The Truth About Hallmark Movies

     Well it's that time of year again... Hallmark Movie time. For me anyway. I've decided to explore my relationship with this curious thing- the hallmark movie- one that I think falls into the love/hate camp and that I can't seem to give up just yet. 

    To date, I have seen dozens, and then more dozens, of hallmark movies. This has happened over the past five years or so. I was never into these shows in the past, didn't even really know they existed, but for some reason, discovered them later in life. It probably started innocently enough one day with a lazy perusal through the Women's Network channel. I likely clicked on a hallmark movie one holiday season, and I'm not sure I've been the same since. 

    I don't mean this in a cosmically huge way though. It's not like these movies have transformed me, or enriched my life for the better really. I haven't changed fundamentally as a person as a result of watching single people turn into cozy couples over the span of two hours, over and over again. I haven't been the same because my initial hallmark movie experience then turned into a ritual that I haven't been able to ditch, even though I sometimes think it is in my best interest to do so. Which brings me to this idea that I have come to believe I am in some sort of dysfunctional relationship with the Hallmark Movie, one that teeters on that line between love and hate, every time I watch one, or even think of one. 

    Let's start first with the hatred part, shall we, so that I can then end this exploration on a positive note? I hate the sappiness, the cheesy lines, the fake acting, the predictability, the stunning good luck that always seems to land in the main characters' laps, the Christmas cheer, the Mr Rogers neighborhood feel. I hate the syrupy sweetness of it all, in essence the unreality of it all. I hate immersing myself in that sweet bubble of happiness because I know that real life doesn't usually work out the way it does in hallmark movies. I hate it because part of me resents it maybe, resents that it's not real, feels cheated because I want what they have... or I think I do... have been told I'm supposed to want that anyway by the world I inhabit. I'm supposed to want someone to suddenly appear before me and fill me up in all the right places with a wholesome kind of love, one that never ever includes sex (or even kisses for that matter) on a first, second or third date, one that is just simply quite nice. I think that sarcastic, biting, critical me might hate the niceness of it most of all.

    But then... the love... Enter the me who loves these movies, can't get enough of them, apparently. She sits down, on the sofa under her warm fuzzy blankets, in her pjs, with her fake fireplace glowing in the room while she watches. There she is- that me- tuning in for the zillionth time, waiting for the magic to fill her. Is it the magic of the predictable? Is there magic in the predictable? I begin to think there just might be. It dawns on me that this is why I love hallmark movies... I love the predictable endings. I love their fluffy, pretty wrappings and bows, how in the end, everything- and I mean everything- is perfectly wrapped up. I love the final kiss-- which is usually the first kiss incidentally (what is up with that?), and the fake snow falling around the soon to be lovers (because as I said earlier, they haven't been lovers up to this point and may well end up being sexually incompatible, but I digress...)... I love that things always work out in the end, and that everyone is nice and happy and filled with good cheer. Nice, sentimental, passionate and sweet me loves all of that. She exists as much as the previously mentioned critical me does. 

    So there is is, the truth about Hallmark Movies: They are both awful and beautiful all at once. They are gratingly annoying and a balm to my world-weary soul, at the same time. They are the relationship I can't get out of because as much as it irks me, it also fills me to the brim with sweetness. I guess the sweetness overrides the sharp cynicism within, most of the time. This is probably what it's all about for me in the end-- I watch the movies because I need to keep in touch with my syrupy sweet side, for fear that she'll disappear forever if I'm not careful. And I guess that's why I'll no doubt be sitting on my couch tonight, or some other night this week, tv remote in hand and wondering who is going to fall in love with whom this time. And I'll click on the movie, sit back and relax in the delicious sugar of it all.