitudes. Buffy sacrifices Angel to save the world—it is a traumatic decision—but in that impossible sacrifice Buffy realizes how strong she can be, no matter the cost. In the end, it is what makes her a real hero, one who falls apart and then picks herself up the next day. Romeo and Juliet love as much as they can, but they still die. Yet, in their deaths, a battle-torn city comes together; their love becomes the hope upon which their families rebuild.
And Casper and Kat—well, Kat, like Wendy, will eventually grow up and leave. But, perhaps, it will not be devastating at all. Right now, they can lean on each other and heal. They can confront the rolling tides of loss and come to know it as simply another journey, one that they have both traveled before, one that they can travel together, and one that they can learn to travel apart.
Love,
Meesh
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