La Dolce Vita

I remember having a conversation with a friend a long time ago, in which I observed that a lot of people like to say that The Great Gatsby is their favorite book (clarification: a different set of people than the ones who pretend that Moby Dick is their favorite book). I said, "I don't see how that can be. Most of us read that book when we were in 11th grade, which is way before we would have been able to understand what is profound about it. I think everyone just liked the fact that there were a lot of rich people and parties."

My friend, who's a writer himself, said, "Of course. Whenever you have a story that's so-so, make the characters rich and your story will be good."

Facetious, but true. That's the card La Dolce Vita is playing, I believe. The decadence, the glamour, the mansions and cars; the crazy amounts of anonymous sex that goes down, or at least gets suggested. I suspect La Dolce Vita failed to captivate me as it should have largely because my reaction is revulsion, not fascination, to most of this stuff. I mean, I love a wild party as much as the next person, but I've never found stoners to be much fun, and I've certainly never felt the need to see my friends in their birthday suits at parties. Perhaps most importantly, I've stopped associating "rich" with "glamorous" a long, long time ago. Rich to me basically means "Republican" and "asshole-cocksucker-fascist" - making them the last people I'd want to fraternize with.

With that, a lot of the glister to La Dolce Vita just got killed. This would explain why I appreciated the episodes I did. It also means that I got the message - aha! The movie was preaching to the choir, so to speak.