An awkward moment at the Oscars

Short disclaimer . . .  I didn't watch the Academy Awards last night.  Not for any high-browed reason.  I didn't watch it because I don't have cable and I spent 25 minutes trying to see if my aerial would bring it in.  It didn't.  You should have seen me try really hard though.

So I got on with other business last night resigning myself to reading about it in the papers in the morning.  Yes I still read newspapers and I have an antenna.

So anyhow, I was looking through some of the headlines this morning and this little gem popped up - a spat between the star of Fifty Shades of Grey and her mom.

Her Mom.

How ridiculously awkward

They asked her mom if she would see a movie in which her daughter has a series of very intimate and deviant sexual moments with a man.

"no . . . I don't think I can, I think it would be strange."

Understatement of the year.  Maybe the decade.  Do you think anyone raises their child with the hopes of seeing them intimately involved with someone else?  How about intimately involved in twisted sexual behavior?  Do you think anyone raises their child with the hopes that the whole world will see those moments?  If you can find one mother who looks forward to that, she needs counseling.  Like now.

It is the connection of mother and daughter that makes this so weird.  Connection.  When people see this woman on a screen there is no connection in real life.  It is easy to place her in a characterized (and objectified) box.  If you spent a weekend getting to know her and her family it would make seeing the film that much closer to 'strange' (as her mother puts it).  

And it was priceless when she says, "she's a really good actress - I don't need to see that to know how good she is."  Yes.  A thousand times yes.

Perhaps that is a filter that we need to have when we think about what is appropriate for us as people to feed our minds.  What I am about to see . . . could I imagine my sister, mother or daughter starring in this?  If it is anything like the movie "Fifty Shades," my guess is 'no. . . It would be strange."  That is because we are connected to it.  It is the lack of connection that de-humanizes and de-sensitizes us to what is 'strange.'

In the end, it comes down to whatever we see in a movie is someone's little girl (or boy) on the screen.   

Click HERE for the interview