6 — Friday, February 15, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A few weeks ago, my friends 
and I were hanging out and 
the 
conversation 
devolved 
into a wilderness survival 
scenario. We all agreed; one 
of them would survive for a 
few weeks and one would end 
up splitting from the group to 
join another. My own fate was 
unanimously decided in less 
than five minutes: As soon as 
my feet touched dirt, I would 
just cease to exist.
Although I am Michigan 
born-and-raised, the nature 
streak that many girls have 
growing up around this many 
lakes 
skipped 
me 
almost 
completely. I credit this to 
my parents, especially my 
father (who needs a hair 
dryer to survive). I have 
never 
been 
camping, 
am 
very allergic to mosquitoes 
and 
would 
probably 
light 
myself on fire if I tried to 
cook outside. Needless to say, 
I never dreamed of having 
an outdoor life. I have made 
some strides in embracing the 
natural beauty of my state, 
but it ends at a lack of indoor 
plumbing or the inability to 
plug in a microwave. Sure, 
I love the dunes, but the 
thought of returning to a 
warm shower is just as sweet 
as the sand between my toes 
in the moment. I assumed 
many girls were like this, or 
that it was at least a 50/50 
split between the population 
of young women who loved 
being 
outside 
and 
those 
who despised it. However, 
according to the men of 
Tinder, I was wrong.
The first time I downloaded 
Tinder as a freshly-minted 
student here at the University 
of Michigan, I was shocked to 
immediately find a peculiar 
species of male Ann Arborite 
running amok: the fish man. 
I didn’t know this was such 
a major demographic in the 
online dating sphere, but boy, 
was I in for a surprise. These 
men 
are 
typically 
white, 
stocky, tall and absolutely 
LOVE to fish (or at least their 
online presence would say 
so). Their names are things 
like Brent, Logan, Trenton. 
Their first profile photo is 
characteristically an image 
of them on a dock, holding 

the prize of their time on the 
water limply in one hand. 
Each time I come across one 

of these profiles, all I can ask 
myself is whether these fish 
know what they’ve gotten 
themselves into. I look into 
their dead, slimy eyes do they 
know that their demise has 
become a ploy to get some 
20-year-old laid? The fish do 
not respond, only hang in the 
photos like deflated props 
of masculinity. It is a sad, if 
confusing end for our scaly 
friends.
Beyond the fish themselves, 
the mystery of the men behind 
them has perplexed me since 
that first foray into online 
dating a year ago. They still 
come up every time I lazily 
swipe when I’m bored in 
class, or trying to fall asleep 
after watching a romcom. 
This phenomenon alone has 
cemented my suspicions that 

love is dead, but leave it to 
Netflix to change my mind, 
if only for an hour. Whatever 
the fish men’s deal is, it’s clear 
to me that I am decidedly not 
their target audience. But 
who really is? What I imagine 
is a girl dressed in all-pink 
hunting 
fatigues, 
bearing 
a hatchet in one hand and 
another fish in her second. 
Their respective fish eye each 
other, and romance is reborn. 
But that can’t be right. The 
phenomenon requires deeper 
thinking.
In my hypothetical musings 
on the fish men, I realized 
what they could truly be 
playing 
to: 
The 
primitive 
need to be taken care of. See, 
I have no interest in building 
a life out in the wilderness (or 
the suburbs, for that matter), 
but I can understand that 
many young women do. And 
what a better consolation 
for that dream than knowing 
that 
your 
Tinder 
match 
can literally provide food 
for a family? Hell, he could 
probably build you a cabin 
too. In this understanding, I 
finally came to comprehend 
the core of the fish men. They 
must believe that displaying 
their 
catch, 
however 
disgusting in theory, shows 
more than the fact that they 
are willing to sit for hours on 
top of an algae-ridden lake. 
It is more than a display of 
machismo; rather, a concrete 
example of the traditional 
male calling to build a home, 
fish and all.
Now, 
as 
previously 
established, 
this 
is 
not 
something I personally aspire 
to. I’d rather live in a shoebox 
apartment and subsist solely 
on bodega chips than deal 
with a home in the woods 
and everything that comes 
with it. However, my initial 
confusion around the fish 
men has slowly turned into 
a muted reverence for their 
cause. All they want is a nice 
blonde lady to eat their fish, to 
turn hot dogs over a campfire 
and attend country music 
festivals wearing matching 
bandanas with them. I know 
that I am not this girl. But for 
now, I’ll let the fish men live. 
Even if the fish can’t.

DAILY GENDER & MEDIA COLUMN

CLARA 
SCOTT

Bait in the online ocean

Beyond the fish 
themselves, 
the mystery 
of the men 
behind them has 
perplexed me 
since that first 
foray into online 
dating a year 
ago.

