A Non-Ranty Insight About Why 50 Shades Isn't For Me

I know.  Another moralistic voice shouting in the wind in faux outrage over the flavor of the week.

Except it's not.

I've read a blog post that exhorts wives not to watch the movie because it creates a false image and that our imaginations should be satisfied by our husbands.  Don't disagree there.

And yeah, the movie has A WHOLE LOT of nudity and sex.  But so do a lot of movies.

And let's be honest, even if I was curious enough to want to see the movie (I'm not), I wouldn't go because hello, middle Georgia.  You just know that you'd see the Chairman of the Deacon board in the lobby.

I was thinking about it tonight.  I try to be discerning in what I watch and read.  I think my passion for Hallmark movies and chaste, prairie romances is well-documented.  But I went to The Kingsmen: The Secret Service movie this weekend, a totally well-deserved R-rated movie with lots and lots of inane violence (skip it).  And I have been known to watch a Bravo series now and again.  So, why this movie?  Why the self-imposed restriction?

Because the degrading of another person is wrong, regardless of their consent. I'll go a step further: It's not just wrong--it's evil.

Let me be clear. I'm not trying to denounce anyone who would entertain watching this movie or reading the book as being evil or degraded.

What I am saying is the portrayal of a woman submitting to violence in the name of romance and fantasy is straight up wrong and scary.

What bothers me is that young teenagers will sneak this movie on video at a friend's house or grab their parent's copy of the book and think of it as purely escapist fiction.  No harm done. There's nothing cute about physical cruelty, and making the male lead a handsome, misunderstood billionaire doesn't change that.  The glamorization of violence in a physical relationship is not okay.

Maybe I wouldn't have connected the dots of my own hypocrisy if I had not watched that incredibly violent movie yesterday, and then followed it up with a Dateline episode to balance out the perfectly delightful Hallmark original I sandwiched in between the two that Alex lovingly watched alongside me.

The Dateline episode dealt with a young college student who had been assaulted and killed by a man involved in sadomasochism and bondage (eek, never thought I write that on a Mom blog).  He influenced his girlfriend,"the submissive," to bring home another person to be a plaything.  The man was 10 years older than his girlfriend, and had a history of abuse with a former girlfriend.  His "hobby" resulted in the brutal murder of a lovely young woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No.  I'm not saying 50 Shades is going to turn America's youths into sexual deviants.  But I am saying that this movie is subtly (or not-so-subtly, more like) sending the message that there are no limits in love.  I'm saying the searing of a conscience is a real and frightening possibility.

Love without limits is. a. LIE.  And friend, if you know me, you know where I think it comes from: the father of lies.  Oh yes, I just played the satan card.  I believe in the reality of evil and an enemy to the one true God.

Good, true, healthy love?  It has limits and boundaries.  It respects another's thoughts, feelings, body, and spirit.  Those entities cannot be separated.  True love does no harm. I appreciate these excellent pieces on real love by Ann Voskamp and Beth Moore that so eloquently expound on this concept.

I'm not going to yell and bluster about this movie.  We Christians get a bad rap for doing that already. I wanted to work out these thoughts for myself, and I was surprised at where they led me.  I'm terrible at debate and arguments of logic.  I always go back to the heart, and the bottom line is that I believe every woman fears abuse.  We cannot gloss it over as romance or call it a "grey" area, pun entirely intended.  We are worth more than that, both men and women. Each of us has a God given dignity. And I won't watch a fictional character demean hers, as it demeans my own.

Thoughts from My Recent Hallmark Christmas Movie Binge

I've got reviews of "A Very Married Christmas", "Baby's First Christmas" and "A Very Merry Mix-Up" to add to my authorative look at MFTCM. For now, let these musings inspire you to select a better class of Christmas movie.

Top Ten Life Lessons Learned from Made for TV Christmas Movies:

10. If you are single and someone starts calling you by your first and last name and punches your arm, fellas, watch out. Might be love.

9. If you find yourself with an attractive, bubbly stranger: in a jail, a hospital, with a stray dog, handcuffed to the passenger's seat, or under an assumed identity, watch out. Might be love.

8. If said person loves: antiques, vintage clothing, his/her grandma, his/her grandpa, is estranged from his/her parent(s), is close to his/her parent(s), again. A Christmas love miracle is unfolding before your very eyes.

