Know your audience

I just got home from a girls' night out. My mom volunteered to babysit (quite a sacrifice) so that I could go to a movie with my sister and niece. Tex-Mex and a chick flick...good times!

So we decide to see "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2." We sit down amongst the other ladies, teenage girls, and other females who have come to see a movie all about female bonding. The lights dim, the volume goes up, and the first two ads come across the screen...

Win a free movie screening with the WWE wrestler of your choice!

Huh?

WWE Wrestlemania 3895 coming soon to a theater near you!

Am I in the right theater?

I was so confused! (I admit I made up the second ad because I honestly was so blindsided by the idea of them advertising wrestling in a chick flick that I didn't pay attention to the details, but I PROMISE it said something like that!) The rest of the ads were fine, and I suppose demographically appropriate, but wrestlers? How many 13-30 year old women do you know that watch wrestling AND would admit it? It was just odd.

Another thing I found funny (strange, not haha) was the progression of the previews. Now, I fully admit that I go to the movies maybe four times a year...maybe this isn't new stuff. But the first preview was for a movie called "Fireproof." It's starring Kirk Cameron (still a cutie), and it was a Christian movie (about a man trying to save his marriage) that really made no qualms about being a Christian movie. The next movie was "The Women." The buzz around this movie is that there's not a man in it...made by women for women...about a woman whose husband is having an affair. And finally, "Nights in Rodanthe" with Richard Gere and Diane Lane...about a man (who abandoned his family for his career) and a woman (whose husband had--you guessed it!--an affair) who spend a passionate weekend together. There was also a Harry Potter preview in there somewhere too...which again seemed out of place to me.

It just struck me funny. Man fights for marriage. Married man messes around. Formerly married man and married woman mess around, because turnabout is fair play, after all. I'm not knocking the movies themselves--I'd like to see all three, actually--but it seemed strange to me.

As for the Sisterhood itself...if you haven't read the books yet, go out and read them. Then rent the movie. It's good (and the actresses in it are some of my very favorites), but the books are sooo much better, AND the movie will make more sense.

And apparently it will leave you wanting to go home and watch some wrestling. Go figure.

**One additional note... I forgot one sad, sad moment from our movie going experience. I can't believe I forgot this. As we were waiting for the movie to start, an ad came on for JC Penney. You may have seen it on TV...the "Don't You Forget About Me" song from The Breakfast Club is playing while models reenact different scenes from the movie--primarily the "wild and wacky kids" part (which incidentally happens after the characters have shared a joint--not sure if JCP realizes that). I was laughing to myself, because this is one of my favorite movies, and it's hard to believe it's now become so classic and iconic that it's a commercial. Then from behind me I hear two teenage girls (seniors) say, "What are they doing?" They didn't get it. I wanted to cry. I'm so old.***