Rachel’s Musings

As Bella DePaulo has pointed out in a recent blog post, there are several new documentaries on singles out. I wonder if I just watched the third one she mentioned (unfortunately, the spam filter at PT seems to reject any comment that contains the word “single,” so I can’t ask Bella…): “Single: A Documentary,” which shows DePaulo briefly but, unfortunately, not every time someone voiced a singlist or matrimanical opinion. I suppose that would’ve ended up being a documentary about singlism featuring DePaulo because she’d been all over the place! Unless they’re doing a complete 360 in the part that I missed, the message of the documentary is clear: If you’re single, you are selfish, suffer from ADD, too lazy to be in a relationship, and will live unhappily ever after. That people could choose to be single was completely not mentioned… That marriage is an institution that might need some serious questioning didn’t seem to occur to the film makers (although some of the people interviewed started down that path).

I am very disappointed because the documentary has a cast, which includes - aside from DePaulo - Stephanie Coontz. The trailer, though, already indicates the direction of the whole documentary: Despite doing lip-service to the idea that being single isn’t a problem, the goal in life should still be to get (and stay) married. So, I should’ve known that despite DePaulo, this wasn’t a documentary that would shatter myths. And if I had paid better attention, I would have noticed that Barbara DaFoe Whitehead, one of the cast members, is the author of “Dan Quale was Right,” an article published in 1993 that Nancy Polikoff sees as part of a rhetorical shift that “traced all social problems to the decline of marriage and invoked at the solution restoring lifelong marriage to its proper place” (67-68). Sigh. Well, don’t make my mistake and save your money or buy a book. Unless you’re interested in being depressed about being single or dating, you can skip this documentary…