WRise Movie Night: “Queen”
It's your worst nightmare: after months of preparations for your fairytale wedding, the groom backs out and explains that he wants to explore options—ones that are more exciting than being married to you. While there’s nothing wrong with the decision to cancel a wedding in principle, doing it at the last minute makes the situation humiliating beyond belief: everyone who has been invited—aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins of cousins, and so forth—will hear about it. The only benefit of such a large number of guests is that they have, by this point, sent enough edible gifts for you to be able to lock yourself in your room as you work out a plan. It might be a small consolation, but having been there, I know how much worse a crisis is when you're hungry.
Still, the story—one that is at the center of VikasBahl's 2013 movie, “Queen”—is ultimately a happy one. After a brief break from the outside world, the heroine, Rani, bravely decides to set out on what was supposed to be a honeymoon trip to Europe alone and has the adventure of a lifetime. Ironically, the cause of her distress—her fiancé’s sudden decision to broaden his horizons—actually leads to her own path of self-discovery. So, in the end, what seemed like the worst news in the world turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
While this particular story is fictional, certain themes that come up hit home for many of us. No matter where we are from, most of us have, at one time or another, felt the pressure to fulfill society’s expectations by fitting in an acceptable mold—one that usually involves finding a partner and starting a family. Although it applies to everyone, women in particular tend to internalize the idea that we are somehow incomplete without our “other half,” like a construction project that hasn’t been fully assembled. On top of that, of course, there’s also time pressure: to quote “When Harry Met Sally,” “It’s not the same for men—Charlie Chaplin had babies when he was 73.”
Although society’s expectations about all of this have relaxed to some degree, the flexibility can actually complicate the situation further by stirring up a phobia of commitment and making people disillusioned with marriage before they’ve had a chance to experience it. Put these two trends together, and you have a real paradox: it’s hard to marry someone who “doesn’t believe in marriage.”
The great thing about the path Rani takes to get out of her predicament is one that sidesteps both types of pressure and strengthens her as an individual. The fact that she doesn’t have to find a replacement prince to fix her fairy tale—although there’s no shortage of candidates—is especially encouraging. This turn of events doesn’t mean she’s planning to stay alone forever: there’s a sense that she will find him when the time is right.
You are "enough"—the author of your own story, a princess with or without a prince, a queen with or without a king.