Each post this week is in regard to a specific event surrounding my Thanksgiving break. This is post three, and the final post, in the series.
Golden and I watched the movie Click last weekend with her parents. Overall, it was an acceptable movie that played out how I anticipated it would. It was entertaining enough, but I did have two basic complaints. The first complaint contains a few spoilers regarding the storyline.
Start Spoilers
First, the main character's remote control fast forwards in his life based upon past fast forwarding patterns. No manual override is provided. What self-respecting engineer wouldn't add a manual override? Only an idiot engineer would think that I obviously want to always fast forward through all future showers if I did that just once before.
I have to forgive this only because the movie was trying to make a point and it wouldn't have been able to if it allowed the main character to change his mind. It seems like a minor thing, but the revelation that the main character has at the end is completely contingent on this flawed engineering design.
Obviously, this is a nerdy complaint. It messed with my ability to suspend belief, though.
End Spoilers
The second complaint I have may or may not be a spoiler. I knew ahead of time from the commercials and from previous movies how this would go down, but maybe someone else hasn't figured it out yet. If you have not seen the movie yet and you honestly have no idea what the foundational point is that the movie is trying to make, what I still have to say might contain spoilers. Also, this second complaint has everything to do with the fact that I approach these types of movies with a male point of view.
Almost the entirety of the plot revolves around the fact that the main character puts work before family and learns the hard way that it should be the other way around. His revelation is that he should have completely ignored everything his boss said and given all his spare time to his family, because to not do so is a slippery slope to losing everything he cares about. It is furthermore implied that to consider the financial implications of such a decision would be selfish.
This is a common theme in movies, and I am continually struck by how it is always the male character who is too involved in his job or who is unwilling to stand up to the boss who is at fault. This a major theme in RV, The Family Man, Anger Management, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to name a few.
My complaint, which applies to Click and RV specifically, is that the things that the main character does or doesn't do is portrayed as completely his fault. The family has little or no responsibility for the pressure that they put on the dad. Adam Sandler's and Robin Williams' characters would not go to the lengths they do in these two movies if they did not get pressure from their families, but this is not sufficiently addressed. It is easier to just make the whole thing dad's fault.
As I said, the overall plot was fine. I just wish these movies wouldn't always pretend like all family issues are due to a dad's messed up priorities. Take this from a dad.
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I gather that the producers of these movies were once good providers for their families? Actually, we went to see The Devil Wears Prada. It was a good movie about a young normal lady who ends up working in the world of high-powered fashion. Her boyfriend and friends become resentful of her devotion to the job. This paradigm fits the model that you mention. It soon becomes appearant that she has made the wrong decision in trying to work hard and sacrifice her social life, she is neglecting her friends by working overtime, and by pursuing the network that will give her writing endeavor alot of exposure she is somehow betraying these other people in her life. Spolier ALERT: In the end she says you guys are right, and she takes a sucky slobjob at a NY Daily newspaper. Meanwhile, her boyfriend has moved away (but they are friends again!) and that is the happy ending. My perception provoked similar anger to yours. Her friends seemed petty and unconcerned that she was trying really hard to make things happen in her life. They whined at her alot, teased her for her preoccupation with work and in the end, she got a job in the publishing industry where she will work more overtime for less pay and will not be able to afford an apartment in NY on her own. But, we all feel warm and fuzzy inside because she "saw the light..." but maybe I'm just a wino with a $20 bill who really digs Anne Hathaway
Sorry you get upset when they play the working dad stereotype in movies. You're a good dad!
I haven't seen the movie in a while, but didn't the mom and kids figure out that they were being to pushy by the end of RV? That may just be the way I want to remember it though?
Yeah, the mom and kids acknowledged they needed to change a little, but my rememberance was that it was framed like the way they were was a litte bad, but he was a lot bad. Maybe it's how my brain wanted to remember it.
I think I should probably clarify why I care about this. I always very purposefully avoided girls who had expensive tastes (as if they were chasing me down :)... ) because I figured I would never be able to provide what they expected. Why put her and me both through the inevitable annoyances? Because of this perspective, though, people like that can push my buttons.
I saw both of the wife characters (and, by dint, their children) as expecting more than was possible from their husbands given the situations. I also felt that both Click and RV presented this as if the wives had a right to expect the impossible. Perhaps I was reading too much into it.
As I have said many times before, Golden is perfect for me. In this case she is perfect because she doesn't expect me to support an expensive lifestyle. I like it that we're simple people with simple tastes.
You make a lot of good points
Your points are all bogus. That was a pretty big pile...
Care to elaborate?
sure, at homer's.
Okay, then. :)
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