Men, Women, and Children (2014)

Technology is a wonderful and scary thing. It is a wonderful way to connect so many people whether we know them or not. It is scary in that it can connect us to so many people whether we know them or not. Technology allows us to see videos of cute puppies snuggling babies. The same technology also allows us to see porn and violent things. It brings out different sides of us as well. We can go on tumblr and lose our minds over a specific fandom or, bringing it up again, we can go on porn sites and both things are different sides of our lives we may hide. The movie Men, Women, and Children explores how technology is used to do things people would not normally do or how they try to hide things.

            Men, Women, and Children tells a few different stories all based on technology. One story has a mother (Jennifer Garner) having control over everything her daughter texts and posts. Another the star football player quits the team and becomes deeply enthralled with the world of online gaming. Another has a mother (Judy Greer) and daughter obsessed with fame and run a website for the daughter with pictures and videos of her. A couple has martial issues because they just do not know how to be intimate with each other anymore and each goes looking for love on a porn site.  And there are a bunch more stories.

            All the stories are kind of terrifying. Not in a horror movie way they are terrifying because they are true. Who has not been obsessed with a video game? Who has not felt connected to someone they talk to online? Who has not looked at porn? (Me. Me, I’ve never truthfully looked up porn).

            The whole time I was watching this I kept thinking to myself how lucky I was not to grow up in today’s world. I graduated high school in 2006. YouTube was a year old and I had no clue what it was. Twitter was not a thing. For Christ’s sake I got just got a twitter account last November and I am twenty-seven!  Facebook was probably a thing but I did not join it until possibly my sophomore year of college. I got a cellphone when I was sixteen. I think like two months ago I got Snapchat but I only have it to follow certain YouTubers. As I was watching all the teenage drama unfold in the movie I could also not help to think about how I just got into YouTube fandom. As I said I am twenty-seven and there are a lot of much younger fans in the fandom. There was some recent drama in the fandom that involved my favorite YouTuber. It was not anything she did but she got unfairly called out (if you know what/who I am talking about leave a comment below!). The entire fandom for this particular YouTuber as well as for the entire platform went up in arms. I thanked the good lord I am older and not a teenager because I would have gone out guns blazing on all my social media pages like a maniac.

            I also thank the good lord that I never had the pressure of social media and texting on me when I was younger. Some the girls in this movie had either the pressure of social media or texting behind them. There was one story where a girl and a boy were texting each other even though they were only feet away. I just recently gave some advice to someone much younger than me who did not know how to talk to people she is having feelings for. She was going to text the person how she felt. I told her to talk to the person face to face.

            The cast was pretty good. I watched this movie solely for Jennifer Garner and her character was the most annoying and scary. She was the mother who has complete control over her daughter’s social media pages and texts and emails. The character actually went through her daughter’s computer and looked at what she was doing. I felt terrible for the daughter because it is an invasion of privacy and the matter of distrust between mother and daughter. The mother was fucked up! Adam Sandler was the husband in the couple that used the porn sites. He was actually really good. I normally cannot stand him at all and I liked his performance. Judy Greer was great too.

            Men, Women, and Children was a good movie. As I said it kind of scared me because it was a real look at what people use technology for. It scary to even have a damn Facebook. When I first started this blog I was afraid to even write down my opinions or even give out my one tumblr. I was afraid to even message people on tumblr now I am a tumblr addict and I have put my picture on my second tumblr a few times. Now you can see my face on my YouTube channel and you can check me out on twitter where I use my real picture. You just gotta know what you want to show people and what you want to keep hidden. And you gotta be careful with what information you put out there!

I am hoping that this review makes any sense. All the stories made me feel a few things since I practically live online. As I was watching this movie I was checking my tumblr and even sent out a few messages on there. Social media and technology runs my life and I struggle with how it makes me feel especially since I did not grow up on it.  Men, Women, and Children is worth watching at least once.