Where have all the good movies gone?

This summer, when Jim's brother was in town, he and Jim and their parents and one of his sisters & her husband and I all gathered out on our deck, drinking and talking. (I, of course, was drinking water at the time... OH! What I wouldn't give for a nice glass--or two--of wine!) Anyway, usually when Jim's folks are around, the talk turns to politics. It just seems to go that way, since it's always good for a debate--Jim and his parents often have different views, or else somebody ends up playing devil's advocate. It's always a bit spicier if John is around, as well.

Except this time, the hottest conversation was actually about how they don't make good movies anymore. All the movies out there (according to Jim's mother, Kay, and Jim actually agreed with her on this) have negative messages or are scary just for the sake of being scary or they just don't have anything positive to say. I think the general message wasn't just about how bad the movies are these days, but how they're indicative of the times we're living in, and how it's just a really bad time and everyone is becoming more and more negative. I tried to play devil's advocate on this one. (I'm usually best off if I just keep quiet!) I think I was trying to say that we are just in the down-times right now. There seem to always be peaks and valleys, y'know, good times and bad, and I was just thinking that things are especially low right now. (e.g. The economy isn't so great, gas prices are horrendous, we're in a war, etc.) But Jim and Kay both felt like it wasn't as simple as that... they both felt that people's values have gone to hell and there's no bringing them back. It's just going to get worse and worse. I pretty much fizzled out after that, as I'm not exactly a historian--I can't really point out exact dates and times when things looked so terribly bad and then got better (other than the Depression, I suppose).

I'm thinking now, several months later, that maybe Jim and his mother were right. We borrowed the movie "Pollyanna" when I had that free Netflix membership. (We also got "The Music Man", which was very fun and wholesome and uplifting, I thought.) Now, Jim had told me about "Pollyanna" when we first met--he actually used to call me Pollyanna. If you haven't seen it, here's the thrust: Pollyanna is a girl who, at the ripe old age of 10, has already had her share of hard times; however, rather than be poopy about all the bad stuff and boo hoo over it all, she searches for the things in life that she can be glad about--playing The Glad Game. She ends up turning this whole town on its ear, changing their bad and/or selfish attitudes into positive and helpful ones. It was an amazing movie! The only one that I can think of that's remotely similar (as far as changing one's perspective about things) is "It's a Wonderful Life"--which I plan to be watching again in the next month or two!

So, now, watching that movie has gotten me thinking: what kind of movies are out there today? What kind of TV shows are out there? What are people talking about in their day-to-day conversations? The movie "Saw III" is in theaters now--that's a gore movie just for the sake of gore. Nasty. And there are probably half a dozen other very scary (probably gory) movies in theaters or about to be in theaters as well. Other movies, like "The Breakup", aren't scary, but in all honesty, have bad values. (I'm being old-fashioned, it's true, but I'm also abiding by my Catholic Faith: living together, without the benefit of marriage, is a sin. Topic for another blog, I suppose!) Movies that aren't scary are often all about how to get into bed with someone else. And at the very least, if they're not about that, they're often about how to get the best of someone else. I saw "The Devil Wears Prada" not long ago. It was pretty good, and with the exception of one instance of fornication (which, at least, wasn't shown but was implied), it didn't have too many bad things going for it. However, the main point of that movie was that you have to be mean to get ahead, even if it means stepping all over the people close to you. The heroine finally chooses not to go that route, but you're left wondering (at the end of the movie) if she'll be nearly as successful as she could have been by staying on that track of stepping all over others. (By the way, "successful" in movies these days is clearly defined as making a lot of money and having a lot of stuff--yet another value I don't agree 100% with.) The TV shows these days aren't any better. I try to watch questionable stuff when the girls are in bed, like "Sex in the City", "Friends", any "Real World/Road Rules" challenges. Even "Hell's Kitchen" has tons of swear words bleeped out of it, and it's obvious people get where they want to by stabbing each other in the back. I'm even finding some of the shows the kids watch aren't that much better. "Hannah Montana" and "That's So Raven" often have people sneaking around and conniving to get what they want, in less nasty ways than grown-ups, of course, but they're still teaching trickery and deceit. Even some of the cartoons, like "Fairly Odd Parents", have people being mean to each other and calling each other nasty names. I try to stand by and make sure my kids know the difference between what's acceptable and what's not. But it's getting to a point where, if they're not watching PBS, I don't want them watching anything!

When I babysit at Jazzercise, I often have a few older kids come in. By older, I mean ages 9 to about 11. I'm shocked at the behavior these kids are displaying already. They're mostly good, but at the same time, they're already trying to act the way kids of my generation did when they were in their early- to mid-teens! I have a 9 year old girl come in now and then who is obsessed with when she'll get to wear a bra. I don't even remember thinking about that until about 12. It seems like kids are trying to grow up faster these days, and I wonder how much of that is coming from the movies we watch, the TV shows we watch, and maybe even the conversations these kids overhear.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying. I guess my point is that, after watching "Pollyanna", it really made me realize there are no (or very few) good, wholesome, family-oriented movies out there. Even things like "The Parent Trap" or "Cheaper by the Dozen" or "Yours, Mine and Ours"--movies that are all remakes of old, wholesome movies--needed to be 'modernized' in order to appeal to current audiences. Some of those 'modernizations' would include things like couples living together before marriage, people playing nasty and potentially dangerous tricks on each other, etc. In the old days, they didn't have to cross those lines in order to appeal to audiences. Thus, I'm thinking that we really are in a bad, negative time, and things aren't looking like they're going to get better... or if they do, it'll be a long time coming.

Sorry... kind of a bummer of an entry. My apologies to Jim and Kay--you were right and I was definitely wrong. I wish I hadn't been, though. Got any suggestions of old, wholesome movies we can watch? I'm over this new stuff!!!