{"id":32,"date":"2014-10-07T02:20:12","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T02:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gimmeabreak\/?p=32"},"modified":"2014-10-07T02:24:16","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T02:24:16","slug":"great-art-the-wisdom-of-ncis-hallmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gimmeabreak\/2014\/10\/great-art-the-wisdom-of-ncis-hallmark.html","title":{"rendered":"Great Art: The Wisdom of NCIS, Hallmark"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SHS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHallmark channel?!\u201d the professor exclaimed. \u201cAre you kidding me, do you know how poorly constructed those movies are? Have you ever read an analysis of them, deconstructed them to the point of understanding just how poorly they fare as art?\u201d<\/p>\n

No, I said, I\u2019ve never read an analysis of or \u201cdeconstructed\u201d a Hallmark movie\u2014or any movie, for that matter. \u00a0Nor will I, having little patience for analyses, words with more than three syllables or, say, \u00a0professors\u00a0who are just warming up when they hit the 45-minute mark in a lecture. Life is short and often uncomfortable, and joy\u2014a surefire antidote to the bad \u2018stuff\u2019 of life\u2014can be an effort to achieve; so why invite more joy-stealers into your life, such as boredom and over-intellectualizing?<\/p>\n

And I have absolutely no interest in deconstructing anything, I told him, except for a medium-rare New York Strip steak, preferably with saut\u00e9ed\u00a0mushrooms.<\/p>\n

Well, he sniffed, you\u2019re destroying your body as well as your mind.<\/p>\n

And I smiled. I smiled because, you see, I regard television as true art, museum for the jus’ folks, viewing it with\u00a0\u00a0the same reverence as my favorite theologian, Homer Simpson, who declared: \u201cTelevision! Teacher, mother, secret lover!\u201d So many of the problems of life are introduced through education and educators (university professors especially) who view popular television with the same disdain they reserve for bowling and tailgating. Life is so much more complicated, they insist, \u00a0than your average Hallmark movie with its happy ending, or a highly rated drama that wraps up in 60 minutes (42 without the commercials).<\/p>\n

Nonsense! There is much to be learned from a typical Hallmark movie: Happy endings, for example, are possible, as is true love\u2026and I believe in both. And so should you, if you want to recover from the unavoidable speed bumps on the road of life (hmm, maybe I should have taken up scriptwriting instead of professor-ing as a second career). And watching Leroy Jethro Gibbs on the hit drama NCIS<\/em> provides a model for the stoic and confident navigation of all that life throws at you, from murder to angry ex-spouses\u00a0and back again.<\/p>\n

The lessons of great entertainment, such as NCIS<\/em> or Blue Bloods<\/em> or the average Hallmark movie: Life is as simple or as complicated as you make it\u2026and attitude makes a difference. Cultivate a simple and joyful worldview, hold fast to Godly values, learn to smile after hitting those speed bumps and you will find it possible to work your way through to happy endings.<\/p>\n

Want to learn about life? Spot the occasional rainbow? Recover after hitting\u00a0a speed bump?<\/p>\n

Watch television.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHallmark channel?!\u201d the professor exclaimed. \u201cAre you kidding me, do you know how poorly constructed those movies are? Have you ever read an analysis of them, deconstructed them to the point of understanding just how poorly they fare as art?\u201d No, I said, I\u2019ve never read an analysis of or \u201cdeconstructed\u201d a Hallmark movie\u2014or any…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hallmark"],"yoast_head":"\nGreat Art: The Wisdom of NCIS, Hallmark - Aw C'Mon God Gimme a Break<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gimmeabreak\/2014\/10\/great-art-the-wisdom-of-ncis-hallmark.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Great Art: The Wisdom of NCIS, Hallmark - Aw C'Mon God Gimme a Break\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cHallmark channel?!\u201d the professor exclaimed. \u201cAre you kidding me, do you know how poorly constructed those movies are? 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