My Week With Marilyn - Black Magic Love

The movies that I love the most are the ones in which the last few lines of the script or the scenes highlight something that has been ubiquitous throughout. 'My Week With Marilyn' is one such movie. The movie ends with Marilyn singing 'Love is black magic'. Black Magic is something people USE to control people and circumstances to GET what they want, which is precisely what Marilyn does with love. Love is seen as means a means to get something else that one wants. One may want control, fame, fortune, escape from insecure emotions... or just a sweet 'romantic experience'. I don't think many USE love to get control, fame or fortune. But I suspect hordes USE love to get a 'romantic experience' and so the sole end of love becomes the 'experience'. I contend that the latter kind of love is less reviled but more destructive than the former.

Marilyn has been abandoned by her new husband who feels 'driven to nuts' by Marilyn's need to use him to resolve her insecurity problems. Marilyn then channels her love towards a 21 year old, Colin, having whom on her side is the key to getting inside knowledge of the power brokers in the British movie industry. She sweetly asks him, "Are you on my side or his (Colin's boss's)". The mesmerised boy can't help but reply, "yours". She allows him to fall in love with her,  knowing well that she'll have to dispose of him when her use of him is no more. She has done this many times. She'll do it again. She is beautiful enough to afford it. She USES Love to get into a position of power in an unfamiliar world. This use of love to get something else is Black Magic Love. Such love is manipulative, readily noticed and quickly condemned. Then there is another form of Black Magic love depicted in the movie that is less noticed for what it is. But it is more destructive. It is a Black Magic love where people USE love to get a 'romantic experience'. Colin's love is representative of this subtle form of Black Magic Love.

At first sight, it might appear that the innocent Colin is victimized by Marilyn's use of love to get something else. But on closer analysis, Colin too is in it for something. Colin's love is not so much about really loving Marilyn as person as much as it is about having the 'romantic experience' of spending a week with the most alluring woman on earth. Marilyn uses love as black magic to gain fame, fortune and control. Colin on the other hand, uses love as the black magic get his 'romantic experience'. When Marilyn finally says goodbye to him, he isn't sad or heart broken. He is actually happy and reminiscences that it was all a great dream - 'my week with Marilyn'.

At first look it might appear that Colin's form of Black Magic Love that seeks to USE love to get a 'romantic experience' is benign and even innocent. Many Gen X, Y and Zers see Marilyn's manipulative love as a bad thing because it is manipulative and seeks material ends. On the other hand, they tend to see Colin's love as an innocent, spiritual and may be even a rightful pursuit of a romantic dream. But to conclude that the 21 year old's love is less destructive than Marilyn's manipulative love would be very naive and a total misunderstanding of human nature.

The problem with Colin's Black Magic Love is that while feigning to be true love (and harmless), it makes the 'experience' of the romantic dream more important than the person. This attitude towards love is extremely harmful. This emphasis of carving for the 'experience' over caring for the person that has wrecked many a modern marriage.

The New York Time featured a marriage involving two people divorcing their existing spouses to get married. The two couples involved had been family friends prior to this imbroglio. When the ones getting married were asked to justify their reason for divorcing their original spouses they said, "we feel so much for each other, this is just the right thing to do... we are so IN love... It is a dream we want to make come true". What really mattered to them was the 'romantic experience'. It didn't matter that they were hurting 5 kids and betraying the vows the made to their perfectly lovable ex-spouses. They cared more for the 'experience' than the person.

When the ex-Pay Pal executive, later the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk divorced his wife after an year's marriage, he said, “I still love her, but I’m not IN love with her... far too difficult to stay married. Every day was just too difficult.” Again what you see here is an exhalation of 'experience' over the person loved. When the experience of love wasn't romantic any more, it involved hard work and Elon decided to quit. The dysfunctional type of love you see in these examples is not the much reviled manipulative love of Marilyn's kind. It is the much sought-after black magic love of Colin's kind. Such black magic love that exalts the 'experience' over the person, is terribly harmful and destructive.

In the movie too, Colin's Black Magic Love shows its destructive side, if only for a short while. Prior to meeting Marilyn, Colin is courting a sweet girl Lucy. But when Colin meets Marilyn, he shifts his attention towards Marilyn, leaving the sweet Lucy high and dry. Colin knows that the affair with Marilyn will not last. But he is in it just for the 'romantic experience'. He uses love as 'black magic' to get what he wants - a headier 'romantic experience' with Marilyn. Black Magic lovers USE the lover as a means to get an exciting experience of love. Shakespeare describes such 'black magic' love by the words, "love loves love". The person at the other end is valued in as much as that person is able to give a romantic experience of love.

A marriage or any relationship that is built upon the craving for a heady experience of love will eventually be found wanting and breakdown. When the experiences wanes off, the dream is over. People wake up and would no longer be in love. They start looking for their dream with someone else. Black Magic Love idolizes the experience and dehumanizes the person. Any one who thinks this sort of love isn't destructive and dehumanizing has little idea what it is to be human.

In contrast to this, the Biblical model for love restores human dignity. The Christian husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the Church. The Christian man's love for a woman shouldn't be based solely on the 'romantic experience' (though there is a legitimate place for loving romance). Christlike, he is to love her to GIVE himself to her, even when 'every day gets too difficult'. Christ's love for the Church wasn't easy either. It was so difficult that His sweat turned to blood. Christ is the model for the Christian husband. The society knows nothing about the Christian model for love. Being blind to Christ's unconditional love, it has lost its point of reference to what true love should look like. Intelligent and hard working men like Elon just don't see that love as modelled by Christ involves hard work. In valuing the experience more than the person, they give up too soon, thus dehumanizing the one they purported to love above all.

In 'My Week With Marilyn', Colin dehumanizes Lucy in order to have his 'romantic experience' with Marilyn. Consequently, he ends up dehumanized himself. When Colin's dream is over and he comes back to Lucy, she rightly shows him the cold shoulder. A man who does not endeavour to reflect the love of the One in whose Image he is made will lose his 'manishness'. He'll remain a boy chasing after headier 'experiences' one after another. Marilyn's Black Magic Love that in its egregious manifestation USES love to get power, fame and fortune, is despicable. Colin's Black Magic Love that in its subtle manifestation USES love to get a heady 'romantic experience', is destructive. In loving the experience over the one that is beloved, Black Magic Love blackens the soul. 'My Week With Marilyn' glamorizes this un-Christlike Black Magic Love. In as much as our society will be blind to the love of Christ, Black Magic Love will be the norm.