In Woody Allen’s early-90s divorce epic, Scenes from a Mall, Allen plays a sell-out lawyer who deals sneakers to sports teams. He breaks the news of his multiple infidelities to his wife—on their 16th wedding anniversary—in a shopping mall—over frozen yogurt. In short, he is in true Wanker of the Week form. Bette Midler plays the wife, a sell-out celebrity shrink who recently published a book promoting ‘the joys of marriage in an age of divorce.’

After outbursts of panic and violence regarding the division of assets, a series of margaritas brings the couple back together. But then the wife confesses that she too had an affair. The derogatory Los Angeles stereotypes abound: malls, Mexican drinks, sushi, frozen yogurt, Woody Allen’s Mimbo-ish ponytail, and the way that, in the end, material goods (in the form of trendy and hideously 1990s outfits) bring the feuding husband and wife back together.

Today at the kiosks in the mall a salesman of vaguely Middle Eastern descent asked my mother, “Excuse me, ma’am…but where did you purchase your eyes?” It was the pick-up line of creeper-dead-sea-hand-cream-salesmen if I ever heard one.

Tweet This Post