Lifetime Movies

I know that this borders on an obsession, however, I feel as if there are some interesting feminist gems to be mined from LMN. Last night, for example, I watched, with my beautiful stepdaughter an older lifetime movie--The Eyes of a Stalker. This older film, I thought it was definitely from the 80s, but actually it was made in 1995 has a very classic, more formulaic structure than many lifetime movies. In this film, a young college girl is being stalked by a professor, albeit a pseudo professor, who is described as a "wily legal consultant" whatever that is. He hangs around the courthouse and campus offering people advice on how to use the small claims courts--(Everyone keeps saying, 'Hey Dr. Prime--I took your small claims class a couple of semesters ago!' What?!) At the beginning of the movie, the viewer is told that two years prior the heroine's father died, leaving her and her mother (who is a judge) to cope with life together.

So far, look at the elements: 1) The heroine (Beth) begins the movie as a ninny basically, but by the end of the film, thanks to the supportive relationship she has with her mother, Martha, who is formidable and the struggles she goes through, she becomes empowered and determines to make the stalker stop ruining her life.

2) The men in the film--her father, by all accounts a real prince, is dead. Her love interest is a jerk for a lot of the film and is always acting like Beth has brought the stalker upon herself. Stephen the Stalker is a "smooth" weirdo who is, in my opinion, very well cast. The only other male character is an old wizened PI who Beth's straightlaced mother initially resists but eventually comes to trust. Essentially, none of the men in this movie can be trusted, except for the most seemingly untrustworthy one--the PI.

3) May I venture to call this a Lifetime network Bildungsroman? The trajectory of the plot--young kid who learns some valuable lessons and becomes a woman certainly seems to qualify.

One interesting moment is when Martha tells Beth that she can't believe she is hanging around with the PI, and Beth says that he is "nice". Martha tells her that this is her problem--she is too nice for her own good. The interesting point about this encounter is that both women learn from each other--Martha learns eventually to overcome her prejudices and stereotypes, and Beth learns that she needs to toughen up a little.

To me this is exactly the kind of film that one expects Lifetime to make. It is much harder for me to categorize some of their other movies. I mean, why are women so interested in really sick crimes, and the aftermath of such crimes? (Eg Amber's Story)I guess there is something about what women relate to and the unimaginable but it is less obvious why these movies belong on a television station dedicated to women. Same with the movies where a women is the mayhem-maker, (eg the Trophy Wife's Secret). What fuels these kinds of fascinations? It seems to me that Lifetime producers thought that they would be making more movies like Eye of the Stalker and fewer movies like the Trophy Wife's Secret or that crazy one I reviewed previously about the cheerleader turned porn star. Man as enemy seems more like what you would expect all Lifetime movies to have as a common theme, but surprisingly, lots of times this is just not the case.