Julie's Narcissism

I watched Julie & Julia tonight. Not really expecting much, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how narcissistic Amy Adam’s character was. Completely self-absorbed with her need to become Julia Child - a fetishized persona to lose herself in - when she wasn’t ignoring her husband she was either treating him badly or calling him a saint for fixing her screw-ups. While his character was not developed to a great extent it certainly came through the film that she clearly had little sense of him as a person; therefore, she failed as a companion on equal footing with him.

Because he chose to return to her after an episode during which she lashes out at him for not being sympathetic enough to a relatively minor (in reality) letdown, the husband’s chosen role became that of the curator of Julie. As she lives in a world of her own, tending to her own perceived inadequacies by reaching out to the imaginary as a motivational force for action and validation all he can do is tend to her in this psychological state and keep her there. He is a willing participant in the curator-specimen relationship: he indulges his desire to bask in the atmosphere created by her narcissism; after all, there is always good food on the table. And as she fetishizes Julia, he fetishizes her, knowing full well that because of the intensity of over-compensation for her perceived shortcomings, there will be no room for him inside of her.

But perhaps that is enough for the husband: for Julie to request the glass box be kept around her and for him to oblige, always as an outsider looking into the imaginary world of her own.

…

So does the narcissistic individual always seek a curator? Can a person curate himself or herself, without the cooperation of another? My guess is that this kind of person, alone, would fade into obscurity. Is the narcissistic person relegated to Gen X and Gen Y - the first generations who not only came from broken or neglectful homes (this condition has probably existed for all of eternity) but who also bore witness to the commodification of the self and reduction of political domain to the body? Is narcissism a necessary requirement for a person to be beheld (by another or others) as a kind of specimen?