7. If you have two incredibly handsome suitors vying for your affections, you have a fabulous sense of style, and you are both a strong, capable woman while maintaining a childlike vulnerability just below the surface; girl, you already gone.

6. God/Santa/Fate brings a a lost treasure back into your life: a love note, a handmade clock that stops ticking the minute you first met your amore, your wedding ring you threw away... TRUE LOVE. "True love begins in eternity." You can quote a Very Merry Mix-Up on that.

5. You are dating a plastic dude who wants to remake your life, sell your business, tells his friends you do what he says; just wait. Mr. Wonderful's about to enter, stage right. He's hot and he makes furniture with his own.two.hands. Or rediscovers his benevolent heart. Or rocks a baby. Whatevs. He's perfect.

4. There are no "accidents". Spending the weekend with a family you think is your intended's and instead finding out your new family are not home and hearth people? Hitting an old lady with a swinging door and losing her dog? You are on your way to a job promotion, a home saved for foreclosure, and rediscovering yourself in one fell swoop.

3. It only takes from Thanksgiving to Christmas to change your whole life. Love everlasting? Handled. In 6 weeks or your money back. (Thanks, Lara.)

2. Be with someone who makes you better. Especially if a doorman/police officer/minister/voice of wisdom reminds you that every moment running from the one you love is wasted. (True.)

1. Christmas is magical. Because Faith, Hope and Love are real.

The Pure, Unadulterated Delightfulness...

Of the most cheesy-made-for-TV-movie time of the year!  ABC Family, Hallmark, and Lifetime each have their own festive offering, so it's bound to be a delightful cinematic season.  The Hallmark Channel begins airing new movies this Saturday.  Queue up the DVR! To get us in the spirit, here are a few notables in my pantheon of:

Made-For-TV Christmas Movies (MFTCM)

You know that happy glow you feel looking at a lit tree?
That's how I feel about these types of movies.

A Christmas Kiss- My first delightful MFTCM of 2013.   Basically an assistant to a mean ol' boss (think a very B-version Merle Streep from The Devil Wears Prada) falls in love with the boss's boyfriend and kisses him in an elevator.  Of course, she's incognito and he doesn't recognize her when they are introduced.  But they both felt 'flutters' (Gag me.  The guy says this repeatedly).  Dude's rich and has amazing hair a la Gordon Gecko of Wall Street. The actor comes off as very vanilla, but the female lead has two sassy best friends/roommates whose wise quips keep things from getting too queso.  The two lovebirds are thrown together planning Dude's Christmas party.  Of course they fall asleep on each other's shoulders watching movies.  Of course it's innocent.  Of course Boss Lady/Girlfriend goes on the attack.  And of course the sassy friends intervene.  This one is currently on streaming Netflix.  If you like to put your mind on hold like me, you could do worse for entertainment.


Hitched for the Holidays- Joey Lawrence of Dancing with the Stars and Blossom fame stars.  He carries the film well.  Quite dashing and roguish as memory serves.   He's an ad exec who hates to be tied down to anything (lost little boy inside and all that).  His love interest needs a date due to her family's growing concern for her after being jilted at the altar (there's a story there).  He's Catholic, she's Jewish, and both need a date to save face at holiday functions.  And his dying grandma's last wish is that he find true love.  But she's not really dying.  Oy!  Crazy family shenanigans! Watch it!  Airs this Saturday at 10 p.m.  And copious times thereafter.

Holiday in Handcuffs- This had me at Mario Lopez (a la Slater from Saved by the Bell and Dancing with the Stars). Anyone see a pattern developing here? 90s star plus DWTS stint equals revitalized MFTCM career. Melissa Joan Hart (again with the 90s teen stars) is a scatterbrained, struggling artist that needs to bring home a suitable date to her family Christmas in a remote cabin.  She flubs an interview, gets a bad home perm, and basically grabs a pistol at her waitressing job and hijacks Mario/Slater at gunpoint.  Yeah, he could wrestle her.  And the pistol is an unloaded antique just hanging out by the register.  Details.  Crazy eyed Melissa/Sabrina (the Teenage Witch) gets him in her car, secures him with novelty handcuffs and voila, instant boyfriend!  Of course they see through the kidnapping and fall in love.  She puts on an ice skating routine for him.  They play chess.  He stops trying to escape.  That's a formula for true love right there.  

Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade- This is a cute one and I was struggling to remember the exact title until I followed my own advice and scheduled my Hallmark movie marathon via my DVR!  This plays Sunday at 4 p.m. on Hallmark.  She's the Thanksgiving planner who wears vintage everything (a nod to her deceased mom); he's a slick suit brought in analyze her event and rain on her parade (wink).  They bond over a chance meeting at the grocery store and share cute phone calls while watching holiday movies.  It's fluffy, mindless, and the good girl gets the right guy. Not a bad distraction while you're folding towels.

Mrs. Miracle - This stars James Van Der Beek (aka Dawson) which should make this a lock for my generation.  A magical nanniy (Doris Roberts of Everybody Loves Raymond) helps a young widower (Dawson) with his young sons and surprise, not letting love slip through his fingers.  Real sentimentality, not schmaltz.  Very sweet. 

Recipe for the Perfect Christmas - I watched this a few years back and it has some decent acting.  Food critic (Carly Pope) and chef (Bobby Cannavale) meet cute.  Overbearing mom tries to live through food critic daughter.  Complicated relationships, second chances... all staples of any good MFTCM. 

Snowglobe- Another loud, eccentric, overbearing family causes our heroine (Christine Milan) to dream of a perfect Christmas, the one she sees in her snowglobe.  The magic of this snowglobe whisks her into the wholesome land of a perpetual Christmas.  Turns out fantasy is way more boring than reality.  Especially when your imaginary snowglobe boyfriend shows up in real life.  Yeah, that happens.  She still finds true love. Christmas movie magic, people.  

A Very Brady Christmas  Words fail at such a wonder.  If you need to laugh and have 90 minutes to spare, I highly recommend watching it in its entirety here on Youtube.  I probably watched it with my sister for the first and only time 15 years ago and I still remember some of the lines.  Wondering if you should make the first move, ladies? "If the idiot won't ask you, ask the idiot!"  Entertainment and solid dating advice. 

All that's left to due to look up the newest offerings from these fine channels to help plan your viewing season.  Delightfulness guaranteed! 

ABC Family Christmas Movies 2013

Hallmark Christmas Movies 2013

Lifetime Christmas Movies 2013

What the World Needs...

More good made-for-TV movies.  And I'm the one to deliver.

Alright, rom-com junkies. Go to Netflix and watch My Girlfriend's Boyfriend.  Three reasons I liked this:

1) No inappropriate material: no cursing, sleeping around, what-have-you.  Extremely rare in this genre, unless you count our hero Jane (Austen), and even she was a little saucy.  All those hushed-up marriages of convenience, such as Lydia and Wickham.  She loved the bad boy  Case in point: watch Mansfield Park. 

2) An honest-to-goodness plot twist.  Really!  I was surprised!  It was great!

3)  Jimmy Olson from the 90s Lois & Clark stars as one of the leading men, and let's just say he's aged well.

So when you're bored folding laundry, look up this little gem, and you can thank me then.

Before you know it, it'll be December and I'll be fa-la-la-la-Lifetime Christmas movie-ing.  That really is the most wonderful time of the year!

There's Roper at the Movies...

And then there's me.  Let's call this "Lis on Netflix while doing Laundry".  Satellite TV is gone for now, and we're back to Streaming Netflix.  It's cool.  Tons of Veggie Tales shows, sitcoms, and movies instantly.  I watched The Young Victoria in parts yesterday amid laundry during naps (Sarah's nap, Jeremiah's enforced 'quiet' time) and really enjoyed it.  I knew of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, but the movie makes me want to read about them.  The movie might even mildly interest your adult male because of the political strategizing and an assignation attempt--blood!   The love story between the two royals is obviously highly romanticized, but based on the Queen's real journal entries and prolonged mourning of her husband (she lived 40 years as a widow and had his clothes laid out every morning in his memory).  So sweet.

Ladies, go get this from Redbox or Netflix.  It's entertaining, funny, and interesting.  The married royals do kiss in their jammies a bit, but there's no objectionable content.  I was finishing up the movie while the kids were snacking, so I began to get nervous with the jammie scene, but it was just jammies with a hug and kiss, then "Good morning, wife" from Albert to Victoria. 

