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Something disturbing about Hallmark movies (beehaw.org)
submitted 11 months ago by LoamImprovement@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org
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I was talking with a friend today about Hallmark movies because we all seem to have at least one grandma who loves them around this time of year, and we're hashing out the tropes they all share because they're so formulaic that you could probably boil it down to a mad libs prompt, and something dawned on me because of one particular similarity, not in every film, but a lot of them - the Heroine quitting her high-stress executive job to move to a quaint little town and settle down with Mr. Right. It struck me as deeply misogynistic that the movies imply she can't have both and that her career goals aren't worth it compared to getting some dick.

The other side of that coin is, in almost every single one of these movies, the guy is a Prince who needs to marry, or secretly loaded, or otherwise financially stable unless the plot revolves around his family whatever on the brink of closure that the Heroine steps in to help save the day, and he's shown to be a good-if-distant dad to his kids, if he has any, but needs help raising them because work keeps him busy, or his nanny's retiring. It's never implied that he should be the one giving up his lifestyle to be a better partner for her; The only thing Mr. Right is ever doing wrong in these movies, if anything, is just not already being with her, and I get that these films are basically wish fulfillment fics, but she is always the one who has to make a change for him, to basically be a stay at home mom, or step closer to it than she was at the beginning of the film. Does anybody else see that? Am I wrong in thinking that's absolutely fucking greasy?

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[–] pimento64@sopuli.xyz 27 points 11 months ago (2 children)

These movies aren't just any wish fulfillment, they're meant to be a panacea that assures the viewer that she made the right choice in being a stay-at-home mom, and that she would have regretted pursuing her career.

I want a Hallmark movie where a high-powered executive comes back to his hometown, helps save the Christmas tree lighting ceremony, and decides to leave his career to be with his shortstack tomboy wife and be her himbo kept husband on her ranch.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 9 points 11 months ago

I was pretty thrilled to learn my first wife drove a stick and could change the oil. People really don't think through the benefits of a tomboy wife.

[–] clutchmattic@beehaw.org 6 points 11 months ago

As a male, I don't mind that :D

[–] Juno@beehaw.org 21 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Not to veer too far from your original post, but I feel the same way about torture in Disney Pixar movies.

Every single one has a torture scene- torture defined as "I'll hurt you in some way if you don't give me information or do XYZ for me"

Toy story - "where are your rebel friends now?"

Toy story 2 - " you can go to Japan together or in pieces. If he fixed you once he can fix you again , now get in the Box!!!"

Toy story 3 " not the nehru jacket from The Groovy formal collection" (Ken as he is tied up and being tortured by barbie) " where's that manual!?!?"

I could go on forever, pick a kids movie from those publishers, there is a torture scene in it, for some reason.

I think Trends and patterns like what you describe are worth exploring because they give us warped senses of reality. There's a large swath of the population right now that believes torture works to produce good information or cooperative captives, that does not actually match up with reality. Much like what you describe, I imagine there are a lot of unhappy women out there because they watch these Hallmark movies

[–] frog@beehaw.org 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You know, now you mention it, torture scenes of some kind do seem to be very common in kids films, and not just the Disney Pixar ones. The non-Pixar Disney ones often do as well, as do the Dreamworks ones. Not always, but a lot of the time.

One big question comes to mind: are there any kids animated films that were written by women, and do they feature torture scenes?

(I'd be willing to bet a lot of the Hallmark films are written by men, too.)

[–] quotheraven404@lemmy.ca 10 points 11 months ago

Not my gumdrop buttons!

[–] EssentialCoffee@midwest.social 2 points 11 months ago

Sure

Notably, The Lion King, Brave, Frozen, & Mulan.

[–] LoamImprovement@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I just look at these movies now and I can't help but get this weird incel vibe from them? I dunno. The only other torture scene I can think of from a Disney movie is the Incredibles, but that was more for Syndrome to gloat at Bob.

[–] Juno@beehaw.org 14 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Oh there's so many more

They strap Mike Wazowski to the machine and try to suck his face off or the screams out of him so that he tells Randall where the kid is in Monsters Inc

They literally torture a car to death in Cars 2. They want to know where the information is and he reveals that Mater has it. And at the end of the torture session his charred remains can be seen in a reflection.

