But Have You Seen It High? : Raising Arizona
This particular night, I decided to poll friends to decide what to watch. I’ve got a “watchlist” on IMDB and have transferred that list to an excel document (or google sheets, really) and now use a random number generator app on my phone to decide what to watch. Except for now, I’ve limited it to movies that are currently playing on HBO because HBO is leaving ROKU and I wanna knock those off my list.
So I texted some key movie budz and sent the list and asked “What should I watch next? Keep in mind, I’m high and I just finished watching Exodus”. Mind you, I did not watch Exodus, but it was on in the background while I waited for an edible to kick in. The woman played by Eva Marie Saint is from Indiana, and I perked up when she said “We have a saying back in Indiana” though it wasn’t a saying I recognized. I watched without focusing thinking about the possible white washing of this story about the establishment of a jewish nation in Israel in 1948. I think to myself, I should focus because I really don’t know this story, and I watched a scene where they plan an attack and focused for a few minutes before being pulled back into my phone or some other distracting mundane thought that causes a google search dive. I look back up and another scene where they are planning an attack is happening, and I wonder if it’s the same scene but now with a new perspective or if they just always plan their attacks in the same way, everyone seated in the same position? And I think what are these hats they are wearing?
The first response I got was “Raising Arizona”, and I told myself whatever film gets suggested first I’ll go with that one. So that’s what I decided to watch, and it felt very fitting. It’s one I had been wanting to watch for some time, and just waiting for the right moment. I wanted to be in the mood to focus on a film, and I knew, though I have seen this film, it’s one I wanted to give my full attention to, which is why I was waiting for an opportune time. I haven’t seen this film many times, but images from it are ingrained into my memory. For example, the subtle colors of the sunset as Ed and Hi sit in lounge chairs enjoying the sunset during their salad days.
I know I haven’t watched it since high school. But it’s one my family loves, one I’ve heard my Dad and my cousin Mitch laugh about numerous times over family vacations, so perhaps my memories of it are actually my memories of those conversations. I remember watching the movie with my parents, and watching my parents enjoy the movie. And wanting to love the movie because they did. I just remember them doubled over with laughter, and wanting to understand and feel their joy.
In a rewatch, I can see why this movie was so funny to my parents. Especially being parents of young kids. I don’t have any children of my own, biologically but I have a lot of children. I’m a nanny, and have worked as a babysitter/nanny since I was 15. Which means that the baby I watched when I was in high school, is now an adult. He’s out of college. I have several friends who have children who I love as an honorary auntie, and I’ve worked full time as a nanny now here in Brooklyn since 2015. I have taken care of thirteen children for nine different families. What I’m saying is, I know babies and kids. I know 3 months to five years very well. I know quirks of babies and I know the cringing reality that made moments in this film, funny even if you don’t have or know children, that hit a little harder if you have also experienced a baby pooping all over you and seen them smile at you and just fallen even more in love while you try to figure out how the poop got all the way up to the back of their head. The children I’ve taken care of have done so many gross and disgusting things, including pooping and getting said poop in places I didn’t even imagine was possible (again, how is the poop all the way up on the back of your head??) sneezing right into my mouth (I’m talking full on mucus sneeze — felt the flu virus invade my body), thrown up partially digested seaweed into my hand (and then gone right back to eating more seaweed), and just a cacophony of undigested food that has ended up covering me, with no warning, sprouting suddenly out of the mouth of a tiny toddler with the force of a professional grade firehose. I’ve never felt a stronger love for anyone.
I remember the parts with kids really getting my parents laughing. When friends who have a small herd of kids come to visit, Frances McDormand yells at one of her older children, “Get that diaper off of your head right now! You get that diaper off of your head and back onto your sister!” It just highlights how crazy it is taking care of kids, how you want to be the most patient and loving person but sometimes you find yourself yelling things like “No you may not ride your baby sister like a horse!!”
I think often about how my parents have known me a lot longer than I’ve known them. I think my earliest memory of my parents are starting when I was 3 or 4? They had years of time with me before then. When I work with my babies and see how they pull themselves up on me, poke my eyes with their fingers, how they try to pry into my mouth to see what I am eating, how they lean their heads into me, I think of moments my parents had with me. Moments where they were overcome with love. Once when one of my babies, who is now five, was eight months old she was sitting on the couch next to me, and she reached over and patted my shoulder with this look of “hey, you doing okay?”. It’s a memory I treasure that won’t even exist in her mind. That is crazy to think about. My grandpa died when I was 5 and I always think man he barely knew me. But he did, and hopefully we had a lot of good moments of me asking him “hey, you doing okay?” with a small pat on the shoulder.
I started watching the movie in a very hyper state of mind, my thoughts jumping all over the place. I wanted to keep talking to my movie budz about movies, talking about how the fact that the movie can stay with you like that, even if you’ve only seen it a few times is a strong indication that it is a very good movie. Although I am sure there are bad movies that also leave that strong of an impact? But I guess what I am trying to say is that some movies crawl into you and burrow a little spot in your memory and they are so complete that they don’t need to be watched again because the film leaves an imprint in your psyche.
