Thursday, August 10, 2006

Lifetime Television for... um, whom?

In my family, we like to mock my older sister for watching far too many Lifetime Original movies. When she is not watching Lifetime, she is either out back smoking a cigarette, or watching The Hills and Laguna Beach on MTV. She is 38 years old, and agoraphobic (this is the diagnosis agreed upon by me, and by my aunt, who is a Canadian nurse, which gives the diagnosis some degree of professional cred). My sister is usually good-natured about the ribbing we give her. She knows the movies suck.

Lately, for some reason, my mother has also taken to watching Lifetime Original movies. And I've noticed that they all have the same characters and plot.

1. Nice woman with a sort of clueless husband and one or two children.

2. Crazy ass pyscho woman who is either a neighbor, or the nice woman's best friend.

3. Children, usually good and well-behaved, of the nice woman. These children will be eventually framed by Crazy Ass Psycho for bad behavior and somehow exonerated in the end.

4. Uninvolved, weak, stupid men.

The nice woman's very existence and life pisses off Crazy Ass Psycho, who then does everything in her power to dismantle this life, and kills a few people and family pets in the process. Eventually, someone -- usually one of the nice children -- cottons on to Crazy Ass Psycho's psychosis, and the police show up, and the two women fight, near to the death, and the nice woman wins.

Lifetime fancies itself "television for women."

Now, I ask you: is this entertaining? My mother and my sister will both tell you it's ludicrous and stupid, yet they can't turn away... similar to viewing a car accident on the interstate. I mean, I find this so bizarre. If something sucks, I change the channel. I find it hard to believe that this is the channel that caters to any sort of majority of women. I suspect CBS caters to more women than Lifetime.

I just don't get it.

3 comments:

Georgias Maximus, Feline Esq. said...

Rebecca DeMornay - Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Glen Close and Michael Douglas - Fatal Attraction

The template is there. I'll bet when I ask my movie buff buds, they'll be able to come up with more, older titles, probably trailing back to Hitchcock, one of the original Hollywood misanthropes.
Seriously, how clueless must the women be to keep getting into such situations?

Georgias Maximus, Feline Esq. said...

It's a reaffirmation of the traditional woman's role triumphing over jealous others outside the "norm"

Anonymous said...

I always refer to them as "Don't take my baby" movies. :)