Where You Wanna Be

Hey peoples, what's crackin'? I wanted to take this opportunity to write about an interesting movie I saw last week called "Secretary". This movie came out in 2002, but it happened to be recommended to me by good ol' Netflix, so I gave it a shot. It was definitely worth it.

The flick starts with this young woman (Maggie Gyllenhaal) coming home from an institution, where she was being treated for psychological issues. She'd been cutting herself for years, one day she cut too deep and was considered suicidal. As part of her re-entry into everyday society, she began training to be a secretary. After training she sought employment with a law firm. This is where it gets interesting.

The lawyer (James Spader) is an asshole, a real task master and perfectionist. As much as she tries to please him, it ain't happenin'. He is unrelenting and demanding. Her best efforts to please him get trashed and belittled. He starts by criticizing the way she makes coffee to the way she dresses, pretty soon everything in her life gets dictated to her. The relationship becomes physical when he makes her read a mistake-filled letter that she typed while he spanks her.

The thing is, this is just the shit she's been craving. Her thirst, her quest to derive meaning from life is being fulfilled. She must be punished for being imperfect and he's the man to do it. She has had enough of being accommodated and coddled.

He needs a completely submissive person to accommodate him, someone who does as he wishes unquestioningly. Someone willing to receive the punishment he wants to deliver without resistance.

Just as soon as he gives her what she needs (i.e. the physical punishment for being imperfect), he takes it away. As much as she tries, she can't do any wrong. As soon as it became evident to him that she enjoyed the punishment, he took it away, further punishing her. Sadistic muthafucka!

At the film's climax, she discards her chance for conventional "happiness" to stay in this situation.

This disfunctional relationship illustrates the adage that one should get someone as fucked up as they are to make a union work. As crazy as it sounds, this film actually touched me, because I saw a layer of sweetness in it. It made me less cynical (for a few hours, anyway). She was lost. He was lost. In the midst of drifting aimlessly they found each other, two crazy muthafuckas, Yin and Yang. My only concern was I thought maybe they should have switched the genders of the dominant and submissive personalities, just to stave off the charge of sexism, that the woman needed to be guided by a strong man to be happy. Other than that, I found this movie weird, disturbing, and outstanding. If you got a couple of hours to spare, give it a shot.

Peace,
KZ