As I was doing the dishes this afternoon, I was struck by how all of the glasses I use have graduated from the odd mish-mash of free promotional cups and hand-me-downs to the slightly more representable collection of semi-classy pint glasses. And then I briefly thought about how in a few years, I'll probably breakdown and buy a matching set of glasses to use, just because everyone else my age has and I fear being left behind, apparently.
And then I realized how much I was the middle-of-the-montage, slightly-younger version of the sad-sack main character of the movie who at the end of said montage is forced to throw out his beloved old pint glass by his shrewish, image-obsessed wife as a poorly contrived plot point to show how much our once-plucky protagonist has had the life sucked out of him.
Now, I highly doubt anything of the sort will ever happen to me -- for example, dating a radical leftist means you're less than likely to have an image-obsessed wife -- but at the same time, I'm sure most no one expects this to happen to them.
Add suddenly, I realized: "Ok, Hollywood, I get it. I can see how one could let this happen to them. I understand the feeling of how looking at something completely innocuous, like a pint glass, can suddenly make you wonder where the bygone days of your youth have gone as you trudge through the meaningless world of bills and responsibility, having no idea when the nights of care-free idiocy ceased."
But the damn montage still doesn't work as a plot device. It's just a too transparantly lazy way to establish report with the ellsuive 18-49 year old white, male demographic. It's not witty or clever, or even subtle in the slightest. You may as well just have the character say "I am sad that my former lifestyle has been replaced my current, less desirable lifestyle."
So, you know, please stop doing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment