# Eat Pray Love (the movie): is Elizabeth Gilbert a \[expletive\] or is it just me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510 "2010-12-01T04:31:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/41 "2010-12-01T17:23:07Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I would love to see the reaction if someone made a movie about a man who up and ditched his wife to party in Italy, spend time at an Ashram in India, and get laid in Indonesia. Somehow I don’t think it would have a lot of female fans. Right, we’d have women throwing tomatoes at the screen- the guy would be considered a huge douchebag. You can also reverse “Bridges of Madison County” and even Titanic, and the males placed into the female “cheating” role in each would be considered right bastards, not romantic. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/42 "2010-12-01T17:54:03Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Yep, because nobody has ever, in the history of marriage in the world, married someone when they were young, in love, and thought that feeling would last forever. Nobody in the history of the world has ever grown apart from someone in eight years, or changed and grown away from someone else. Never in the history of romantic relationships has someone made such an incredibly selfish and immature decision that she knew there wasn’t a “good enough” reason to leave a marriage that she no longer could participate in fully. > > Look, I really do not get this attitude. There were no children, and while yes, her husband was hurt, probably dreadfully so, it seems that people are saying “you married him, so suck it up, bitch, and stay in the marriage even though you don’t love him anymore. Have children you don’t want, because that was the expectation.” > > I guess people really do believe that no one should ever change their minds about anything ever, and no one should ever change their feelings about anyone, ever. I don’t think that is the attitude, at least not mine. Experience tells me she is probably a selfish cunt. The solution isn’t for her to stay in the marriage. There is no solution. She shouldn’t have gotten married. Apparently she wasn’t a child when she married, so she should have known that she couldn’t make that kind of commitment. So if she falls out of love, she is a selfish cunt, whether she stays in the marriage or not. Of course I don’t know her, and the whole story could be made up. Maybe she did nothing wrong, and the relationship just ran out of steam. Maybe it was all his fault. But people will tend to generalize, and since she’s aired her dirty laundry in public, she should expect people to assume the worst. You also feed the concept. ‘no one should ever change their feelings about anyone’ implies an intentional act. If she changed her feelings, they weren’t real in the first place. If her feelings changed involuntarily, that would be different (and maybe that’s what you meant). Not being in love is a good reason to get out of an unencumbered relationship, so there is no explanation for her guilt. It might be irrational guilt, or she feels guilty because she was a selfish cunt. All this is about some rich and famous author. If you did the same thing, I’m sure it was for good reasons and people shouldn’t be critical. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/43 "2010-12-01T18:34:44Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > \*yeah, they call it an “advance”, but it’s a loan - if your book doesn’t sell enough to cover it, you owe it back to the publishing company This is not true. My brother has had two novels published (with a third coming out soon) by a major publishing company, and his advances were never expected to be paid back if his books did not make money. Maybe this author had some kind of special circumstances, but I doubt it. It’s not standard. Advances are the author’s money to keep. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/44 "2010-12-01T18:44:30Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > This is not true. My brother has had two novels published (with a third coming out soon) by a major publishing company, and his advances were never expected to be paid back if his books did not make money. Maybe this author had some kind of special circumstances, but I doubt it. It’s not standard. Advances are the author’s money to keep. Only if they actually produce the contracted book. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/45 "2010-12-01T20:57:18Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > She did not have an affair (she started dating someone after she left her husband, and did not leave her husband for the guy). Well… She writes, “I moved right in with David after I left my husband.” And, “I clung to David for escape from marriage as if he were the last helicopter pulling out of Saigon.” You make it sound like taking a lover was completely unrelated to her divorce, but she certainly didn’t take any time to lick her wounds, now did she? Certainly divorce proceedings would’ve been complicated by his presence in her life–and her presence in his bed. (As others have said, think of the reaction to men who walk out on their wives and immediately start fucking somebody else, showing no interest whatever in trying to patch the marriage back together. Lots of sympathy for the wife, lots of anger at the husband, and a general sense that the wife is entitled to whatever she can get from him. Also, I would guess a deep suspicion about the husband’s claim that he didn’t start seeing anyone until AFTER he left his wife. “Scout’s honor! It was at least a WEEK after I moved out!”) I don’t know what Gilbert is like in real life, and I haven’t seen the movie, but I do have a problem with the way she casts herself in the book. “I won’t open any of that,” she says high-mindedly with regard to why she left her husband, and then just a few pages later opens it up after all, and in a way designed to make him seem mean and petty and toddler-like: “…communications reminding me of what a criminal jerk I was.” “He let me know that I was a liar and a traitor and he hated me and would never speak to me again.” Especially when she doesn’t reveal the things she may have said to him (is it really possible that she remained pure of motive and friendly of speech throughout?). Look, either discuss it fairly or don’t discuss it at all, but it’s really not okay to say you won’t discuss it and then proceed to do exactly that, putting someone else in a very bad light. That said, I very much liked the scene on the bathroom floor (in the book). Too bad she came across in most of the rest of the book as so very whiny, self-centered, and mean-spirited, because she surely can write. