fake

Last night Golden and I watched John Tucker Must Die. While I did have a tiny bit of doubt about the flick, the movie was actually as good as I expected. It is very similar to Mean Girls with the exception that the villain is a player rather than a queen bee. To be honest, I was the one who wanted to see it. This may surprise some people, but I expected this to be more of a thinker than I think most other people expected it to be. Since both Golden and I liked the movie I was not totally off base.

Both movies have one major theme that I greatly appreciate. The main character in each film enters school as a nobody and is eventually catapulted into popularity through some evil scheme to destroy someone else. In the end of both flicks the main character learns that popularity is empty if it is attained through being fake, and that it is easy to become the person that you originally hated.

I think that most people agree that being yourself is a good thing and being fake is a bad thing, but I wonder if people only think that at the extremes. Is letting fashion dictate what you wear so that you don't stick out like a sore thumb being fake? Is rooting for the home team to fit in not being yourself? Is fixing up your house or car to impress others wrong? Is changing some of your interests to match those of your social group wrong? Are the rules different if these things are done by an adult, an adolescent, or a child?

I am deeply concerned about when NJ and any siblings he may have in the future (no, Golden is not pregnant) are old enough to crave acceptance from peers. It is inevitable. God made people that way. How much leeway should I provide in letting my children express themselves, though, when they are really just expressing what is popular in their social context? I wish I knew.

So, even though it appears on the surface that I just watched another dumb teen movie, I think there is a lot to learn from what I saw. For one, I learned that John Tucker doesn't have to die just yet. He is only able to do wrong because his victims allow him through their own selfishness.