The best way to spite an ex

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching football or something with Munky on ESPN, and then I flipped to the next channel during a break. It just so happened to be the music channel, and I had flipped over just as Avril Lavigne's Sk8ter Boi was starting. Now, I've never seen this video or heard this song before, but I found it immensely catchy and so I watched the whole thing.

And it occurred to me that, for a catchy light rock song, it was quite downright spiteful. You guys know the song, right? It's about some girl that turned down a skater boy in high school even though she liked him, because her friends thought she was a loser that wouldn't go anywhere. Then later on she ends up becoming a depressed single mom and the skater boy became a famous rock star. I mean, you don't have to be some genius to realize that she wrote that song because she was ditched by some dude back in high school because he thought she was too skanky, and wrote this song as a way to spite the guy. I mean, check out these lines if you're not convinced the song's about her.

"She turns on TV,
Guess who she sees?
Skater boy rocking up MTV!"

Then I realized that the best way to get back at an ex is to get really really famous and write a song or make a movie that spites your ex. Yeah, I guess traditionally the thing to do is to move on in your life, find someone else and then be happy. But that just doesn't even compare to the notion that your ex would suddenly hear a song on the radio about how he/she/it was a bitch and you're now much better off without her. I'm guessing that 1 in every 3 songs/movies is written to dis someone's ex. And usually, the public loves that shit. Because everyone relates to being dissed by an ex and wanting some sorta revenge.

You watch The Mummy Returns (and if you haven't seen it, this won't be a plot spoiler because the movie doesn't have much of a plot) and you can see something like that in the scene where the Mummy guy (Imohtep) gets abandoned by his "true love" (Anaksunamun) and so decides to give up and fall to his doom into a pit of hell. In return for her betrayal and cowardice, Anaksunamun gets to die the most horrible death in the entire movie. She falls into a swarm of scarabs and they devour her. That doesn't sound that bad, but they crawl into her mouth too! She gets bugs in her mouth!!! After watching that, I couldn't help but think to myself that Stephen Sommers (writer/director of The Mummy Returns) probably had a girlfriend named Anaksunamun, or maybe just Anna, and this is his way of saying "you bitch, you made me depressed, and I hope that you die horribly" after she ditched him way back in high school.

All the big movies and songs are like this. The Wedding Singer; that Sting song about stalking an ex; High Fidelity; Big Daddy; every other teen movie... even the supposedly happy and non-spiteful ones are still really excuses to rub it into the ex.

Like say, Pretty Woman. That didn't have an evil ex in it, but still, it's like the writer going "This is how I met my new girlfriend, and she's so much better than you. She might've been a prostitute, but you're the HO." The ex will go to the movies with her new Nice & Decent boyfriend, and suddenly her ex's name will come up as the writer, and she'll watch some beautiful movie devoted to the writer's new lover. That could've been her, if only she'd stayed with him longer! And the ex's boyfriend will be sitting there at the movies watching his girlfriend cry her eyes out thinking that she's really moved by the movie, not knowing that those are really tears of regret and shame.

Likewise, I could imagine Kurt Angle of the WWE walking into a ring with his new girlfriend, and proclaiming: "Bitch you thought you were better than me? Well where is YOUR television air-time?"

Whilst this might be a little bit excessive and superficial... it does seem immensely therapeutic. And while it might not be the best motivation to get famous and popular in the entertainment industry, it does seem to drive a lot of people. It's not the need to have your voice heard by the masses, it's not the need to have your face on tabloids and Entertainment Tonight... it's the desire to shit on an ex. Wouldn't you want to get famous just to make your ex jealous and iffy?

I know I wouldn't mind :]

- Chris