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athelindOkay.
In recent years, I've seen several movies where a woman (and it's always a woman) slips into a nice, hot bubble bath, with candles all around her in an otherwise-unlit bathroom.
I guess the idea is that it's supposed to be Relaxing, with a capital R, a New Age Aromatherapy Not-Quite-Sensory-Deprivation sort of Relaxation Ritual.
How it possibly could be relaxing, I have no idea. Dozing off near open flames or being in the dark in the major center for household accidents strike me as unwise at best. Beyond that, mirrors in the dark creep me out, and flickering candle-light is inherently eerie. Combining the two? Brrrr.
And you know what? All my misgivings and hackle-raisings are, in this instance, right -- because any time you see this happen in a movie, something terrible happens. The serial killer breaks down the door. The ghosts manifest. The earthquake strikes.
These are the only times you ever see this "relaxation" scene. Whatever the movie's about, the Candle-Lit Bathtub is inevitably, inexorably followed by the Overflowing Bathtub Of Red Water, usually with One Limp, Tragic Hand raised above the stained edge of the tub.
There are no counterexamples.
With all that in the Collective Unconscious, why do women in movies keep doing it? Don't you understand? It's certain DOOM!!!
In recent years, I've seen several movies where a woman (and it's always a woman) slips into a nice, hot bubble bath, with candles all around her in an otherwise-unlit bathroom.
I guess the idea is that it's supposed to be Relaxing, with a capital R, a New Age Aromatherapy Not-Quite-Sensory-Deprivation sort of Relaxation Ritual.
How it possibly could be relaxing, I have no idea. Dozing off near open flames or being in the dark in the major center for household accidents strike me as unwise at best. Beyond that, mirrors in the dark creep me out, and flickering candle-light is inherently eerie. Combining the two? Brrrr.
And you know what? All my misgivings and hackle-raisings are, in this instance, right -- because any time you see this happen in a movie, something terrible happens. The serial killer breaks down the door. The ghosts manifest. The earthquake strikes.
These are the only times you ever see this "relaxation" scene. Whatever the movie's about, the Candle-Lit Bathtub is inevitably, inexorably followed by the Overflowing Bathtub Of Red Water, usually with One Limp, Tragic Hand raised above the stained edge of the tub.
There are no counterexamples.
With all that in the Collective Unconscious, why do women in movies keep doing it? Don't you understand? It's certain DOOM!!!
