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Wildly inappropriate or inaccurate portrayals of step family life on TV and in film

Mercury's picture

What are some of the most offensive/inappropriate/naive/inaccurate scenes or story lines you have seen? Ever since I found myself stuck in this hell called steplife, my awareness of the world around me has sharpened considerably and now I notice things I never would have batted an eyelash at before.

I think pop culture depicting step life is a huge contributor to the unrealistic expectations, disappointments, and subsequent misery surrounding step life.

A recent observation:

Parks and Recreation - Ron Swanson dates a woman with kids and ends up marrying her. Throughout that blossoming relationship, his co-workers and friends are constantly making references to "his kids". "You have kids to think about now, Ron". "Now that you have a wife and kids..."

Fortunately, SS was watching with us and I said "What?! Those aren't his kids, he just married their mom. How presumptuous!". SS seemed relieved. We don't act like I'm his mom because I'm not. But...he knows that if his mom ever manages to land a man (and she probably won't) she would try to make the new guy the father, out of spite towards DH and also because she actually believes that the mere act of DH leaving HER makes him a bad father. (I already have too many blogs about that and the damage that has caused to his relationship with his daughter).

That's just one example. I actually see these things all the time now and my blood boils every time.

Comments

sunny_skies's picture

I watched the movie "Stepmom" with Julia Roberts before I met DH, and I thought it was so, so lovely, a really touching movie.

I happened to watched it again after dealing with psycho BM treating me like something stuck to her shoe, and I was like.. WTF, this is bullcrap!!!

The BM in that movie treated SM like *dirt* and ONLY started to warm up to SM when she knew she was gona CROAK! 

Oh! Oh! AND, when the dude proposed to SM, he was all like "I broke the bonds of marriage once, I won't do it again"

Here, look..

http://youtu.be/cL1B4N5dnTI

Before I met DH, I thought that scene was sooo beautiful and lovely, NOW, I'm like WHAT?!! Did you ACTUALLY bring up your EX WIFE while PROPOSING TO ME?!!! WTF! WTF! WTF!!!!

Jeez.. I must admit that whole movie made me kind of angry watching it for the second time!

But before I was in step hell, I just thought it was a lovely film LOL

Tuff Noogies's picture

ugh. and Liar Liar. oh i'm an unreliable shitty ass parent but due to some miracle from the heavens i am not capable of being a shitty ass parent, i've realized my mistakes and i still love mommy and we will all live happily ever after.

:sick: :sick: :sick:

notsobad's picture

It's called suspension of disbelief and you have to do it to watch anything on TV or the big screen. It's easy if you've never been to space or been a spy but not so easy when it's something that you deal with in your daily life.

I know a couple of lawyers who hate, hate, hate any and all court room dramas. The comedies they are better with but even some of those are tough for them to watch.

canigetabm's picture

Does anyone know of a movie where the teen stepdaughter is a rotten, evil brat to the Stepmom and the dad defends the SD no matter what?....no I haven't seen that one either! Now that's real life.

Monchichi's picture

The parent trap. W T F! No wonder we ended up with a bad rap! And seriously that Blended movie with Drew Barrymore and terrible actor whose name I can't remember at Sun City. Bah :sick:

canigetabm's picture

Adam Sandler.....yeah that movie was a load of horse shit..well maybe if BM died instead of abandoned SD things would be different.....nah see would still be a spoiled rotten asshole.

Maxwell09's picture

My first blog on here was about a storyline on Desperate Housewives about Lynette and Tom. You can read about the episode in my other post but basically it was pretty accurate of what I read here although when I first watched the episode I thought it was over dramatized. Nope. Not anymore; I've read worse on here. But of course they just wrote the little girl out of the story in the end when really we here all know it's never that simple.

I recently thought of The Sound Of Music. Maria is a stepmom! I just realized it after more than two decades of watching that movie countless times. I thought of making it into an ecard to post: Maria as the beginning stepmotherhood ; Cinderellas stepmom as the end.

Exjuliemccoy's picture

A realistic movie about steplife would require Quentin Tarantino's involvement Wink

misSTEP's picture

Any episode of the Brady Bunch. I watched one of the first (if not THE first) episode the other day. One of the girls read an advice columnist where someone wrote in that they have 3 kids and married someone with three kids and it wasn't going well. Kids and skids talked and they were all freaked out that one of the parents wrote the letter and their parent and stepparent were going to get divorced.

It definitely was a comedy to me....but for an entirely different reason than intended.

ChiefGrownup's picture

The latest Meryl Streep movie, Rickie and the Flash or something like that. Meryl's some kind of flighty rock star. She has to come home for some crisis in her adult daughter's life cuz only bm will do. Not dad. Not the sm who raised her. Just bm.

In the trailers they show a clip where the sm says to Meryl "There was a hole in your family and I filled it."

WTF?!!!! I think I disrupted the whole movie theatre with my blurting out dismay. NO stepmom goes around looking for some other woman's family so she can "fill" the hole! No stepmom defines herself through the other woman. WTFreakingF!!!!

I was so disgusted. It's on my list of movies to be banned. Much as I enjoy Meryl Streep, I will never see this godforsaken film.