A friend recently loaned me several dvds. One of them disgusted me so much that I thought I would share with you reasons why you should consider not renting or buying this movie. If you happen to like the Family Stone, perhaps you should stop reading this article now.

Psychologists talk about “projection” where one projects one’s own personality onto another person. In the Family Stone, I have to admit I identify quite strongly with Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Meredith. Being an introverted, awkward type of person in social settings, I can imagine how nerve racking it would be to be introduced for the first to your boyfriend’s family.

This movie is about how the series of events that occurs when Meredith is introduced to her boyfriend’s family during Christmas. While there are several things that annoyed me in this movie, not the least of which is the predicability of the plot and the shameless manipulation of the audience sympathy, the two main things are the stereotyping and the hypocrisy of the characters.

Firstly in terms of stereotyping, when we first are introduced to Meredith, she is on the phone being mean to one of her staff (presumably). From this, we are meant to deduce that she is a mean b**** (excuse the use of asterisks. I have a problem saying words stronger than damn expect when talking to the computer) – that and the fact that her hair is in a bun. Now the other female characters all have their hair down, even Meredith’s sister Julie (played by Claire Danes). And as we are being told, they are they nice people – warm and friendly people. Never mind that these supposedly “nicer” people already have preconceived ideas about Meredith and set out to reject her. An example would be when the whole family, Meredith and her sister are at dinner. When told that the gay brother was going to adopt a child with his partner, Julie asked whether they have a preferred race. Meredith also commented that no parents would wish their child to be homosexual is offensive.

Now I am not sure about the average person, but I would have thought what Meredith and her sister said were both equally socially tactless. However because Meredith is the stiff b**** (so obvious with the bun), her comments produced anger and horrid while Julie’s question was ok. To cut this article shorter, when Meredith was finally accepted by the family, guess what happened to her hair.

In regards to the hypocrisy of the characters, let me concentrate on the actions of Meredith’s “faithful” boyfriend Everett (played by Dermot Mulroney). The reason this guy brought his girlfriend of 10 years home to meet his family was so that he could proposed to her. But when he saw her sister, he “felt in love in her instead”. Now there is a moment in the clip where time slowed down for Everett and Julie was sort of enclosed in sunshine so that the audience would know that this is love. Now I can accept that the heart is a falling leaf and where it lands, no-one knows. But the hypocrisy I cannot stand is that while it is ok for Everett to be in lust (sorry in love) with Meredith’s sister, as long as he does not kiss her or sleep with her, it is ok – never mind that the fact that he wanted to kiss her but she said no. But it was wrong for Meredith to sleep with his brother (never it didn’t happen) – because she is HIS girlfriend. Now the last time I check, we are in the year 2007. So this primitive attitude about a woman being a man’s property could be a little outdated.

While I could ramble on about the failings of this movie, a one page essay is probably not what you want to read. So the moral of the story is always let your hair down, so people would think you are a good and kind person.