The Coup d'État

Have you ever seen the film "Two Can Play That Game"? To the above average movie goers it is an fundamentally regrettable film with little redemptive value, but to the inner anthropologists it tells us quite a bit about what society values.

In the film Vivica A. Fox plays Chante, the scheming girlfriend of Morris Chestnut, whose sole goal in life is to punish and "train" her man into good behavior by using "the rules"-- aka playing hard to get. She and her beau engage in a game of cat and mouse snit for snit, until ultimately both their efforts at manipulation fail.

As juvenile as it is, and may sound, many are common rules that our mothers taught us: The man should pay. Don't return his phone call. Break up and move on quickly. The man should apologize first.

Chante pulls out an arsenal of sneaky manipulative plots to woo her man back all the while making him think she doesn't want him. She saves the best for last (flaunting a new love interest in his face) calling it the coup d'État, or referencing colloquial definition, as Chante frames it, "It's time for the Coup d'État. That's the French term for #$@! him up."

(Well, it really means a coup,--the sudden overthrow of a government through unconstitutional means by a part of the state establishment, that mostly replaces just the top power figures. It is also an example of political engineering. It may or may not be violent in nature. It is different from a revolution, which is staged by a larger group and radically changes the political system. The term is French for "a (sudden) blow (or strike) to a state" - but suspending reality here momentarily--)

Well, well, now, you think. That's unnecessary. And yet, as I look around me the world seems to live off of coup d'État. We throw stones at each other in politics, in our bedrooms, in our families, in our relationships. Sometimes we throw stones just for the sheer joy of making someone else miserable. Sometimes we are justifiably angry, but instead of allowing that anger to be channeled constructively, we allow it to become a walking beast with a sucker punch.

I wonder, how many years of misery could we have saved ourselves if we had waited instead of striking Baghdad in 2001? Or if we hadn't been so focused on impeachment? Or if we had listened to the pleas of Republican congressman seeking funds for the levees on the Gulf Coast? When we hold on to our identity so tightly that we refuse to be objective, reasonable, or even introspective, we loose the ability to make good decisions. There is nothing wrong with identity. But the fear of losing it causes problems.

And yet, I am beginning to think that getting one up, or getting your lick in, is more important these days than getting issues resolved.

Alas, even I can't argue that in the world those are the rules of survival. After all the coup d'État is what makes America so rich in the flesh, and so poor in spirit.

In "Two Can Play That Game" these rules of engagement lead Chante into some sticky situations she didn't plan for. Although Chante is an utterly unsympathetic character, the subtext makes her accessible: everybody knows what it is like to love someone that dogs you out. And if you heal, you try to avoid that.

What our heroine in Two Can Play That Game really wanted was to let her boyfriend know that the drink he had with another woman hurt her, and made her insecure. What she really wanted to tell him is that she loved him and was scared of losing him. What she really wanted to tell him that after years of playing games, she needed some confidence and security in the man she was with.

What she chose to do was get even. I suppose the truth does appear weak, but think about what kind of film it would have been if they had talked about it.

Probably one nobody would've paid to see.