The bodyguard syndrome

When someone amazing passes away, someone like Whitney Houston, I usually have the habit of remembering their brilliance by going through their songs and movies. In Whitneys case the timing was pretty amazing, only 2 weeks before had I already downloaded the bodyguard with the intention of watching it again. So now we decided to watch it the very night she passed on.

Watching this movie was like opening Pandora’s box of memories.

I was 10 years old when this movie came out. I did not only like this movie, I LOVED IT, and I fell literally in love with all the characters in it. I watched the bodyguard a minimum of 10 times, and even now, 20 years later, do I remember most of the scenes and the lyrics to all the songs.

But watching this movie made me realize something else. And I think it’s been important for all the girls in my generation:

I fell in love with Kevin Costner aka Frank Farmer. And I think all girls with an age of 10 and up watching that movie fell deeply in love  with him. (I was too young during Dances with Wolves to appreciate him, but he got to me during the bodyguard.) And I fell in love with his character, the tough bodyguard. But only now I realize, this is an important thing!

Lets take a look at Frank Farmer. He ‘s a rather handsome, strong mysterious man of few words. He has a strong will, knows exactly how he wants it and when it doesn’t go his way, he walks off. He has sex-appeal. He pretends that he doesn’t want to get involved, then does nothing to stop it, he has sex, but the next morning it gets too intimate and he walks away. Then he keeps the girl wanting him, he plays hard to get, gives in a few more times, pretends he protects her and cares for her. He doesn’t have deep conversations, his answers are always cryptic, he avoids intimacy questions and personal details. The closest he allows the girl to get is to introduce her to his father, who is a warm man. That gives the girl the feeling he cares. But basically he lets the father do the work. Then in the end, at the point that it could get very intimate (they could actually be a nice couple), he completely walks away, changes jobs and leaves the girl behind in tears.

 Ok, what do we see here?

This is the man I (and many other girls) first fell in love with at a very young age. It’s the attractive, mysterious, closed hearted man with a HUGE wall around him, with few words but with great sex appeal. So the first time I allowed affection and love into my life I projected it on the Frank Farmer character, and I started to associated  love with that.

And guess what? If I look back at the last 10 years  of my life (because that is when love became more serious), what do I see? Exactly that!! I was mostly attracted to the good looking, mysterious man of few words, who more often than not (and this I realized while watching this movie), introduced me to their families (often quite soon), and the families were surprisingly often very warm people! The men themselves however, were hard to get, afraid of intimacy and avoiding emotional conversations. Do I see a pattern here?

I have programmed myself to fall in love with the bodyguard!

And the de-programming (or we could call it debugging) has cost me about 20 years! And even now I have to be careful not to feel challenged and light headed when I realize the gorgeous guy is going to be a challenge when it comes to intimacy.

One good thing I also realized while watching the Bodyguard: Frank Farmer was no longer an object of my admiration. Both me and my roommie concluded his behavior was not interesting, and mostly a turn off.

I guess I can conclude: Debugging program completed!

And is Frank Farmer the bodyguard happy?  You’d never know. Frank drinks a lot, lives alone and stares in empty voids during nights. His following job seemed rather boring, however it was the easier road to go. And maybe he doesn’t even know himself wether he is happy or not.

And as for Whitney: Thank you for holding such an enormous important presence during childhood with your amazing voice and your radiant beauty.