COLUMN: An offer that I most certainly can refuse

From Emily Lieff's, "Sassy Peach," Fall '99 From Emily Lieff's, "Sassy Peach," Fall '99After a lifetime of hearing about it, I finally went out and did it -- I rented The Godfather. All my life I've heard people quote this movie as if it was divinely inspired. So, I rented it expecting to learn the meaning of life, love and happiness in just three short hours. As the ending credits rolled, however, I realized one thing -- that I simply do not have enough testosterone to enjoy this movie. All of its pearls of wisdom were masked for me by an excess of blood, a dismembered horse and an actor who talks as though he has a cannoli stuck in his throat. Simply put, The Godfather is the quintessential "guy movie." Sure, it won Oscars and other prestigious awards, but I wonder if its laurels are for quality or for the fact that it fills male shoot-'em-up revenge fantasies. In the same way that men are drawn to the blood, gore and power of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino movies, we women have an unwavering inclination toward Morgan Fairchild and Jaclyn Smith. These movies portray the ultimate in female fantasies. While we watch, women get to step into a world of lavish wealth, unbridled passion and enduring strength. For two hours, we can forget about the pressures of simultaneously raising children, cooking, doing laundry, going grocery shopping, working full-time, staying a perfect size six and never getting old. Instead, Lifetime has given women a place to sit back, relax and enjoy a "chick flick." What is it that creates this distinction between men's and women's movie choices? Is it a biological distinction, or one created by society? On the one hand, men's predilection for violence could be a biological remnant of their caveman-like urge to hunt and kill, while women may seek out love and romance because of our role in child-rearing and our biological tendency to try to hang on to one mate for life. On the other hand, our movie preferences could be nothing more than a great marketing ploy created by the movie studios. Perhaps it was Paramount or 20th Century Fox that invented the idea that women only like movies where Kleenex is a prerequisite, and the notion that men will flock to anything featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and a car chase. They say that "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus." Can we ever truly understand each other when we can't even sit in a theater together for 90 minutes? Even an on-screen representation of life communicates different messages to each of us. While One True Thing may be a touching tearjerker in a female crowd, men see it as silly and trite. Women, on the other hand, cannot understand why movies about giant dinosaurs and hurling asteroids are among the nation's top box-office hits. Each gender takes very different meanings from the same message -- which could explain why we have so much trouble getting along outside of the theater. Many times when men and women have a fight, they are arguing about totally different issues and don't even know it. Perhaps this is exacerbated by the fact that we see the world from such different perspectives. This is proven constantly in our everyday lives. Watch a man and woman read The New York Times on Sunday. Men inevitably reach for the sports section first, while women grab what my roommate fondly refers to as the "Women's Sports Section" -- better known as the Wedding page. Same paper, different agendas. So maybe my inability to understand the deeper meaning of The Godfather isn't as strange as it seems. Maybe it's just biology in action. Perhaps women were not meant to understand this movie at all. (They certainly were not represented in it. Their only purpose in the movie seemed to be the fulfillment of violent male fantasies -- of the two women in the movie, one gets beat up, the other dies in a car explosion and they have a grand total of three lines between them.) It is finally time to accept the fact that The Godfather trilogy, all five Lethal Weapons and every movie Steven Seagal ever made are beyond my comprehension. We women really should just stop complaining about it and just stay home and watch Lifetime. In fact, instead of hiding my allegiance to "estrogen television," I'm going to start announcing it proudly. I can't pretend to understand guy movies anymore. We are two different animals from two different planets who see things from two very different perspectives. So, it looks like we have two choices -- accept our differences or just stick to watching documentaries.