I was looking for an antidote. 
With Valentine’s Day a week 
out, I tried not to get my hopes 
up. But I was searching for 
a romance film that tasted 
better: not the syrupy spoonful 
of infeasibility, not the stale 
sensation of overused formula, 
not the acrid aftertaste of leftover 
chauvinism. I’ve only collected 
a few over the years — “Eternal 
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” 
“Blue Valentine” and “Up” come 
to mind. (Fatalistic? I call them 
frank. But I digress.)
When I encountered Paweł 
Pawlikowski’s 
“Cold 
War,” 
my hopes got 
away from me. 
Pawlikowski’s 
2015 
film 
“Ida” 
was 
an 
antidote 
of 
another 
nature that I 
desperately 
needed at the 
end of my first 
year of college. 
It came at a 
time when I 
felt ashamed 
of the Catholic 
Church to the 
point 
where 
I was on the 
verge of leaving but hesitated, 
fearful of what would be left of 
me if I abdicated that part of my 
identity. “Ida” soothed me, told 
me I could live with opposing 
forces and curate takeaways 
from both the secular and 
religious influences in my life. If 
anyone was going to convince me 
with a romance, it would be the 
man who convinced me of that.
Sadly, though, the romance in 
“Cold War” leaves much to be 
desired. The movie places it in 
mid-twentieth century Poland 
and France, between an aspiring 
singer Zula (Johanna Kulig, “The 
Innocents”) and music director 
Wiktor (Tomasz Kot, “Gods”). 
In strictly practical terms, they 
probably shouldn’t be together, 
and, by the end of the film, they 
definitely shouldn’t. That leaves 
an hour and a half to … what? 
Bide our time? What happens 
in the prodigal journey from 
point A back to point A? A host 
of 
heteronormative 
romance 
tropes, that’s what happens. 
Let’s identify some.
Exhibit 
A: 
Propelling 
the 
romance through the male gaze
The first time Zula auditions 

in front of Wiktor, his love-
struck look slices through the 
otherwise ordinary atmosphere 
of 
the 
scene, 
wonderfully 
capturing the disarming effect 
some people have on us. This 
gaze cannot become a crutch. 
It’s only charming a few times. 
It cannot support the weight of 
a budding romance, or justify 
a sharp cut into a sex-scene, or 
make us believe Wiktor loves 
Zula.
I inadvertently put a friend 
through this film, hoping it 
would convince him to see 
“Ida” (actually, it just became 
more difficult to convince him 
to watch a dark movie about a 
nun — thank you, “Cold War”). 
He 
compared 
one 
of 
the 
most egregious 
instances of this 
gaze (across a 
crowded room — 
I’m not kidding) 
to a Dos Equis 
commercial 
and 
called 
Wiktor 
“the 
most interesting 
man in Poland.” 
There 
is 
no 
better way to 
convey 
this 
unconvincing, 
contrived 
device.
Exhibit B: The 
aggressive kiss
Once Zula and Wiktor are an 
item, they spend much less of 
their time staring at each other 
and much more of it making 
out. Neither tactic should be 
used as a wholesale substitute 
for character development or 
dialogue. Yet both tactics are 
used as such.
Exhibit 
C: 
High-Impact 
Screenwriting/Low-Impact 
Reception
In other words, schmaltz. 
Lines alluding to staggering love 
(“she is the woman of my life”) 
without substance to prop up 
these words. They fall flat.
Exhibit D: Wait, so what 
happened to her husband?
Otherwise 
known 
as 
the 
romance 
writers’ 
selective 
amnesia, the main symptom of 
which includes giving the lover-
protagonists an interloping lover 
or spouse to mention to one 
another in passing. Causes vary; 
in “Cold War,” they range from 
the need to justify a character’s 
ability 
to 
leave 
communist 
Poland for France to the more 
common desire to provoke envy. 
No matter the cause, the loss of 
the romance writer’s integrity is 

the universal result. I lost track 
of the non-character casualties 
of this endemic in “Cold War.”
Exhibit E: He slaps her, and I 
guess we’re supposed to chalk it 
up to the historical period
I don’t want to brush over 
violence against women. I don’t 
want the setting to silently 
justify it. It was never justified.
The list of other tropes that 
sap the emotional impact of this 
film go on, but I want to talk 
about one of the few scenes in 
“Cold War” that made me feel 
something. Zula and Wiktor 
venture to a club. “Rock around 
the Clock” comes on and a 
drunk Zula dances her heart 
out, from partner to partner, 
even mounting a countertop 
(while Wiktor fixes her with 
a very different gaze, tinged 
with disgust). You’re probably 
supposed to feel apprehensive 
about the increasing turbulence 
of their romance. I was smiling, 
tapping my foot. The only feeling 
I got from watching this movie 
was accidental.
What I’m asking for, this 
Valentine’s Day, is that we close 
these exhibits. Until then, I hope 
you’re lucky, unlike me, and 
that you find one of those rare 
romance films that does.

A ‘Cold War’ moratorium 
on romance for your cold 
post-Valentine’s Day feels

FILM REVIEW

AMAZON STUDIOS

AMAZON STUDIOS

What happens 
in the prodigal 
journey from 
point A back 
to point A? 
A host of 
heteronormative 
romance tropes, 
that’s what 
happens. Let’s 
identify some.

JULIANNA MORANO
Daily Arts Wrtier

‘Cold War’

Amazon Studios

State Theatre