How "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" Fucked Up My Life

Okay, that title comes off a little dramatic.  It's not like it fucked up my whole life, and it's not like this is really limited to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  It's just a particularly good exemplar of something that has dictated my perspective and behavior and basically every relationship and social interaction I've ever had.  That still sounds pretty dramatic.  Let me explain.

If it's been a while since you've seen Temple of Doom or you just blocked it out of your memory, I'll remind you.  Dr. Jones, who has no time for love, gets stuck with a blonde, high-maintenance lounge singer in a tiny village in India.  With the help of his diminutive Asian side-kick, Indiana Jones discovers a human-sacrificing cult underneath a huge palace, gets captured, gets brainwashed, gets unbrainwashed, and breaks up a child slavery ring before defeating the creepy cult leader and returning the aforementioned child slaves to their families in the aforementioned tiny village.

As this is an Indiana Jones movie, it is defined just as much by its female companion as by its villain.  In The Temple of Doom, this companion is Willie Scott, an American singer working in a Shanghai nightclub at the beginning of the film.  When Dr. Jones unwittingly drinks poison in an archaeological business deal gone wrong, he threatens Willie's life in exchange for the antidote.  Chaos ensues, we learn that Willie is shallow and motivated by diamonds, and eventually Dr. Jones, Willie, and Short Round escape, only to board a plane owned by the criminal who poisoned Indiana in the first place.  The three must jump out of the plane via an inflatable raft, and somehow don't die on the way down a huge mountain that terminates in the middle of nowhere in India.

The entire time, Willie is losing her shit, screaming and yelling, sassing Indiana Jones and somehow not finding Short Round endearing.  She blames Indiana Jones for basically everything that's happening, and it only gets worse from there.  She has to ride an elephant in the jungle, where she is accosted by her own beast of burden as well as the local fauna.  At Pankot palace, she blanches and finally faints when presented with a racist-ass meal of live eels, eyeball soup, and monkey brains.  Later, when Dr. Jones sexually propositions her and then goes back to his room, she reacts with frustration when he later returns and silently searches her room (for an attacker she doesn't realize he expects to find, given he was just accosted in his room).  She recoils when called down into a dank hallway literally covered with various insects.

Indiana Jones has absolutely no time for Willie's bullshit.  He's trying to uncover the mystery of Pankot palace, help a bunch of enslaved brainwashed children, find a magical stone, and not get crushed by some spiky ceiling shit.  In fact, he barely has enough time to tell Willie he doesn't have enough time for her shit.  She is constantly screaming when silence is required, causing international incidents with her vaguely racist reactions to local custom, and giving Dr. Jones the business when he's in some high-pressure situations.  She is like a 110-pound rucksack that squeals every five minutes and constantly complains about being carried.  She is the worst.

Yeah, except she's not.  Let's take a minute to look at the facts.  Indiana Jones took her hostage in the first scene of the movie and she gets caught up in all of his international archaeologist drama.  She doesn't intend to fly to India, or visit Pankot palace, or save a bunch of kids or any of that.  She intended to sing in a Shanghai nightclub and schmooze with rich patrons.  That's it.  She's not an adventurer and she doesn't want to be one.  She enjoys a life of privilege and has no intention of leaving it.  So when she's doused in stagnant jungle water by a baby elephant and presented with monkey brains (in the original container) and forced to climb through the most impressive insect infestation in history, she freaks out.  Because that's what a normal person would do.  I can't think of a single person I know who would do anything other than shout "fuck that!" and storm out when presented with "snake surprise" for dinner.

And yet, Willie is the most annoying female companion of any Indiana Jones movie by far, and there's not a single scene in the movie when she's not a humungous pain in the ass.  Even though I recognize that she is reacting like most people would react (throwing more tantrums, perhaps, but those aren't ridiculous, just exaggerated), I still watch the movie and think Jesus Christ, lady, get it together. Just shut the fuuuuuuuuck uuuuuuup.  And that's my problem.

