In keeping with my decades-long tradition of questionable taste in television, I spent my Sunday afternoon watching Lifetime. Let's be clear, though: I even have a hard time watching Project Runway now that it's gone from Bravo to Lifetime. So this isn't a habit. Just so you know.
It must have been Cougar Day. I noticed a pattern, and it got me thinking.
First was How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Now... I read the book when it first came out. (I was 13, I read it in six hours, and yes, I did understand the concept. I was advanced, okay?) But I've only seen the movie once, and I figured...why not watch it again? Aside from the fact that the Jamaican accent Taye Diggs purported was stilted and robotic, and Angela Bassett always looked angry even when she was supposed to be happy. But I digress; this isn't about the acting quality. It's a lovely story, really: Divorced, career-minded mom goes on vacation, finds love with a man half her age, brings him back home, they argue over the age difference, then they get back together and live happily ever after. Too bad it didn't work out that way for the author, Terry McMillan, who based the book upon her own whirlwind romance and subsequent marriage to a much younger man...which ended when he revealed he was gay.
After that, I was privy to the Lifetime Original Movie Flirting with Forty, starring the lovely Heather Locklear. Same premise, except the leading lady travels to Hawaii instead of Jamaica and maintains a long-distance relationship with her much younger lover before arguing over the age difference, then getting back together and living happily ever after. And this, too, was based upon an author's (Jane Porter) real-life relationship.
And even though it's not directly Lifetime-related... Does this not happen in Eat Pray Love, as well? Except this time it's Elizabeth Gilbert's life put on paper, then adapted to film.
Look, I know everyone enjoys a good self-discovery story. Especially when the protagonist is a middle-aged woman, reclaiming her right to be something other than strictly a wife, a mother, or an employee, and to embrace the idea that she's, y'know, not dead yet. I'm a feminist; I don't believe women have to subscribe to any particular convention or follow any specific life path. But it's starting to feel like having a midlife crisis and running off to a tropical locale is the new navel piercing for women, akin to a man buying an expensive sports car and taking one day off every week to play golf.
And this is really partially about men, isn't it? They've done this for decades - trade in the old model (his 40-something wife) for a shiny new one (his 20-something girlfriend) in a new place with a new outlook. Why can't a woman do that? Why can't she exercise her right to personal fulfillment in the same way? Well...she can. No one should tell her otherwise.
The problem is... An act that's meant to strike out against convention and assert individualism is going the same way as so many before it: It's becoming a fad. We see it all the time in our society, whether it's a certain style of dress or a choice of lifestyle. What's initially done for a poignant, deeply personal reason eventually just becomes "cool" or "rebellious." Then it's everywhere, and the meaning is lost. But everything goes in cycles. Sometimes we're done fighting the system, the clothes are out of fashion, and it just doesn't matter anymore.
But the message contained within this basic concept - that we need to break away from the chains of social norms and expectations and find what makes us us - will eventually be perverted. If every woman over the age of 30 decides she's lost herself somewhere in the paperwork on her desk and thinks the answer is a spiritual retreat, all we're doing is collectively running from our problems and glorifying a type of escapism that just isn't appropriate for some. Some people are happy and functional living within the constructs of society. But how many of them are going to start believing it's a false contentment? That they've been somehow deluded into thinking everything's okay? And what of those who actually do desire a change, to find themselves, but now think this is the only "right" way to go about it?
It's The Oprah Effect. She's been all over Eat Pray Love and other "self-help" books like Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, and encouraging "aha! moments." Don't get me wrong - I actually like Ms. Winfrey. But there are millions of women all over the world reading what she tells them to read, believing what she presents as gospel. The Church of Oprah may promote a multitude of wonderful ideals, such as "living your best life." But what is that exactly? Is it what you read in books or see on TV, or is it what you find in yourself, by yourself? Y'know...no books, no trips. Just good, old-fashioned self-awareness and deep thought.
People are so easily persuaded. Myself included, as strong-minded as I may be. I admit that, after watching those movies back-to-back the other day, I wondered if I was old enough for my midlife crisis. If I was entitled to an awakening, an enlightenment at the hands of a new love, or a burn from the Caribbean sun (I was thinking the Bahamas). But the truth of the matter is... I don't want that. Life, in and of itself, is enlightening enough without a destination. And I don't want to find myself through someone else. Plus I also sort of hate the beach. I'll stick with something a bit more organic and leave the exotic self-discovery journeys to Angela Bassett, Heather Locklear, and Julia Roberts.
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