Loyal readers, this week you and I are going to sink lower than we have ever sunk before: we are going to write a Lifetime Original Movie.
Given the fact that nobody ever watches them, the good folks over at Lifetime get away with making these wanna-be films disgustingly formulaic. They tend to take one of two forms. In the first, a strong, independent woman is besieged by various obstacles to living a happy successful life, and in the end she overcomes said obstacles to serve as an inspiration to women everywhere.
The second prototypical Lifetime Original Movie also features a strong, independent heroine besieged by various obstacles - but in the end she succumbs to the overwhelming pressures set upon the shoulders of the modern woman and dies a tragic death, ultimately serving as an inspiration to women everywhere.
The obstacles that prevent these women from reaching their goals include date rape, spousal abuse and divorce. Our heroine may be a fresh-faced young teenager who discovers she's been knocked up when she gets morning sickness all over the kitchen table. She might not even know how to read. After some melodramatic suffering, she inevitably transcends her myriad challenges. All of this is accomplished over the course of two tense, dramatic hours sprinkled with "you go, girl!" commercials for Kotex and Vagisil.
Just for reference, I'll share with you the queen of all Lifetime Original Movies: "The Burning Bed." Starring a dewy Farrah Fawcett as a beautiful, intelligent woman with a fat slob of a husband, the movie differs from "The King of Queens" in but one regard - the aforementioned fat slob of a husband savagely beats the crap out of his beautiful, intelligent wife on a regular basis. Poor Farrah eventually lights her bed on fire while her husband is sleeping in it, freeing herself and her children from the shackles of abuse. Women all over the world were made happier in their womanhood, blah blah blah blah. The credits roll.
As trite and unwatchable as you and I might find the phenomenon that is the Lifetime Original Movie, there are oodles of women who can't get enough of them. This got my enterprising little mind to thinking - why not blend the Lifetime Original Movie with real life and cash in? This past week alone there have been two separate incidents that are bound to translate beautifully into spectacular made-for-TV monstrosities.
The first "based on a true story" to get my green light for Lifetime is "Lust in Space," based on the travails of chemically unbalanced astronaut Lisa Nowak. Nowak, a married mother of three, was a robotics specialist who fell for the pilot of her space shuttle, William Oefelein. After carrying on a torrid affair with Oefelein, she began to suspect that he was also involved with Air Force captain Colleen Shipman. Long story short, Nowak drove 900 miles in diapers to stalk Shipman in an airport parking garage. At each of the 900 mile markers she passed, the pee-soaked Nowak could have come to grips with her sanity and returned home to her family. But, God bless her, she was in love. Ultimately, she spritzed a healthy dose of pepper spray into Shipman's car before being arrested. Now she is being charged with attempted kidnapping and attempted murder, and if convicted, she could spend the rest of her life in jail.
What tension! What drama! I don't know about you, but the director in me is salivating. With the right cast, this epic love triangle could get millions of women to tune into Lifetime. I'm picturing Felicity Huffman as the slightly deranged astronaut, Tim Allen as her philandering pilot lover and Tori Spelling as the terrorized other woman. That, my friends, is almost worth tuning in for.
The second part of my double feature based on events of this past week is "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," based on the life of the recently deceased Anna Nicole Smith. Over the course of 39 short years, this busty starlet got married, got rich, got widowed, got naked, got a reality show, got fat, got thin and got depressed, before finally getting dead. In her wake, she left a five-month-old daughter and a potential fortune. At the time of writing, three separate men (one of whom is the husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor) are fighting over the paternity of the little girl. Some are even suggesting that Smith fathered her daughter using the frozen sperm of her deceased, octogenarian, billionaire husband.
It's a gripping story. I laughed. I cried. I even got a little turned on. If Anna Nicole's saga can move a stony cold-hearted bastard like yours truly to tears, imagine what it'll do to the legions of emotionally unstable middle-aged women who tune into Lifetime. If we can get Christina Aguilera to pack on a few pounds to play the title role, we're golden.
Is it cruel of me to want to churn the tragedy of these two women through the Lifetime Original Movie construct just to make a few bucks? All I have to say is, nothing sells better than the story of a woman who has broken through the glass ceiling only to bleed to death on the shards.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sob into a pint of Häagen-Dazs.
Adam Cambier '09 once tried to eat a piece of charcoal he mistook for a chocolate cookie.
