The You Is Silent

I hate that I make her feel the way that you make me feel.

I hate that when I don't answer her calls, I know exactly how she's feeling because that's how I feel when you don't answer mine.

I hate that she wants me as much as I want you.

I hate that I am compelled to think up increasingly clever ways of commandeering your attention the way that she pulls increasingly miserable stunts to gain mine.

I hate that I spend hours restlessly waiting for your reply the way that she spends hours anxiously waiting for mine.

I hate that I let her down over and over the way you let me down over and over.

I hate that she throws herself at me the way I want to throw myself at you.

I hate that I am hurting her the way that you are hurting me.

I hate how she feels empty when I'm not around the way I feel cavernous when you are not.

But I love that it feels like I can get revenge on the universe in some twisted way by squeezing the life out of her the way you squeeze the life out of me.

Martha Marcy May Marlene and Me

Things that made me laugh about Martha Marcy May Marlene:

The big, old, decaying house
The endless cleaning
"Soon the government will collapse and people will go back to living on farms like this."
The dirty kids running around
The terrible musicians and songs ('Marcy's Song' excluded)
"He's right, I don't know why I'm so weak."
Always looking forward to financial stability "just around the corner"
Naivety about football, professional sports, and television in general
And niche hobbies and modern nutritional fads
And everything
"I don't know, it's a big bed -- you guys were on the other side."
HOW DID THEY GET SO MANY HOT NEW DISCIPLES WHAT THE HELL!
Official 'meal times'
"Your body doesn't need that much food, you'll get used to it."
Child care
Calling parents to ask for money
"You have so much potential."
"Morally superior moochers who live off and lecture you while insisting that you can't measure success by money and possessions"
The whiteboard by the phone and the phone protocol written on it
"You're a teacher and a leader."


While the 'cult' obviously had issues, the 'normal' sister and her husband weren't completely beautiful people either. Did they have to have such sticks up their asses about every little thing? Of course, I'm no one to judge. I've never had anything up my ass, and maybe the way they act is just normal, modern human behavior. Still, I wish people wouldn't have such a snobby attitude toward, for one, the natural, naked state of the human figure.

Some of the 'cult's' behavior was a bit improbable too. Although I have definitely seen how the ritualization of violation can definitely make some very wrong things sacred, I think the commonplace breaking-and-entering and the casual murdering was a bit far-fetched even for weird cults.

As far as the rape-cleansing ritual, I think the script's writer was trying to explain to himself through drastic measures how it is possible for people to be convinced to live alternative lifestyles. Maybe he doesn't realize or couldn't understand that you don't need to be 'raped' into an alternative lifestyle -- it is possible to just be seduced. Sometimes mainstream and society just isn't for you. Many people, of their own volition, live outside the norm, both idealistically and even sexually. Sometimes it even becomes a new norm, like monogamy once did. I don't think rape and roofies are necessary for a person to decide that the way many other people are doing things just isn't for her.