Film: Waiting to Exhale (1995)
Written by: Terry McMillan and Ron Bass (based on the book by Terry McMillan)
Directed by: Forest Whitaker
Starring: Angela Bassett (who plays Bernie, my favorite character in this film), Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, Loretta Divine, Dennis Haysbert
Dear Single Ladies,
I don’t know what to do and I don’t have the answers to anything. I just keep finding my joy, despite dark forces that want me to be boring and droll and robotic.
I love Waiting to Exhale (1995). I love the way it is shot in classic Hollywood style, making everyone look so glamorous and romantic and soft and fuzzy.
I love how it portrays women trying to support themselves while also wanting male companionship. How it shows betrayal and manipulation and lying by the men in women’s lives. (The women lie, too.) How it shows that friends are the ones you can count on most, and how sex usually makes things really complicated.
Savannah (played by Whitney Houston) has this mom who thinks her life isn’t complete without a man. “Every woman needs a man,” Savannah’s mom says. She wants her daughter happy, but she doesn’t realize that a man doesn’t always make a woman happy. She also doesn’t celebrate the success her daughter has had in living her own life, and finding her own way, without a man as a companion.
Bernie (played by Angela Bassett) is so angry about her husband cheating on her with a white woman. (I guess if the white woman is not a racist, it doesn’t earn her any points in Bernie’s book.) Bernie says that her advice to people is not to ever get married. Amen, sister. I am not sure about this marriage thing. A lot of the women women I know who get married disappear. They don’t have time for friend-dates and phone calls. They’re consumed with the needs of their household.
Robin (Lela Rochon) is so gorgeous, but that doesn’t help her get the man and the family she wants. The men she deals with are possessive, and usually encumbered by other women in some manner or form, and they aren’t honest with her. Also, she is not totally honest with herself.
Gloria (Loretta Devine) is the balanced one in the group, as all hair stylists are. She is the stylist-therapist who prevents her lady friends from doing anything too crazy. She has a son who decides to live his own life, and she lets go and lets him be. She does like to flirt with men, though, and her flirting works. She gets to know someone before having sex with him, and that means love is intertwined in their physical affection. Bravo!
All of these women are frustrated by romantic relationships, which seem so natural and ubiquitous and common to human existence, but are quite difficult to navigate when you’re independent and jaded by past experiences. “Whatever happened to a man getting to know you and asking you on a date?” Savannah says, in 1995. Gosh, how would Savannah feel about Tinder, I wonder? Bumble? Hinge? Coffee & a Bagel? (Does that app still exist?)
I think Savannah would be living in a teepee in Hawaii, growing her own vegetables, making her own stews, dancing and writing philosophy texts that are quietly hidden inside free verse poems. She wouldn’t even have a smartphone, because what good does one of those do? A man might call or text you on one, and that would just get in the way of bliss.
Can I add—of course I can add—that I love the setting of this film, which is Arizona. I don’t really like Phoenix (because I am not sure what the point of that city is) but I love Scottsdale and other parts of Arizona. It’s just such a lovely place that feels, in my opinion, less like a desert than Philadelphia many days. There is a richness in the air and an openness that lets the earth breathe, in Arizona and other parts of the southwest. It is the place where you drive a convertible and feel such peace. (As long as you have enough gas and a working air conditioner.)
I think if women can focus on being sisters—and have one another’s backs—we’d see a big shift in the white supremacist patriarchal paradigm. Unfortunately, I see women turn against one another too easily, and judge one another, and find division rather than common ground. Especially when it comes to the color of our skin.
Would the ladies in Waiting to Exhale be friends with me? Would they invite me for appetizers and wine, or would they just mention me and say, “She seems nice,” and wave when they see me at the supermarket?
I don’t know. I do know that capitalism seeks to divide us so that we are focused more on financial success than unity and love. Or maybe that is just my illusion? I do know that there is no reason to let a good friend go, if you know what treasure is in this life.
I have loved men, too, who couldn’t step up, or who stepped up in ways that didn’t fit who I was or who I am. So I identify with the struggles and frustrations of these four beautiful women.
We can exhale most when we love ourselves. We can keep breathing, knowing that we create our reality, that we have the power to change what we don’t like, to trust in a unifying force that moves through us all.
And if someone really pisses us off, we can just set their cars on fire, like Bernie does to her husband. All you have to do is label the car and the clothes inside the car “trash,” and make sure it’s on your own property, and you’re allowed to burn it. (In Arizona, apparently.)
(See why Arizona is a cool place? I like Flagstaff most of all.)
Blissfully yours,
Ms. Wonderful
*Waiting to Exhale is streaming on Hulu and available to rent or buy through other platforms.
*I don’t really advocate burning cars. I may change my mind if I live in Arizona.
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