Eat, Pray, Barf...

I have been thinking about this for days now and finally decided it is time to but it on "paper!"

I absolutely abhor the movie Eat, Pray, Love. There. I said it. I saw it in the theatre last summer with a friend and immediately thought...there is something I really don't like about this. Now, being a former teacher of Film Appreciation I know, it's fine to hate it but I have to justify, rationalize...figure out why. Well, I did.

I admit, the cinematography is beautiful, the locations are lush and beautiful and exotic. I usually really like Julia Roberts and let's face it, Javier Bardem is HOT! The acting was fine, the music was fine...blah, blah, blah. What's not to like?

Well, let me tell you. The PREMISE! We live in a society that is lamenting the decline of its moral character. We mourn when children kill children in the streets. We wonder why relationships don't last and why our young people have no idea how to build solid loving relationships with other people...and then we laud a movie that praises just that.

Liz Gilbert (Roberts) "decides" she doesn't want to be married anymore. She has a wonderful husband who loves and cares for her. She has plenty of money, she is living the dream and one day she wakes up and decides she's not happy. She divorces her very confused and upset wonderful husband and throws away her friends and all that she has built and chases off to find herself, sleeping with the first young man she encounters, of course. No counseling, no true self-examination, no working toward reconciliation...she just goes. This is the "ME" generation. The whole movie is all about Liz Gilbert...walking away from her commitments, her loved-ones, etc. to find out what makes "her" happy. How utterly selfish is that?

Well, today I am not happy. Today, I don't want to live in this house. Today, I am hurt by certain people around me. Today, I wonder if I have any value to those people. Today, members of my family have frustrated me.

Do you see me walking away? Do you hear me tossing a proverbial "fuck you" over my shoulder as I fly off to Bali to find myself? No. Most of us stick. Most of us stand our ground, fight for our relationships, go nose-to-nose with those things that would rob us of joy and demand that we get what we need to exist. Life is painful. Life is hard. Life is a constant battle. Liz Gilbert is unwilling to fight that battle...and we praise this?

Liz Gilbert runs away, denies her commitments, lives her romantic single dream (because she soaked her ex-husband for lots of $$) and gets accolades for it.

Me, I bitch on my blog. I go to work every day. I get hurt and frustrated by the people I live with and the people I love. I would never walk away from this life...I have worked too hard to build it and there are people who do depend on me. I have a friend who works 5 jobs and lives with her mom so she can raise her awesome son. She doesn't complain, she doesn't run away. I am sure she is not always "happy" and at times wishes things were different but does she just up and decide she doesn't want to do it anymore? No, she sticks, she makes it work. It's in the "working" that we recognize those things that we value.

So, stop complaining that our kids don't understand how to build relationships and be good parents or good citizens. When we endorse a movie like this...what do we teach them? We teach them that when they are not "happy" (whatever that really means anyway!) they should walk away. That when life becomes too much of a challenge, we should simply find another life instead of working to make what we have work successfully.

I guess, in the end, we only have ourselves to blame for the "problems" we see in the younger generation. When we don't stand up for what we believe in, we reap what we have sown.

So, Bridgit...you get my vote. You are my hero today; a real woman for 2010...not Liz Gilbert...who runs away and abdicates. Let's celebrate all those men and women who face the challenges of life and overcome them with strength, courage, creativity, and fortitude and would never entertain the idea of running away.

Liz Gilbert is a chicken-shit...just sayin' =)