After finally finishing college apps, I did what any emotionally unstable girl would do: I watched “La La Land.” Throughout the musical, I felt like the coolest third wheel of a dazzling relationship between Ryan Gosling’s Sebastian and Emma Stone’s Mia. I was ready to shed tears of joy and see them conquer their dreams—together.
Warning: bitter spoilers ahead.
But that’s not what Damien Chazelle wanted!
The final scene reveals Mia five years later as a prominent actress, kissing her husband, who is NOT Sebastian. Mia and this unidentified male somehow end up at Sebastian’s thriving jazz club. Sebastian plays a piano melody, and a montage, depicting what could have been if he and Mia stayed together, plays in the background of my sobs.
I’ve finally realized the ending was bittersweet at most. Mia and Sebastian both achieve their main goals, which were what they fought for in the first place. The final scene was conclusive, but realistically happy.
I questioned what my initial reaction said about myself. Would I mope if the final scene of my own life showed me as Editor-in-Chief of New York Times, living in a Manhattan penthouse, but no Sebastian by my side, or no significant other at all? Was I dependent upon a man? To say the least, my feminist self was shook.
In retrospect, my sadness drew from the belief that the end of Mia and Sebastian’s relationship was a waste of amazing chemistry between them, not the thought that they’d be incomplete without one another. Come to think of it, I’m not dependent upon another person for wanting my own love story. Maybe it’s selfish to want my dream job, house and partner, but then again, I’m only 17: I can work out the logistics later.
Once I accept that it’s not possible to obtain every single thing I want, I’ll turn to my priorities, as Mia and Sebastian did for themselves and each other. But if I currently had to choose, like Mia, I’d rather have my final scene exhibit a flourishing career than a white boy, though nice and cute, who thinks he can save jazz. Of course, I’d gladly take both.
TCHS School Newspaper