The Kidman marriage
Jun. 26th, 2006 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbWhen a Hollywood marriage is announced, the wisest thing to ask is "when is the divorce due for?" (That can easily be deduced from the pre-nuptial contract, if it is made public.) It is typical of that topsyturvy place that its most famous and enduring love affair, the one that really did go on till death did them part, was between a married man and a predatory bisexual divorcee.
That is why I cannot join in the fuss about Nicole Kidman's Catholic marriage. Anything to do with the Church, of course, tends to be news these days, and the fact that the actress seems to have moved from Scientology back to the Catholicism of her childhood does seem to have made this even more newsworthy than the average Hollywood temporary association - sorry, "marriage". But, as you will perceive, I do not have any great faith in it. To begin with, she seems to have made very light of her previous association with Tom Cruise. While that means that her taste in men is improving, one would like to know on what grounds the annulment she required for her Catholic wedding was granted.
That is only the first problem. The couple signed a pre-nup, which hardly argues a great faith in the duration of this marriage; and nobody seems to have bothered to explain to Miss Kidman why a white dress and veil was grossly out of place in the marriage of a 39-year-old woman with children. Perhaps the average friend or hanger-on does not explain to a woman with an annual income of umpteen-squinchy million that she has made a serious and laughter-worthy error in taste, but a Catholic priest at least ought to be above that sort of consideration. None of this suggests seriousness. One does feel that sections of the Church have gone into this with a surprisingly light and ill-considered attitude, as in the long-ago case of Tyrone Power. (Particularly surprising in that the diocese is ruled by the splendid Cardinal Pell.) Perhaps they consider that sexual misbehaviour and the collapse of unions however consecrated are things so ordinary in Hollywood lives that, even if they happen this time, the scandal caused will be tiny and practically unnoticed and will do nothing to discredit Catholic marriage - at least, to discredit it further. And if this is the consideration, it is cynical but probably correct. But it does not argue a great concern to defend at all costs the sacrament of marriage against the powers of the World, the Flesh and the Devil. Certainly I hardly imagine that Ms.Kidman has been carefully catechized in the meaning of Catholic marriage - that mighty secret of God that takes 600 articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Why did Ms.Kidman even do it, if she saw this marriage as the kind of thing that required a pre-nup? There are two possible answers, one comparatively innocent, one frankly cynical. The cynical one is that the Church is on the up; that the Pope is newsworthy and that there is a certain kind of frisson of rebellious fashion about doing something that is, in Hollywood terms, hardly respectable; and that, above all, an Anglican or Baptist or Orthodox marriage would not have got her as much column space - and a Hindu or Sufi or Qabbalistic Jewish one, hardly any (they are subject to inflation). The more innocent one is that she has, in fact, gone back to her childhood - white wedding in church and all; without much consideration of what it really ought to have meant, but out of a sentimental regard for the shibboleths of her family heritage, and, perhaps, a conscious rejection of the Scientological horrors of her last decade. I expect that the truth is somewhere between.
That is why I cannot join in the fuss about Nicole Kidman's Catholic marriage. Anything to do with the Church, of course, tends to be news these days, and the fact that the actress seems to have moved from Scientology back to the Catholicism of her childhood does seem to have made this even more newsworthy than the average Hollywood temporary association - sorry, "marriage". But, as you will perceive, I do not have any great faith in it. To begin with, she seems to have made very light of her previous association with Tom Cruise. While that means that her taste in men is improving, one would like to know on what grounds the annulment she required for her Catholic wedding was granted.
That is only the first problem. The couple signed a pre-nup, which hardly argues a great faith in the duration of this marriage; and nobody seems to have bothered to explain to Miss Kidman why a white dress and veil was grossly out of place in the marriage of a 39-year-old woman with children. Perhaps the average friend or hanger-on does not explain to a woman with an annual income of umpteen-squinchy million that she has made a serious and laughter-worthy error in taste, but a Catholic priest at least ought to be above that sort of consideration. None of this suggests seriousness. One does feel that sections of the Church have gone into this with a surprisingly light and ill-considered attitude, as in the long-ago case of Tyrone Power. (Particularly surprising in that the diocese is ruled by the splendid Cardinal Pell.) Perhaps they consider that sexual misbehaviour and the collapse of unions however consecrated are things so ordinary in Hollywood lives that, even if they happen this time, the scandal caused will be tiny and practically unnoticed and will do nothing to discredit Catholic marriage - at least, to discredit it further. And if this is the consideration, it is cynical but probably correct. But it does not argue a great concern to defend at all costs the sacrament of marriage against the powers of the World, the Flesh and the Devil. Certainly I hardly imagine that Ms.Kidman has been carefully catechized in the meaning of Catholic marriage - that mighty secret of God that takes 600 articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Why did Ms.Kidman even do it, if she saw this marriage as the kind of thing that required a pre-nup? There are two possible answers, one comparatively innocent, one frankly cynical. The cynical one is that the Church is on the up; that the Pope is newsworthy and that there is a certain kind of frisson of rebellious fashion about doing something that is, in Hollywood terms, hardly respectable; and that, above all, an Anglican or Baptist or Orthodox marriage would not have got her as much column space - and a Hindu or Sufi or Qabbalistic Jewish one, hardly any (they are subject to inflation). The more innocent one is that she has, in fact, gone back to her childhood - white wedding in church and all; without much consideration of what it really ought to have meant, but out of a sentimental regard for the shibboleths of her family heritage, and, perhaps, a conscious rejection of the Scientological horrors of her last decade. I expect that the truth is somewhere between.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 05:25 pm (UTC)That's what made me think that you thought she had been a Scientologist.
And I wholeheartedly agree with you. Scientology is evil. I don't pretend to be the best Christian in the world, and I don't pretend to know anything about Scientology, but the little I've learned of it scares the bejesus out of me. I hope never to have to deal with anything having to do with that scam of a cult.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 05:30 pm (UTC)In case you were wondering, the famous and enduring Hollywood love affair I mentioned, "between a married man and a predatory bisexual divorcee," was Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 05:41 pm (UTC)