Raising Arizona is the story of Hi (H.I. McDunnough), a serial convenience store robber, who falls in love with his repeat booking officer, Edwina, known as Ed. The two marry, Hi gets released from prison and they begin their salad days, living peacefully in a mobile home in the desert. The next obvious thing for them to do is to bring a baby into their lives and start a family. But, it turns out Ed is barren, and they try to adopt, but due to Hi’s criminal record they are unable to. Ed falls into a deep depression, a sorrow I have seen many of my close friends experience as they have struggled with their own woes of infertility. It’s a touching moment in an otherwise lighthearted film that delivers a strong punch. (My friends do not have criminal records, so adoption is still an option, but adoption is complicated — this is a story for another post). Ed and Hi learn that the wealthy Arizona family (of Unpainted Arizona furnishings) have given birth to quintuplets. The two decide that it isn’t fair for one family to have so much joy while others have so little. So, they decide to steal a baby.
I’m not sure how old the babies are supposed to be in the film. The news announcement makes it seem they were just born, and Ed and Hi seem to take off on their adventure soon after learning the news. But the babies are definitely around 9 months old (based on developmental milestones/size), although Edwina refers to Nathan Jr. as a toddler at one point, which is inaccurate and really something I don’t expect people who don’t have extensive experience with kids to know. (generally 12–36 months. Also knowing as 1–3 years old) There’s a tendency in movies and TV shows to use older babies in scenes of birth or infants, because little itty bitty babies are so sensitive to light it’s hard to film with them. It’s fine and most of your audience won’t notice, but I am always like “Congrats on your ten month old baby!” when I see this happen in movies and tv. And in real life. Just kidding. I don’t think there’s ever been a human pregnancy that lasted 20 months. According to a quick google search, the longest pregnancy was an extra three months.
Anyways, I’m focusing on the baby aspect of this movie, because that is the emotional piece of the film that pulled me in. I love children. Especially soft squishy cuddle babies who slobber all over you, who scream bloody murder and then smile and laugh when you shake a rattle at them. I even love toddlers who test your patience like none other, who pull on your arm trying to get you to let them cross 3rd Avenue while traffic zooms by and you want to scream “okay fine go, see what happens when that car hits you if you wanna cross the street so bad” but you are terrified that they are going to get hit by a car and honestly wondering if you do have the strength to keep this kid from running into traffic? (How is this tiny child so strong??) I love toddlers even when they refuse to take naps and the third time I have to go in and check on them and tell them they need to be quiet, they are sitting in their sister’s crib, pillow stuffing torn from their pillows and saying excitedly “Look Erin, I made clouds! What this is? What this is called?”, and you’re laughing internally while also fuming because this kid needs to sleep cause kids need to sleep and also I need a break. (Do kids need to nap or do I just need a break, sometimes I seriously wonder if this is just something we as people who have or work with children made up so we can do stuff which mostly ends up being me just sitting on the couch for a half hour literally doing nothing because I’m so exhausted from trying to tire a kid out for her nap)
When Ed learns she can’t have children because she is barren, it’s like her heart stops beating. She sits on her bed, depressed, having given up on life. For someone who wants to have children, to learn that you can’t, that your body is incapable of holding a life, is devastating. I’ve watched friends struggle to get pregnant, watch friends lose their babies, some multiple times, one friend had a miscarriage in her second trimester. The pain they felt, the frustration…More and more people are open about their experiences, which is so great and comforting, and important because infertility is pretty common (1 in 8) , so it’s good for folks going through this to have support and know they are not alone. I can’t imagine the loss and grief felt with every spot of blood seen on your underwear indicating no egg was implanted in your uterus. I’ve read and read and learned how to be empathetic. To not ask families “When are you gonna have kids?” or “are you going to have another one?” because who knows the painful story behind why that decision has or has not been made.
And I think of my own inability to have children. I don’t know if I am infertile, if my eggs are unhealthy, if my womb is a dry barren desert where no man can plant his seed, so maybe I am able to have children. But I don’t know that because I’ve never had a chance to try and have children, because I’m not in a partnership. Yes, there are ways to have children without a partner, but still, despite all my fuck yous to the patriarchy et al, I did want my fairytale to end with a partner and a baby. I want a family. It seems impossible now, and it’s a grief I’ve yet to come to terms with. There’s a part of me that always sees me with a family, but the reality of that happening seems to be growing smaller and smaller. And I know folks don’t mean to be exclusive with their discussions about their pregnancies, or attempts at pregnancies, but it’s always something that punches me in the gut. When friends younger than me say things like “time is running out” and that they and their partners are now trying, because I feel I don’t even have the option to try. And then it bleeds into the patriarchal belief that I am not of value unless I have children, unless I am married. I remember my brother’s friend, who had her first child at around age 25, talking about having the next one and saying things like “I mean, I wanna wait a few years but I don’t wanna wait til I’m like 30 and too old”. I remember thinking, not even sure I’ll be married by 30, let alone trying for a second kid. It was just this sense of loss, of missing out that I felt, that I feel often when I talk to friends about this stuff. I want to be present and listen and empathetic, I just think there’s a type of “infertility” that isn’t addressed in infertility awareness. Perhaps I am being selfish? What I know is my heart hurts because I don’t think I’ll get to be a mom in this lifetime, and I need to acknowledge my grief and heartbreak around that.
There’s so much I love about this movie. Even though my mind was jumping around, everytime I looked up at the screen I was pulled in. By the way the shots were framed, by the dialogue. I wanted to focus on the film. I wanted to watch it and absorb it, take notes, write down the emotions it raised up in me. The way the film is staged and shot also makes it interesting to watch. It’s an emotional story, with funny dialogue and emotional sincerity woven in amongst the silliness.