In Finding Nemo, near the end when they're looking for Marlin again, they come across the two crabs that have seen him leave and the crabs say I'm not going to tell you where he went and there's nothing you could do to make me. Dory then holds him above the water and he starts screaming at the site of the seagulls that are eyeballing him " I'll talk I'll talk!!!"

Its literally every movie, someone gets tortured.

Think about how often you see someone get tortured in everyday life. PRACTICALLY NEVER. In the movies it's like quicksand, it's just one of those things that people seem to run into all the goddamn time for inexplicable reasons.

The problem is, it gives people an excuse to actually torture people. In fact, people are cooperative and offer information when they are cooperated with when they're promised protection, when they're treated with respect, when good things are done for them. When people are tortured they become more oppositional and more uncooperative. So in reality, torture doesn't work at all. People still torture people, because they think it works. It either produces bad information or no information. But they still do it because well they saw it in that movie where it worked, literally every children's movie they've ever seen. They saw in that one.

[–] frog@beehaw.org 14 points 11 months ago

The sad thing is that torture didn't used to be a staple of kids films. I watched a lot of animated films in the last few months (research component of an animation module at university), and the torture scenes only really start appearing in the last 30 years or so - and seems to be more of a thing in the 3D animated films than in the traditionally animated ones during the brief time period where the two mediums overlapped.

There's violence in pretty much all of the older ones, for sure, but that feels different to torturing someone for information, I think, because there tends to be two contexts for the violence: a hero is using it as a last resort to deal with an enemy (eg Jungle Book, where Mowgli initially goes "well I'll just talk to Shere Khan so he understands I'm not a threat", and only engages in violence against the tiger when Shere Khan is literally trying to murder everybody) or it's used to demonstrate how cruel and petty a villain is (eg Lion King, where the hyenas shove Zazu into a geyser - they're not torturing him for information, they're doing it because they find it funny). In both cases, there's no ambiguity about whether the violence is justified or not - it is justified when the hero is doing it in self-defence or defence of others, and it's not when the villains are doing it for the giggles.

Even in, say, Pinocchio, where Stromboli uses the threat of violence against Pinocchio, it's in a situation where it's undeniably evil. He had been using cooperation and persuasion up until that point, very successfully, but when Pinocchio basically goes "okay, I've had a nice day, but I'm going home to my father now, I'll be back tomorrow", Stromboli cannot find anything that would persuade Pinocchio not to go home. So violence and the threat of violence are the only options remaining, but there's no question that using threats to prevent a child from going home to their family is in any way justified. And a key part of this is that when Stromboli does this, Pinocchio has absolutely no interest in helping him anymore.

I think the most troubling element of torture in animation films of the last 30 years is how often it's used by the heroes. There is, perhaps, some leeway when the villains do it, because if a villain does an evil thing, then it creates no grey area about whether torture is acceptable. (And it's probably an easier way of having a good character reveal information that they shouldn't, than have them do it voluntarily, which would have audiences going "WTF Mike Wazowski just betrayed his best friend! What a shit guy!") But torture does seem to be increasingly used by the protagonists, when what they should be doing is trying cooperative methods - why does Dory opt for threatening the crabs after taking "there's nothing you can do to make me give you the information" at face value, instead of at least trying cooperation first?

[–] pan0wski@infosec.pub 4 points 11 months ago

Holy crap, I've never thought about that.

[–] LoamImprovement@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago

Jesus that's a lot. I forgot about so many of these.

[–] frog@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago

There's also Rapunzel in Tangled, who repeatedly whacks Flynn with a frying pan until he does what she wants him to.

[–] schmorpel@slrpnk.net 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think most storytelling in most entertainment is pretty fucked up. Another comment mentioned torture scenes in kids animated movies, I might want to add rape scenes in pretty much every episode of every TV series (often excused as historical realism).

Lately I got ultra-annoyed at how propaganda-y every police series is. Even the ones where police is depicted as corrupt, like for example The Wire. The criminals are always shown as a little more evil than even the most rotten cop. I can't stand that anymore.

There is not a single show or movie I've seen recently that didn't have this shit in it. I'm so tired at being sold this cheap, stupid, uncreative, misogynistic, always-the-same crap. Please tell me what to watch anymore.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

The Bear

[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 11 points 11 months ago

If you read the background on the network, it shouldn’t be surprising at all.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallmark_Channel

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I have wondered about changing views. For me for example Netflix is way too dark. Does the younger generation like this stuff say people under 40... someone must. Just mention because hallmark is the opposite... like sickly sweet.

