My Guilty Pleasure

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and feel pressured to prefer fine literature, that I feel a need to justify my love for Hallmark movies.

I know. I “hear” you rolling your eyes, but I thoroughly enjoy those cheesy, predictable stories peopled with a recycled queue of actors. They brighten dreary days when I’m too lazy to bake my own cupcakes. My dogs cuddle with me on our comfy sofa to watch “Love at First Bark,” eyeing up the adorable mixed breed TV mutt. Sometimes, I indulge because a good cry makes it all better.

Yes, the plotlines are predictable and the scripts formulaic: opening credits over an aerial shot of a big city, cut to high heels clicking over payment, cut to manicured female hand holding a cup of coffee (hot chocolate if it’s the holidays), and splat! —coffee in hand spills onto man who will ultimately be the hard won, long-time-coming lover.

The protagonist is almost always a woman. Circumstances such as the loss of a job, an ailing parent, or an inheritance force her to return to her hometown or some other place off the grid. Initially, she doesn’t really want to be there—she wants to go back to the city, to the high pressure, to the relationship she thinks is perfect, but is actually shallow. But then, the surreptitious country air gets her baking banana bread, wearing flannel shirts, and helping bus tables at the diner. The guy she spilled coffee on, or the one she first “bumped into” in said hometown becomes a gentle antagonist until he becomes her life-long partner. These are stories about women who discover what they really want out of life and who they really are.

It was my cousin, Bob, who got me hooked on Hallmark. “What’ wrong with watching a movie and feeling good when it’s all over?” he asked.

Hmmm… Shouldn’t movies, worth donating two hours of my life to, be artsy? Shouldn’t I feel emotional pain or at the very least angst? Shouldn’t I be having post-movie conversations over a tumbler of bourbon neat about the intricate dolly shot or subtext of the dialogue? If Bob, a keen outdoorsman and successful business executive, can enjoy Hallmark guilt-free, why can’t I surrender to the pleasure of a happy ending?

And that’s the crux of it. We feel good when someone with a high powered job in a fancy city chooses to live in a small town, opens a bakery, or drives a truck, or plants pear trees. This is proof that our lives—working at the local grocery store, volunteering at the shelter, or driving the kids to the orthodontist— are desirable.

And then there’s probably some truth to the idea that we wish to fall in love all over again—with a small town, with a husband of 25 years, with the good-hearted guy who weeds his grandmother’s garden on Sunday, with someone or something that will help us navigate the not so Hallmark real world.