Hollywood vs. Reality

So my wife and I are watching “Modern Family” on TV the other night and during this particular episode Clare and Phil (the goofy and at times mismatched husband/wife duo) sorta break into their elderly neighbor’s house and find him slumped over in a chair apparently dead.  Of course he’s not dead, and after a little poking and prodding he springs to life and chaos ensues.  As with most things on that show (which I just love) it was a very funny scene. 

Anyway as we were watching that scene unfold I turned to my wife and said “You know we don’t do that kind of stuff,” to which she replied, “good.”

Now of course I understand where she’s coming from.  I don’t really want to break into my neighbor’s house, and I certainly don’t want to find anyone who appears to be dead, but once again Hollywood is up to its old tricks and is making everyday life look a lot more fun than it really is.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Hollywood and the movies and TV shows it gives me.  Few people like their couch and their flat screen TV as much as I do, and few people can sit around watching the same movie over and over the way I can.  But slowly but surely I’m coming to the sad realization that nothing Hollywood does is in any way, shape or form relatable to everyday life.

First it was the Hollywood violence.  Now I’m not talking about the spectacularly violent scenes in movies like “Rambo” or “The Terminator” or any of the Steven Seagal movies that I used to watch (by the way ever notice how Steven Seagal never loses a fight. . . ever. . . . in any of his movies. . . . even Rambo got the snot beat out of him every so often . . . hell the Terminator was ultimately destroyed and he was a cyborg from the future. . . . but not Seagal. . . . never lost a fight once. . . . spectacular).  No I’m talking about the more realistic shows like “Earthly Possessions” which was a made for cable movie starring Susan Sarandon and Stephen Dorff.  Not a particularly good movie, but it was on HBO back in the late ‘90’s and I’m pretty sure I was watching it in hopes of getting a good cable TV sex scene.  But in this show Sarandon’s character is being harassed by a big dude at a bar.  In walks Dorff’s character who drops the guy with one punch.  Awesome.  Well that’s the Hollywood version.

In real life I was involved in a bar fight back in college.  I was actually coming to the aid of a friend who was getting beat up by a guy.  Before I could get to my friend the bar’s bouncer grabbed me and literally threw me across a table and onto the floor where I laid in a puddle of spilled beer until another bouncer escorted me out. 

Next it was the glamorization of sex in Hollywood films.  Sex in movies looks great.  It’s hot.  It’s raw.  It’s passionate.  It’s “Body Heat.”  Its “9 ½ Weeks.”  It’s “Basic Instinct.”  That’s the Hollywood version.  However it’s not real.  Real life people just don’t have wild love making sessions in the middle of the afternoon where they push everything off the dining room table and then ravage each other’s bodies in a variety of positions.  Please.  If I were to push my wife’s dishes off the dining room table she’d scream at me for breaking her plates, and would probably try to plunge a butter knife into my chest.

And yeah, I’ve had sex in the bathtub.  Hell I’ve even lined the tub with candles and had a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice nearby.  Oh it was fun, but you know what happens when you’re done having sex in the bathtub. . . . stuff starts floating around.  Yeah, THAT STUFF.  They leave that part out in Hollywood.  All they show you is the passionate sex with water over-flowing the edges of the tub, and then the two people soaking in a warm post-sex embrace.  No one in their right mind is “soaking” afterwards.  You get the hell out and head straight to the shower.

And now I’m noticing more and more that everyday life or everyday relationships between husband and wife are a whole lot more fun on TV or in the movies. 

Whether it’s older movies like the John Hughes hit “She’s Having a Baby” where the husband and wife characters break into an impromptu paint fight while painting their babies’ room, or more recent movies like the romantic comedy “Fever Pitch” where Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore’s characters enjoy themselves at a number of Red Sox games, or whether it’s the bumbling husband and wife duo on TV’s “Modern Family” getting themselves involved in all sorts of hilarious hijinks, that’s the Hollywood version.

In real life I don’t paint rooms with my wife.  I’d rather be molested by a large German Sheppard than paint, so I sit on the couch while my wife paints.  And then weeks later we call a professional painter to come and fix the room that my wife originally painted (we had two walls two different shades of beige . . my mom still walks in and asks whether the walls are different colors. . . it’s not a good subject to bring up while my wife’s around).

And in real life a day at the ballpark is not casual and easy and carefree.  It’s a gigantic pain in the ass.  The kids are bored by the time the 4^th inning rolls around, and they fight that boredom by eating one of everything at the park, so despite the fact that I am NOT bored, and would like to watch the game, I spend most of the game flagging down vendors, or running back and forth to the various food courts.  And of course the fans seated around us aren’t warm and friendly like they are in the movies, but instead they’re loud, belligerent drunks who have twice spilled beer on one of my kids.

Furthermore, my wife and I don’t have conversations that end with silly punch lines or thoughtful conclusions.  No that’s the Hollywood version.  In real life my wife and I argue about running out of cherry flavored pop tarts, and about whether I forgot to fill her car up with gas, or whether she charged yet another pair of heels on our credit card.

But I’ve realized that maybe Hollywood marriages fail because life isn’t like Hollywood.  And while my life isn’t a movie, it’s real, and it works.  And while some days I crave adventure, I don’t want to bungee jump or hop on the next plane to Timbuktu.  After all, look what happened to Steve Carell and Tina Fey in “Date Night.”  While I might think that I need more adventure, I keep trying to convince my wife that we shouldn’t go downtown for dinner – you never know what could happen.