Wednesday’s Man: My Dinner with Mr. Miller (Personal Essay)

What is an adult?

Me. Ten days before my twenty-second birthday, I am well into what is considered “adulthood.” So why am I walking into a cinema on a Tuesday night, alone, wearing pyjama pants? Simple: because I can. The greatest perk of adulthood is freedom. Autonomy. I can walk into an R-rated film without needing to show any identification. My very presence exudes power and authority. Respect.

But I am far too grounded in reality to have such delusions of grandeur.

I wanted to see the film tomorrow night: Hump Day’s dusk is when the weekly struggle starts to become easier. But my senior seminar finishes late on that day, and I cannot risk losing a single session if I want to graduate and have the certifications proving to the adult world that I am well-

versed in the field of English Literature.

“The last time I saw you wearing jeans, I was a minor.”

My classmate, clearly not entirely serious in her comment, left me unable to think of a reply to her. That was only five hours ago, I was still wearing the very same pyjama pants that I awoke in. When Miller’s wife semi-sarcastically jested that she married a writer as opposed to the man that he was, I felt… spite? For a fictional character that I was thoroughly entertained by? Ego. Even worse, an unwillingness to acknowledge it.

“I’ll dress nice when the situation calls for it.”

That would be an acceptable response. The problem is that I do not believe it. If I did, I would not be thinking about it still. Hell, I would not be WRITING about it. My ears would not perk up at the men who took my ticket laughing to each other as I walk off. Was it about me being alone? Probably not, but that does not change the attention I am giving to it, validating the imaginary attack that wounded my pride.

The old couple sitting in front of me greet me with a “bon soir.” I reply in Arabic. This suburb is full of Lebanese people who think that they are French, a symptom of the internal colonisation. It would be almost shameful to them to be Arab. Maybe I am reading too much into a single common greeting. Perhaps I am simply projecting. I need to find myself in them. More people are entering the theatre, all in pairs or groups of three. I know nothing of them. So they are nothing. Intangible, unknowable. The cinema becomes more alien than it was when it was empty. And I feel smaller. I am alone.

Is it wrong to find Miller and Cairo’s banter adorable? Am I not meant to see the obvious chemistry? Hot dawg, what a name. I thought I was hearing it wrong. Cairo. “The Victorious One.” The capital city of the nation whose culture is the poster child of Orientalism. An alluring idea of the East. But in reality, it is so much more, something that the West cannot commodify and market, digesting it through their own world-view in which they are the centre as seen in Miller who envelops himself in contemporary Western Literature but cannot hold a candle to Cairo who seeks to completely uproot his sense of stability. But Cairo recognises that she need not orbit him, to create her art in response or within the context of his own. Perhaps that is why the Southern accents of the two leads are so flimsy: the Eurocentric Westerner comes to recognise their own fragility. The reality of the Orient intimidates them, makes them feel lesser. It is, in its entirety, unknowable and foreign. The Westerner would sooner rather be French.

Indeed, Cairo is the Victorious One for Johnathan Miller is incapable of handling such a deconstruction of his world-view. He is a writer, that is whom his wife married. Cairo is not sexy because of her figure. She is sexy because she IS a figure. An exotic beast whose subjugation validates Miller’s impotent existence. For him, it comes through sexuality but that is not necessarily the only form of subjugation.

Is teaching not a display of dominance? Regardless of intentions and the absence of malice, to take it upon yourself to sow your own love and passion in the hearts of future generations is very much an attempt to greaten your own sense of self as each inspired student lives on as an extension of yourself. When they come to class to learn, they look at you with respect, your presence exuding power and authority. But I am but a student. Once again, I wanted Wednesday. Cairo was willing to play the role of Miller’s girl, his top student, until her pride was wounded, until she could not have him.

Jenna Ortega has yet to be trapped in type casting but this film is certainly making that future all the more certain for her. I could point to a specific scene from the show You becoming a viral meme but the cultural impact of Wednesday was more than enough to have general audiences associate her with the image of … how can I put this? Riverdale’s Jughead Jones meets Teen Titan’s Raven. Despite the character of Wednesday Addams being only 16 years old in Ortega’s portrayal, her role was sexualised relentlessly outside of the show. As for the out of context clip from You that I alluded to, one only has to read her dialogue to understand.

“Oh my God, you’re so kind, you’re so protective, you’re like my daddy.” Is that what you like to hear? Do you want to FUCK ME, William?! No? Yeah, of course you do! Of course you do! Everyone wants to FUCK the 15 year old!

I believe Miller’s Girl to be deliberate in its casting of the twenty-one year old actress, well aware of how her unwilling status as a morally-dubious sex symbol would feed into the scandalous nature of the film’s teacher-student relationship. Cairo and her lesbian friend undress and make out to turn on their teachers but we cannot see the photos or videos that they send, only the better shot cinematic view of their lust. We, the audience, are voyeurs. I, a heterosexual cis man with very little to show of himself, am watching these two lock lips for entertainment. For gratification.

They and Miller are unwilling objects of my gaze. I intrude on the oblivious man, watching him masturbate through windows or right behind him, always out of sight. Because like Miller, indulging in the taboo makes me feel invigorated. Thus, I feel as if I matter more than I usually do in the mundane stagnation of my life. I don’t want an exotic enigma of a woman to give me all of her attention, I merely want the idea of it. The perfect escape on the other side of the fourth wall. I need Wednesday, but my accomplishments and capabilities in Literature are far too pathetic to even attempt to have it. The week is far from over, the struggle has only begun.

Was there a point to this? The film was quite unremarkable all things considered. But that makes it easy to write about. That is why Miller was drawn to Cairo: she was easy to make infatuated, seemingly easy to control. Pathetic men like the easy route especially when one looks at Miller’s condescending wife. My choice to write through a stream of consciousness is nothing more than an attempt to assert my own importance. My thoughts matter. I have something to contribute, do I not? God knows the film sure did not.

I jokingly titled this piece after the film My Dinner with Andre despite it having very little relevance, I simply like the title. My “dinner” was nothing more than a bucket of large popcorn and m&ms. It was somehow both far from a banquet yet over-indulgent to make me feel guilt. Much like the pyjama pants upon which many a stray popped kernel found itself, the laziness and impotence of my choice of dining was selfish yet brought me no satisfaction or comfort.

And yet, despite my embarrassed state, this evening was intimate. There was no one in that cinema who truly existed to me. No one but myself and one Mr. Johnathan Miller. This dinner was brutally humbling for the both of us, and it was a dinner I will never forget. His story may be over, but when I awake tomorrow, I will have the privilege and responsibility of meeting Wednesday.