I surprised my husband the other day. Not an easy thing to do, especially after living together for 4 years. At this point, we'd need to be kidnapped by pirates to talk about anything new. But somehow I managed to alter his perception of me, if ever so slightly.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Harold & Maude . And for 5 years now, I've been trying (subtly) to get him to watch it with me. I don't want to push, because that would only make him resist more. So every now and then, I drop a hint about how he'd like it.

Well, we finally watched it together the other night, and when I asked him if he'd liked it, he said yes, but that it was nothing like what he had expected. Apparently, he thought it was more of a "chick flick" type of movie, focusing on romance and feelings and schmoopy shit like that.

Wrong-o!

Harold & Maude opens with the main character hanging himself. He attends funerals and building demolitions for fun, while Maude steals cars, poses nude for a sculptor, and drowns herself during a mock protest. Not exactly the types of personalities you'd expect from a shy 20-year-old and an octogenarian.

I love this movie dearly with all my heart.

I think what surprised Peat the most was not that it was a dark comedy instead of a straight-up schmoopy love story, but that I enjoyed the darkness so very very much. He learned something new about me. And that's delightful.

But then I got to thinking about pigeon-holing people into categories, making them one-dimensional. Because I get that a lot. And that's one of the points of the movie.

Many people think they can peg me, just because I'm small and cute and have a usually perky disposition. They see that I like The Muppets and Gone with the Wind and cheesy 80s pop music. They don't realize that I also like the macabre, that I curse like a drunken sailor, or that my most favorite part in Pulp Fiction is when Vincent shoots Marvin in the face. I love that! I've seen it a billion times, and it always cracks me up. That's what he gets for not even having an opinion. Motherfucker.

Anyway, so I got to thinking about all this, when, thanks to the wonders of TiVo and the IMDB, Peat and I discovered that Jane Leeves (Daphne from Frasier and the Virgin from Seinfeld – "oooh, John-John!") was a dancer on The Benny Hill Show! Now, I know that all actors have to get their start somewhere. Billy Crystal went from Fernando on SNL and a gay guy on Soap to a huge movie star with sequels dropping out of his ass; Britney, Christina and Justin all started on the Mickey Mouse Club; Tom Hanks was the Bosom Buddies guy; and Bob Saget of Full House and those stupid home video shows started as a foul-mouthed stand-up comic!

But think about Jane and Billy and Tom and Bob for a minute (cos fuck Brit, Chris and JT). Looking at them now, would you ever have thought Daphne would walk around in a French maid outfit with her skirt over her head, revealing her stockings and garters for a laugh? Would you ever think of Billy Crystal as just the "you look mahvelous" guy? Can you picture Bob Saget saying "I'd suck a guy off for coke" on Full House? And Tom Hanks… well, I do still think of Tom Hanks as the Bosom Buddies guy, but that's just him.

My point is, even though it's hard, we have to remember that there's more to people than just what they seem. And therein lies the intrinsic problem of prejudice, both personal and general.


Maude: I should like to change into a sunflower most of all. They're so tall and simple. What flower would you like to be?
Harold: I don't know. One of these, maybe.
Maude: Why do you say that?
Harold: Because they're all alike.
Maude: Oooh, but they're *not*. Look. See, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some to the right, some even have lost some petals. All *kinds* of observable differences. You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are *this*,
[she points to a daisy]
Maude: yet allow themselves be treated as *that*.
[she gestures to a field of daisies]