A Cynical Look At Valentine's Day

Sweet nothings
A pop-culture companion to a perfectly lousy Valentine’s Day

Al (Ed O'Neill) and Peggy Bundy (Katey Sagal) spar in the sitcom Married with Children. (Sony Pictures)

Every year on Feb. 14, starry-eyed lovers reach for a variety of romantic aids: roses, bubbly, truffles, romantic comedies starring Meg Ryan (pre-lip surgery, of course). But what about people of a more cynical bent, i.e., the Valentine haters?

Are you not feeling the love this year? Do you think “romance” was invented by some hack at Hallmark? Here are some pop culture goodies that will ensure your Valentine’s Day is the worst ever.

Your Cheatin’ Heart, Hank Williams (song, 1953). In this hurtin’ ballad, the late country icon puts a Poe-esque hex on a two-timing lover: “Your cheatin’ heart will make you weep / You’ll cry and cry and try to sleep / But sleep won’t come the whole night through / Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you.” If that weren’t gloomy enough, the song was recorded mere months before Williams’s death.

Married with Children (TV series, 1987-97). Calling this long-running comedy about a middle-class American family “unsentimental” only goes halfway in characterizing its cynical humour. Better to say that Al and Peggy Bundy are the most spiteful couple in sitcom history. Proof: Peggy comes home one night and asks, “Did you miss me?” Al’s reply: “With every bullet so far.”

Breaking the Waves (film, 1996). While ostensibly about the limits of love, this film by Danish director Lars von Trier is really about the limits of emotional endurance. Things go hideously awry for a Scot named Bess (Emily Watson) when her husband, Jan (Stellan Skarsgård), is paralyzed in a freak accident on an oil rig. In a perverse scheme to salvage their physical relationship, Jan commands Bess to have sex with other men and describe it to him. She reluctantly agrees, and ends up being raped and killed.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine (album, 1989). Not only is Trent Reznor a world-class mope, he wraps his laments in the musical equivalent of barbed wire — buzz-saw guitars and pummelling beats. The album is bursting with gushing sentiments like, “You just left me nailed here / hanging like Jesus on the cross / I’ll be dying for your sins / and aiding to the cause.”

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (film, 1966). A beleaguered couple, George and Martha, invite another pair over for a seemingly cordial dinner. What ensues is a master class in marital malice. (“Martha, in my mind you’re buried in cement right up to the neck. No, up to the nose, it’s much quieter.”) Adapted from Edward Albee’s searing 1962 play, the film has the added enticement of starring the real-life train wreck known as Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

The Very Best of Connie Francis (album, 1963). Don’t let this crooner’s dulcet delivery fool you — she’s a sadsack from way back (and the inspiration for a side-splitting SCTV spoof). This compilation is an excellent primer on Francis’s inimitably melancholy pop. The titles alone are enough to bring you down: Stupid Cupid, Lipstick on Your Collar, Who’s Sorry Now?, Breaking in a Brand-New Broken Heart and Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.

Kissed (film, 1996). A young woman (Molly Parker) gets a job in a funeral home. The fellow she’s sleeping with is nice enough, but she’d really like to make it with a dead guy.

Seinfeld (TV series, 1989-98). The sitcom “about nothing” was famously nihilistic about love. Jerry was dumped by countless females, for a variety of offences — forgetting his girlfriend’s name; because she hated his stand-up act; because he doubted the authenticity of her breasts; etc. His pal George Costanza got as far as being engaged — but then got out of it when his fiancée was fatally poisoned after licking the envelopes for their wedding invitations.

Chelsea Hotel #2, Leonard Cohen (song, 1974). The Canadian songwriter has never been a friend of romantic clichés. A rhapsody about Cohen’s (brief) liaison with the late Janis Joplin, this song ends with this kiss-off: “I don’t mean to suggest that I loved you the best / I can’t keep track of each fallen robin. / I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel / that’s all, I don’t even think of you that often.”

Lolita (book, 1959). We all know the gist of Vladimir Nabokov’s notorious novel: middle-aged man (Humbert Humbert) falls hard for 12-year-old girl and goes to unseemly lengths to be with her. Despite Humbert’s lecherous machinations, in the end, Lolita can barely stand the sight of him. Possibly the most ill-conceived, unfulfilling, ultimately ruinous love affair ever. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Andre Mayer writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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