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/46 "2010-12-01T20:59:09Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > Well if nothing else, Elizabeth Gilbert has provided the SDMB with a female target that both men and women can call a cunt all day and night without fear of reprisal. I’ll admit, such a treat is rare, but is it so rare that we have to rally around the moniker even though her greatest crime was divorcing a man she didn’t want to be married to? Sarah Palin was hogging all the cuntery. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/47 "2010-12-01T21:25:26Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > However the author managed to portray herself in Eat Pray Love, she couldn’t possibly have looked as bad as Julie Powell managed in her followup to the similarly fluffy Julie & Julia. I remember my sister, who (heh) ate up Julie & Julia eagerly awaiting Powell’s second book…and that book–_Cleaving_–turned out to be a not so fluffy memoir of how Powell wrecked her marriage with an affair with an old flame. Youch. I didn’t read Julie & Julia, but I did read Cleaved. I actually found the butchering far more interesting than the affair. My first thought? Here’s a book than can be made into another movie! ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/48 "2010-12-01T21:35:06Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Cite that the advance was only a loan in Gilbert’s case? I’ve gotten a number of advances on books, though I doubt with the number of zeroes she got, and my contracts (with several different publishers) never said anything about paying any of it back. A couple of these books never came close to covering the advances, but no publisher has contacted me about returning the “loan.” AFAIK this is standard in the publishing industry. OK then, I sit corrected. Apparently it was explained to me all wrong, and I apologize for passing on bad information. Still…main point: it was money for a job, not play money or heiress money or even money she saved up because she was “rich”, that enabled her to travel 'round the world. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/49 "2010-12-01T21:35:47Z")
I honestly don’t get all this “cunt” stuff. People get married for all sorts of reasons. The marriage doesn’t work out for any number of reasons. I’ve known women who’ve filed for divorce because of similar reasons as Gilbert. They can’t point to a specific incident. It has nothing to do with their husbands as people in that they can’t simply call them names or such because nothing happened to have precipitated that. Maybe the realized several years down the line that being in the marriage no longer felt “right”. Maybe they outgrew their partners, who knows. The point is, whatever was going through their heads, they hit the metaphorical brick wall and divorce, for them, was the only way out. Gilbert was no different, and I don’t see why she should be castigated for it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/50 "2010-12-01T21:54:28Z")
> [@kiz](#): > > Gilbert was no different, and I don’t see why she should be castigated for it. The double standard. A man who divorced his wife because he fell out of love with her would be expected to show some contrition for having put his former spouse through such emotional turmoil. (Even if he couldn’t help his feelings.) Immediately writing a memoir that focused on the great meals and great sex he had after dumping said wife would come off as jerkish. Sauce, goose, gander, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/51 "2010-12-01T22:06:37Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > Besides, nobody should have to stay in a relationship they don’t want to be in. Don’t marriage vows mean anything? I’m not saying that no one is ever justified in leaving a marriage—or even necessarily that Movie Cunt and/or Book Cunt wasn’t justified; I wouldn’t know—but I think it requires more than just a whim or feeling that “I don’t want to be married to you any more.” > [@Kolga](#): > > Look, I really do not get this attitude. There were no children, and while yes, her husband was hurt, probably dreadfully so, it seems that people are saying “you married him, so suck it up, bitch, and stay in the marriage even though you don’t love him anymore. Have children you don’t want, because that was the expectation.” > > I guess people really do believe that no one should ever change their minds about anything ever, and no one should ever change their feelings about anyone, ever. And I don’t think anyone in this thread is being that absolutist about it. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/52 "2010-12-01T22:14:34Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Don’t marriage vows mean anything? I’ve been thinking this but hadn’t said it. Nobody forced her to promise all the things she did when she got married. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/53 "2010-12-01T22:20:32Z")
