“Movie Review”

Wanting to share his new movie knowledge a third grader asked, “Mr. Brandon have you seen the movie Tammy?”  Mentally I run through my movie library.  Let’s see there was Tammy and the Bachelor, Tammy Tell Me True, Tammy and the Doctor, and Tammy and the Millionaire.  Each had the same story line.  Young naive country girl, my favorite was Sandra Dee, who lives with her grandfather and prays to God about the many confusing thing in her life, falls in love with sophisticated man about town.  She sings about nature and especially about her new found love and in turn is rejected by high society.  High society then learns valuable lessons from the girl with the pure and loving heart.  Holding these movies with fond memories and knowing we all have sang along to “Tammy, Tammy, Tammy’s in love” I said, “Tell me about it.”  Then I settled back to listen to the heartwarming story as told through the eyes of a younger generation.  “Well,” he began, “there was this girl who got fired from her job so she stole a bunch of stuff and then her and her grandma went on a trip.  Her grandma was on a lot of medication and she wouldn’t take it so she acted crazy all the time.  Then they picked up a guy on the trip and they did some things that I can’t say because you know it was rated R.”  I pulled the plug on the movie summary with a “What are you watching R rated movies for?”  “I don’t know, I just wanted to know if you had seen the movie,” he said.  So one generation watches a rather admittedly, campy movie about a young girl named Tammy, who loves, cares for, and respects her grandfather who has very few material good and offers only love and understanding in return.  She treats others with respect even when looked down on and we see how other can respond when shown the right example.  Another generation watches a movie about a young lady named Tammy that has no respect for herself or those around her.  She goes on a trip with her heavily medicated grandmother, because the grandmother has money.  They drink, steel, and pick up strange men along the way doing things that no one should be doing.  There are some who would argue that a movie is just entertainment and whether we watch or don’t watch has nothing to do with the morals of our society.  I’m not one of them.  I believe tonight I will watch a Tammy movie where the most provocative nude scene is when Tammy dangles her bare feet in the waters of the Mississippi River.