As far as guy leaving his work... how many woman would put up with a stay at home guy. Maybe some but not likely. When I got married I was just happy my wife had a non-negative net worth.

[–] RadioRat@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Dude, it must be your social circles. I’m related to, work with spouses of, or am friends with no less than 5 stay-at-home guys. Also, most men with families at my company take on significant child care responsibilities due to being able to work from home. It comes down to making things work so food’s on the table and good humans are raised (or a stable household is kept). Gender is impertinent.

When I got married I was just happy my wife had a non-negative net worth. This sentence and its paragraph really read like a spouse is an acquisition or earnings 😬

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

As far a marriage having agreement on the big three: Money, sex, kids is helpful. This has long been known.

For me beyond that my only wish is that my partner be herself, cares about me more then my money or what I can do for her, that we like each other and similarly can stand each other, and our lives are heading in a compatible direction.

I have a wonderful wife and we have been together over 20 years and it gets better every year.

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

My point is for guys there is typically not that much expectation in terms of spousal earnings while for women there often is. Just my experience. I hope this is changing.

I admit that I am a young boomer but if you look at the next gen, the 30 somethings you still find similar patterns though less strong.

Of the 6 couples in my family of my generation, 5 are the husband doing most of the work outside the home. One is quite equal. For the 30 somethings and of the 5 couples two the guy is the primary earner, one the woman is, the other three are more balanced. Not sure how they think about it or how it will play out over the next 2 decades.

What made me think about it was I was watching "Married at First Sight". One couple the woman had a huge problem with the guy not having a job at the moment... and it turned out she wanted to be a stay a home mom... though she had a good career. I have seen other seasons and shows where similar things have played out. Woman wanting the guy to be more successful. Not sure I have ever seen it the other way in these shows.

[–] frog@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago

how many woman would put up with a stay at home guy. Maybe some but not likely.

I would guess that would be primarily because even when the woman is working full time and the guy is at home all the time, the stats show the woman still does most of the housework and child-rearing. Plenty of women do "put up with" a stay-at-home guy when he's doing all the unpaid work that traditionally falls on the woman in the relationship.

[–] kessleragain@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago

lol I wish I’d seen this before now. You’re right, but luckily Hallmark has also been growing over the last few years so that I’ve even recently joked that I can’t wait for 10 years from now when people’s idea of their movies update for the jokes. Cause they’re still formulaic movies made on a budget. Tons of fun jokes to make.

I’ve spent the last few weeks basically just watching Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies with my wife cause subscriptions are expensive and that’s what we picked for December. I used to say, “you can tell the difference between a Hallmark and Lifetime movie based on if they drink wine.” That’s not true anymore.

Yep, Hallmark movies used to be even worse than you brought up cause they had a ton of emotional cheating (and sometimes physical with a kiss). And don’t get me started on the military propaganda movies they still do too. lol.

But the latest crop are quite likely to have the heroine have a job she can do remotely or fall in love with a smallish town that’s close to a big city so she can commute instead of quitting her job. Or, like one I watched last night, where the Hero quits his high-powered job to become part of the Heroine’s family business so she can focus on her dreams.

And no emotional cheating! She’s either single from the start or breaks up before going back home/traveling to the small town/suburb.

It still comes from small town “oh what about a simple life” thinking. But, honestly, a lot of the gross, damaging things people associate with those movies are changing. And I think that’s a good thing.

Heck, I got to watch my wife light up cause we watched one recently about a Puerto Rican baker. Getting to see a “stupid TV movie” that had a wonderful Puerto Rican heroine and brought up how good Puerto Rican food is meant the world to her.

It still has a long way to go, but it’s changing.

[–] neptune@dmv.social 1 points 11 months ago

I mean, it's a fantasy. It's going to tend to be transgressive or unrealistic, or else it would just be reality. Yes, it is sort of sending an anti feminist message that women can't have it all. But you pretty much have to make holiday movies where the whole point is to stop being greedy and pay attention to what matters (family).

So you aren't the target audience, combined with the movies being poorly written, combined with the very real situation where modern feminism has achieved its pyhrric victory of everyone getting to head towards equal participation in capitalism...