While I'm on my critic bent, let me recommend The Middle on ABC.  It's about a traditional family who are off-beat, but they actually like each other.  The episode last night was the parents taking back the house and not catering to their children's every whim.  So funny.  Anyone who is on board for traditional parenting (as in you are the adult and therefore the expert in your home, not a book by a child psychologist) will be amused.

Enjoy!

Kid Code & Verbal Shorthand

Here's ours:

Youngs' Kid Code

I. Movie Code
 A. TS (Toy Story)
 1. Tee Stees (Jeremiah's pronunciation)

B. Squeakquel (Alvin and the Chipmunks)
  1. Toby!!!
  2. The Chips

C. Finding Nemo
  1. Goldfish?

D.   Quotable Quotations
1. Bad Cheese! (AATC)
2. Mater's Greater (Cars)

II. Jeremiah-isms
1. Red dirt.
2. DANCE!
3. Baby's sweepin'!!! (screamed upon any cry from Sister)
4. Stinky sweet.

III. Sarah's Utterances
1. Bwubbles.  Bwubbles.
2. Gabba gabba gap!
3. MaaaMaaa!  (How darest you leave me in someone else's care?)
4. Dada!  (He's so cute.  When does he get home?  'Cause you are boring me.)

IV. Food & Drink
1. Tea, tea? (any colored water)
2. Cerul? (cereal)
3. Yummy popcorn?
4.  Ham-bur-ger?  (Upon passing any McDonalds)
5. Pete-zza!
6. Choco-wat milk.

(Sidenote: I think I've just made a speech pattern discovery.  Jeremiah really cannot pronounce the letter 'L' in the middle of a word unless blended with another consonant.)

V. Mommy & Daddy

1. Dipes and wipes
2. Stinky Butt (a game and a nickname)
 a. Stinky Feet (a derivative of Stinky Butt)
3. The Sylvan Swap  (trading kids when Mom tutors)
4. The Crazies
5.  Children of the Corn

We would love to add to our parent lexicon.  Please share yours!

Taking a break

Jay can hold his bottle!

Great friends

Grandparents and Grandkids


Grandma and Jay tell stories

One of the guys

Brothers

Grandpa and Jay

Requisite holiday bib shot

Merry Christmas!

I'm taking a moment away from the sheer exhilaration of laundry to jot down how we spent our Thanksgiving. It was a great holiday. I made a few dishes to bring, but managed to create a severe mess and didn't turn in until midnight. Everyone said they enjoyed the dishes, so I didn't mind. No cooking beats homemade holiday dishes. Or a leftover dinner of mashed potatoes and cake... which is what I had Thursday evening. Jay did incredibly well being surrounded by 16 other faces at Thanksgiving! He is cutting his lower teeth and must have chewed on every one's knuckles. The kid has a great immune system. No sicknesses (yet)!

I did a little shopping, though did not go commando warrior shopping Friday morning. It takes a special breed of woman. We did go one year just for the experience. However, we were up at various points in the wee hours due to our overstimulated baby in a new environment. We could've racked up some deals. Did you hear that a man was TRAMPLED TO DEATH by unrelenting crowds at a Wal-mart in New York? Insane. Some people tried to help him, but the frenzied masses kept coming, all to get their hands on some plastic toy or electronic that will probably be in the garbage in a few years. Um, glad I stayed home.

The most entertaining part of my weekend, as adolescent as it makes me, was watching Twilight. A-train, my brother-in-law, and his friend went with me and did their best not to burst out laughing at lines like: "You are my own personal heroin" or "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb." I, however, actually clapped like a little girl and welcomed all my imaginary friends as they came to play their part in the story: Bella! Jacob! Edward!!!

The movie had a John Hughes "Pretty in Pink" feel at the beginning. Outsider (Bella) arrives at her high school in a beat up truck and aloof Adonis (Edward) looks on smoldering. Can we say Molly Ringwold and Andrew McCarthy?

Cinematically, the landscape of Washington State was amazing. There was enough action to entertain the males (a 'bad' vampire is gleefully destroyed). And of course, the male lead is CRAZY good looking as the tortured vampire who does not want to be a monster.

Loved it! Of course, as a Christian, I cannot endorse Bella's desire to give up mortality. But as a work of escapist romantic fiction, sign me up for the fan club.

This week is full of activity with my Christmas musical this weekend. We are having Jay's Christmas picture taken and my folks will be here this weekend.

Let the season begin!