You see, Willie Scott is the perfect example of how I view women in relationships.  They're needy, whiny, prissy, spoiled, and incredibly high-maintenance.  I assume that Willie Scott is how men view women with needs, and if I hate her guts without having to be responsible for her, I can't imagine how much a theoretical boyfriend would hate her.  So, without consciously realizing it, I have spent my entire life since puberty trying not to be Willie Scott.  Independent, self-reliant, tough, stoic, low-maintenance.  I saw the woman in a relationship being a burden on the man, and I resolved never to be that burden.  So I have always done my best to ask nothing of my partner.  My needs, however objectively reasonable, were always a little too much to ask to be fulfilled.  My concerns, however objectively reasonable, were always a little too overblown or dramatic to be addressed.  I would actively dismiss and devalue these things because I assumed that asking absolutely anything of my partner would mean I was Willie Scott.

I'm sure you can see how this could be a problem.  After all, I'm not a saint, nor am I some mythical being who has no needs or concerns.  So eventually, all my once-reasonable qualms would burst forth in the midst of some minor disagreement, so that an argument about a miscommunication of social plans suddenly turns into a huge Airing of Grievances, where both parties lay out all of the now-huge problems and then there's crying and raised voices and perhaps some vulgar language.  In trying not to be Willie Scott, I basically guaranteed that I would be an awful person to be in a relationship with, just in a more staccato way.  90% of the time, my needs weren't being met and I was unhappy, then 10% of the time my needs weren't being met and I was very loudly unhappy.  I would become resentful because I try to be such a caregiver and nurturer in relationships, but I never seemed to date anyone who behaved the same way.

Of course, I talk about this in the past tense, but this shit is still current to this day.  I swallow my concerns and my needs, avoiding bringing up anything problematic and negative, and basically hope for the best.  It's still a shitty way to be, and I'm aware of that, but it's not easy to reprogram your subconscious after over a decade of pretty hardcore training.  If I ever need to bring up a concern I have or something that's bothering me, I have a really strong physical reaction to that (read: I feel like puking).  That's not normal.  Most people aren't that afraid of talking to their significant others, at least not outside of abusive relationships.

I can't really blame all of this on The Temple of Doom.  Yes, okay, I did make my dad rent it like monthly so I could watch the heart-ripping scene (I did love me some gore when I was a kid), so I've probably seen the damn thing 50 times.  But there are plenty of other movies, TV shows, books, plays, and real world examples of the dangers of women having needs.  Most of the shit I was exposed to as a kid featured damsels in distress, women who only cared about pleasing their men, and partially-realized female characters who existed only in connection with the butch protagonist (*cough cough* Disney *cough cough*).  And it's not like that's out of fashion today, either.  I mean, shit, look at Bella.  An alternate reading of the Twilight series might reveal that she was a figment of Edward's imagination, because I find it hard to believe that she would even exist if he weren't there.  Does she have any notable personality characteristics outside of how she feels for Edward?  The Fifty Shades trilogy, originally written as Twilight fan fiction, suffers from the same awful problem, and yet is a riveting (junk food) read.  Any does anyone remember Kate from Lost?  She was supposed to be this strong and independent female lead, and all she did was toy with the feelings of two men, get in the way, and make pouty faces.  I hated her character, just like I've always hated Willie Scott, and it's because of how much she fucked things up for other people.

And that's why it's essentially impossible for me to push for what I want and need in a relationship.  A huge portion of my happiness in relationships is derived from my partner's happiness/success.  I enjoy facilitating that.  As a matter of fact, that's how I function with every person I know and can tolerate.  I bake for my students all the time, regardless of how they're doing in class, because I like doing nice things for them.  It makes me happy.  Being thanked is nice, but honestly, the best part is their psyched expressions when they see me with some cumbersome-looking tupperware.  It comes off as selfless and giving, and I'm not saying it's not, but really it's just me maintaining my own happiness by fostering it in other people.

