Sweet Home Alabama
Last night I stayed up much too late watching the romantic comedy "Sweet Home Alabama" with Reese Witherspoon. I have seen it a number of times, but it is a nuanced enough film, with a rather subtle transformation of the main character, for me to still find it interesting. Plus it uses the symbolism of glass--specifically of lightening striking sand to create glass sculptures--that I find incredibly cool.
The plot may strike some though as unlikely, since it involves a young fashion designer from a very poor family in Alabama getting engaged to the handsome and wealthy son of the mayor of New York, and then breaking off that engagement (as she is walking down the aisle) to go back to her childhood sweetheart. Part of the reason this seems unlikely is that the handsome and wealthy son is also incredibly nice to Reese Witherspoon's character, showering her with compliments and expensive gifts. But I, at least, got a bad taste in my mouth about him from the way he proposes to her. He has his driver pick her up, and take her to the back of a building, and then several men escort her into a dark room. When the lights are turned on, we see that she has been led into the jewelry department at Tiffany's, and 15 sales clerks are there standing behind the various counters, ready and waiting to show her any ring she could possibly want. She of course has no choice but to say yes, and no choice but to be pretend this is the happiest most amazing thing anyone could do for her. But she doesn't feel that way. And slowly through the film, that over-the-top expression of pitch perfect materialism begins to feel more and more false to her, and she starts to long for the nitty-gritty and not-so-pretty life she used to have.
Anyhow, the movie was on a channel here in the U.S. called Oxygen channel, whose logo is a huge O, and whose programming is entirely targeted at women. Most of the shows are about obnoxious women who don't care what people think of them, and the slogan for the network is "Live out loud".
I cannot decide if a channel like that would be popular in Iceland, or not.
The plot may strike some though as unlikely, since it involves a young fashion designer from a very poor family in Alabama getting engaged to the handsome and wealthy son of the mayor of New York, and then breaking off that engagement (as she is walking down the aisle) to go back to her childhood sweetheart. Part of the reason this seems unlikely is that the handsome and wealthy son is also incredibly nice to Reese Witherspoon's character, showering her with compliments and expensive gifts. But I, at least, got a bad taste in my mouth about him from the way he proposes to her. He has his driver pick her up, and take her to the back of a building, and then several men escort her into a dark room. When the lights are turned on, we see that she has been led into the jewelry department at Tiffany's, and 15 sales clerks are there standing behind the various counters, ready and waiting to show her any ring she could possibly want. She of course has no choice but to say yes, and no choice but to be pretend this is the happiest most amazing thing anyone could do for her. But she doesn't feel that way. And slowly through the film, that over-the-top expression of pitch perfect materialism begins to feel more and more false to her, and she starts to long for the nitty-gritty and not-so-pretty life she used to have.
Anyhow, the movie was on a channel here in the U.S. called Oxygen channel, whose logo is a huge O, and whose programming is entirely targeted at women. Most of the shows are about obnoxious women who don't care what people think of them, and the slogan for the network is "Live out loud".
I cannot decide if a channel like that would be popular in Iceland, or not.
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