Like pastel Uggs and inch-thick highlights, I spent the better part of 2004 avoiding all things Rachel McAdams. She hadn’t done anything to me, personally, at least as far as I knew. It was more about what she represented and who she made me think of. My introduction to her came by way of Regina George, her queen bee character in Mean Girls. None of the Stephs or MacKenzies or Allies or Amys I knew back in high school were that outright cruel, but there was a kind of casual, passive cruelty that I felt from those girls, an unclear drawing of boundaries that would let me in during pre-calc only to push me away after class. These girls loved Mean Girls, and they really loved The Notebook, the Nicholas Sparks teen romance du jour starring McAdams and Ryan Gosling.
Defining myself in opposition to them, I didn’t want to see Mean Girls, and I really didn’t want to see The Notebook. I relented on the former after a couple months, but on the latter front I held my ground. Fuck The Notebook! Fuck these girls! I’d rather rewatch my worn-down Hedwig and the Angry Inch DVD anyway. I finally watched The Notebook a year later in the summer of 2005. I was in the basement of the best friend of a boy I’d met on MySpace. It was clearly not a date, yet I remained convinced it might be, even after he invited his ex over to hang out. I don’t remember a lot from that August afternoon, though what I do remember, I remember fondly: lo-res Wonder Showzen clips, an online Peaches soundboard (press f for “FUCK THE PAIN AWAYEE,” d for “shake yer dix shake yer dix,” p for “UNGHH!!”), and the ex’s androgynous proto-scene kid style that made me reevaluate my entire closet.
Despite my best intentions, I let Rachel McAdams into my heart. She and her stupid fucking ‘monesploitative movie had finally gotten to me, and I had no regrets.
Someone suggested we watch a movie, then someone suggested The Notebook. I wanted this boy to like me, so I didn’t put up a fight, and by the end of the movie, I was unabashedly tearing up. Despite my best intentions, I let Rachel McAdams into my heart. She and her stupid fucking ‘monesploitative movie had finally gotten to me, and I had no regrets.
The Notebook came up a few weeks ago in Jezebel’s Slack. We were talking about how we all want to fuck Mr. Met, as we so often do, when staff writer Frida Garza compared the New York Mets mascot to Shane West in A Walk to Remember. That set off staff writer Kelly Faircloth, our resident Nicholas Sparks anti-Stan, whose anti-Sparks remarks reminded senior editor Katie McDonough of “the craziest sex outtake” she remembers seeing when she watched The Notebook DVD’s bonus features in her youth. Fellow staff writer Ashley Reese chimed in to admit that she’d never actually seen The Notebook. “I just know they kiss in the rain,” she said, citing the Tumblr gif sets she knew so well. I hadn’t seen it since that fateful August afternoon in 2005, so we decided to watch it together. It was her first time watching The Notebook and my first time crying in the Jezebel office. (Apologies to the guy who walked in on us just as I was wiping away mascara and screaming, “WHAT THE FUCK I HATE THIS!”) We discuss the film and its emotionally manipulative glory below.
HARRON: When we were talking about The Notebook on Slack, Kelly said that the movie “will make you cry and you will be mad that you are crying because Nicholas Sparks is an emotionally manipulative nerd.” Do you feel like this accurately sums up your first Notebook watching experience?
ASHLEY: Absolutely. I mean, I didn’t try not to cry or anything. I love crying while watching, er, A Thing. And it’s pretty easy for me to start the waterworks. Like I told you earlier, I have been known to cry during episodes of Cold Case on CBS, so I’m very vulnerable to tearing up when the emotional music is timed just right and there’s some sappy shit going down. But what surprised me the most is that it wasn’t really Ryan or Rachel’s ye olde romance that turned on the waterworks; it was when they were OLD AS FUCK.
HARRON: Oh my god, totally. It was like Ryan and Rachel were setting me up, and then their older counterparts [played by James Garner and Gena Rowlands] knocked me the fuck down. Was it the old people’s acting or something about old people that did it for you?
ASHLEY: It was the old people element, really. Maybe I’m really sensitive because I have a great aunt who is suffering from dementia right now and has been for ages and also lives in a nursing home…but I think there’s something about love that stands the test of time that will just kick me in the fucking gut every time. I loved the actor who played old-Ryan Gosling, though. Or Noah or whatever. I don’t know, the whole time I watched I was calling Noah “Ryan” and Allie “Regina George”…but anyway. When the man who played old-Noah started crying when Allie was freaking out…bye!
HARRON: Yeah, I don’t know what it was, maybe old-Noah saying stuff about how he’d always be with her no matter how hard things got that destroyed me? It’s absolutely noooot the kind of relationships I’m modeling in real life, but something about it just got to me and made me go “ughhhhh…that’s beautiful.” I think I had a hard time getting too emotionally wrapped up in young-Noah and Allie’s drama because it kind of all hinges on her deciding whether or not she’s gonna give up her class standing and comfortable rich girl world to be with someone she loves. I know it’s not the same thing, but it reminded me of a lot of the dudes I’ve been with who aren’t willing to make any sacrifices to be with me beyond like mayyyybe being seen together at a bar, at the most. Like, I get it! It would probably be kinda difficult to incorporate me into their lives! But I incorporate me into my life every day, and I’m fine. Anyway, it was a little hard to have tooooo too too much sympathy for someone struggling over whether or not she wanted to do that for her lover. Not to be like “The Notebook is queer” lol, but it was kind of a coming out story? That’s probably why it didn’t totally grab me. Coming out stories are boring!