The problem is that I am pretty much alone on this one.  Most people don't function that way, at least not broadly and regularly.  They behave in a primarily self-interested way most of the time, tending the people in their lives like a garden as needed, but not putting the needs of the garden above their own.  This is how normal people operate.  But I somehow got it into my skull that when others' needs compete with my own, 9 times out of 10, the right choice is to hold off on my own stuff and do what works for others.  There are areas in which I have formulated reasonable standards ("No, Student, I can't sit and work through this entire review packet with you question by question during my lunch break. Because I will kill you and eat you, and then you definitely won't pass.") but even those aren't exactly inconveniencing anyone most of the time ("I'm just going to go heat this up in the microwave. I will be back in two minutes, at which time I will shove food into my gullet while working through this packet with you.").

Because really, the problem isn't that I'm always trying to do the nice thing for other people.  It's that I find it so difficult to do the thing that isn't net positive.  Not baking for my students isn't a big deal.  Borrowing five bucks from one of them for something to eat would be awful (not to mention totally weird, with the whole teacher-student dynamic, but that's not the point).  Not having the time to help Dan with his chores isn't a big deal.  Asking Dan to help me with mine is unacceptable.  I still hate asking for rides anywhere, and I have to do that shit all the time.  It kills me to be the limiting factor when we're trying to figure out a restaurant to go to, and yet that is how it is every single time.  I don't know how I am somehow able to believe that my friends and family are not a burden at all and are worth lots of effort to keep them happy, yet I'm a shithead if I have needs.

A few weeks ago, I ran a marathon.  Yadda yadda, I'm great, blah blah blah.  It was Mother's Day, so my mom and Dan were there with me.  I sprung for the fancy hotel rooms right next to the start/finish, Dan did all the driving to/from Providence.  The plan was for Dan and my mom to wake up at a reasonable time (not for my 6am start, which my mom was still up for because that's when she gets up), figure out about where I would be on the course, and come cheer me on from a location or two before meeting me at the finish line around 12:30.  Yes, it takes me 6.5 hours to run a marathon, you read that right.  All the more reason it was vital to have a cheering section.  My running partner's family practically stalked us the entire way.  Her sister ran with us for probably a fifth of the race, including the last several miles.  Her little brothers were super annoying and bouncy, but ran with us at the end too.  Even her bumbling father jogged along with us.  I saw Dan and my mother exactly one place: the finish line.  They tried to drive to a spot on the course, got stuck at some detours, didn't know the area well, so they gave up and went back to the finish line to wait for me.  I was so angry.  It's hard for me to even make the words to express how I felt and still feel about it.  I needed them.  I needed them more than I've ever needed anyone, and they. weren't. there.  I could run 26.2 miles, but they couldn't ask a traffic cop how to get to a good viewing spot?  My running partner's family followed us almost the entire way, but Dan got one befuddled GPS message and packed it in?  Am I seriously not worth a tiniest fucking modicum of effort to support me in the toughest challenge of my adult life?

I said nothing.  It was Mother's Day, so I certainly wasn't going to berate my mother, especially since she wasn't the one driving.  I still haven't really expressed to her that her brief failed marriage resulted in $60,000+ in student loans that I alone have to pay off, so if I haven't let her feel that guilt, I'm certainly not going to let this incident sneak in there.  But for Dan, the one who made the call to stop trying to meet me on the course, I totally could have brought it up.  His actions caused me to have very strong bad feelings.  But the two possibilities from me telling him that are him feeling very guilty (which I would not enjoy) or him responding defensively and turning that guilt around (which I would also not enjoy, and additionally feel angry and resentful about).  So instead, I said nothing.  I don't think I ever will say anything.  I'm going to bear it, not exactly silently, but without trying to do anything about it.  Because that's what I do.

At this point, I'm fine blaming it on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  It's childish and a gross exaggeration to do so, but acknowledging it for the complex and multifaceted problem that it is would be a lot of emotional work.  Instead, I'll berate myself like the mother in American Beauty, keep it together, and go bake something for my kids.  Hey, they've had a tough day, right?