And I feel like I have to keep pointing out that, in the movie, she left only because a voice in her head told her to do it, not because there was anything actually wrong with the marriage. Moreover, it was her _tone_ about the whole thing that was cuntish - not just that she left, but that she did it on an arbitrary whim, with no feeling at all for how it affected her husband, and she immediately started banging some other dude. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/54 "2010-12-01T22:24:34Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Well… She writes, “I moved right in with David after I left my husband.” And, “I clung to David for escape from marriage as if he were the last helicopter pulling out of Saigon.” You make it sound like taking a lover was completely unrelated to her divorce, but she certainly didn’t take any time to lick her wounds, now did she? Certainly divorce proceedings would’ve been complicated by his presence in her life–and her presence in his bed. > > (As others have said, think of the reaction to men who walk out on their wives and immediately start fucking somebody else, showing no interest whatever in trying to patch the marriage back together. Lots of sympathy for the wife, lots of anger at the husband, and a general sense that the wife is entitled to whatever she can get from him. Also, I would guess a deep suspicion about the husband’s claim that he didn’t start seeing anyone until AFTER he left his wife. “Scout’s honor! It was at least a WEEK after I moved out!”) > > I don’t know what Gilbert is like in real life, and I haven’t seen the movie, but I do have a problem with the way she casts herself in the book. “I won’t open any of that,” she says high-mindedly with regard to why she left her husband, and then just a few pages later opens it up after all, and in a way designed to make him seem mean and petty and toddler-like: > > “…communications reminding me of what a criminal jerk I was.” > > “He let me know that I was a liar and a traitor and he hated me and would never speak to me again.” > > Especially when she doesn’t reveal the things she may have said to him (is it really possible that she remained pure of motive and friendly of speech throughout?). Look, either discuss it fairly or don’t discuss it at all, but it’s really not okay to say you won’t discuss it and then proceed to do exactly that, putting someone else in a very bad light. > > That said, I very much liked the scene on the bathroom floor (in the book). Too bad she came across in most of the rest of the book as so very whiny, self-centered, and mean-spirited, because she surely can write. It sounds like her account in the book is even more self-serving and obnoxious than what’s shown in the movie. I don’t buy that she wasn’t already banging that other dude either. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/55 "2010-12-01T22:27:18Z")
> [@kiz](#): > > I didn’t read Julie & Julia, but I did read Cleaved. I actually found the butchering far more interesting than the affair. My first thought? Here’s a book than can be made into another movie! _Julie and Julia_ would have been a much better movie if it had just been about Julia Child and the Amy Adams character was dumped altogether. All of the Julia Child scenes were great (my favorite sequence was the vist from Jane Lynch as Julia’s sister), all of the Amy Adams scenes were bog-standard, chick flick crap. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/56 "2010-12-01T22:55:55Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > _Julie and Julia_ would have been a much better movie if it had just been about Julia Child and the Amy Adams character was dumped altogether. All of the Julia Child scenes were great (my favorite sequence was the vist from Jane Lynch as Julia’s sister), all of the Amy Adams scenes were bog-standard, chick flick crap. Yeah, the problem is the character of “Julie” in the movie is a boring, bland rom-com cipher. Whereas the real Julie Powell is apparently a cranky opinionated bitch. A movie about her might have been interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/57 "2010-12-02T00:07:25Z")
The reaction is part of the fallout of so-called “feminism,” which has collapsed under the weight of its own absurdities, unbeknownst to Hollywood, whose denizens continue to try to enlighten us with lessons that _we_ should be teaching _them_. In its early years, as popularized by Betty Friedan, who perpetually emphasized that it would be mutually beneficial to women and men, “feminism”\* started with good ideas. Then came a legion of people who’d Read An Article and saw their opportunity, and what was fair and sane became an excuse for indulging in any sort of behavior at a whim, regardless of who got hurt. * * * A big part of its problem is its name: If you believe in equal rights for people of all races including white people, you don’t call yourself a “Whitist”–you’d understandably be regarded as a supremacist. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/58 "2010-12-02T00:12:23Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Don’t marriage vows mean anything? > > I’m not saying that no one is ever justified in leaving a marriage—or even necessarily that Movie Cunt and/or Book Cunt wasn’t justified; I wouldn’t know—but I think it requires more than just a whim or feeling that “I don’t want to be married to you any more.” Yeah, so her husband gets stuck with someone who doesn’t love him anymore and doesn’t want to bear him any children? That’s no prize for him, either. Even if counseling could get her to behave in a loving fashion towards him, I doubt it could easily “fix” her lack of desire to be a mother. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/59 "2010-12-02T00:58:20Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > And I feel like I have to keep pointing out that, in the movie, she left only because a voice in her head told her to do it, not because there was anything actually wrong with the marriage. Probably because most people realize it was just her conscience being vocalized, not a hallucination. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/60 "2010-12-02T01:42:54Z")
Well, heck, my wife did more or less the same thing, and we DO have a child. And she gave me not a red cent, since she has none. So ponder that, Dopers. Imagine if Elizabeth Gilbert had a kid AND had an affair AND her decisions left everyone involved living paycheck to paycheck. I think the real problem with the movie is the idea that the character escapes her marriage and **then advises a girl to enter into a marriage she doesn’t want to be in** … and THEN gives her no gift other than her idiotic “wisdom.” That contradiction alone, no matter what else the movie contained, makes the movie-Gilbert a horrible human being. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510.md?page=4)