Why Adventures in Love and Birding‘s imperfections are actually awesome.
There has been a lot of fuss about this movie. Let me fucking set the scene. Man meets woman who is told she is to pretend to be his girlfriend at an event. Man doesn’t know that is what woman was told. Woman, instead walks into a birding event that is three weeks long as the “partner” of man who needed one to compete in this birding competition. Anyways, they end up not pretending and they fall in love. Typical, Hallmark movie fashion everyone has a dilemma that ends in fucking magic unicorn farts and shit then glitter or whatever.
However, this movie is being torn apart by birders because of its lack of perfection while actually birding. Most of the birds were correct in the film, except for a few. I am not getting into this shit, hear me out, I have a point to all this.
I watch a lot of Hallmark movies, in-fact, during Christmas, I will park my ass on the couch, make hot chocolate (or have a glass of wine) and indulge in the Hallmark Christmas movie tropes until I fall asleep or accidentally drink too much wine. This has forever been a FAVORITE time for me during the holidays. I have two friends who love this shit as much as I do, and we get together every Christmas and have a little event just for the three of us, themed for the Hallmark movies. This year, we are actually having a planning party after Hallmark release the Christmas Movie Line-up. Needless to say I’m a Hallmark “ho” of some sort. I need this corny atmosphere of ridiculous shenanigans.
As birders, we tend to want to have everything accurate and legit, almost just as historians want perfection in cinema. Let’s look at the reasons why it’s not a big deal here.
1. this is a fictional story
No, Hallmark probably didn’t consult a birders or even bother to get anything accurate, because it’s made up and they have a LOW ASS BUDGET. Can you imagine anyone caring if the damn spotted owl was actually a spotted owl, which it was totally not, and I got a great laugh out of this particular scene. It was fucking hilarious and cute.
2. Props are props
People are complaining that the binoculars aren’t real or they are insanely old. Ok, so. Hallmark probably didn’t want to get into an issue of paying a brand or legal battle OVER A HALLMARK MOVIE!!! (might I reiterate, this is a FUCKING HALLMARK movie).
3. This is free publicity
While everyone is putting out content on how terrible a Hallmark movie that involved birding was, Hallmark is gaining free exposure and getting people to say this shit: “Im going to watch that and see”. In the words of a famous philosopher on The Princess Bride “YOU FOOL! You’ve fell victim to one of the classic blunders.”
4. All of you who wrote a book that turned into a hallmark film, please stand up.
Some of you have forgotten something really fucking badass about this whole situation. A female author who is a birder wrote this book (Birding with Benefits) that was turned into a film. Not only has Sarah T. Dubb, author of Birding with Benefits had some great success with her book, she has single handedly exposed a lot of people to the world of birding. You never know who maybe inspired by this Hallmark movie or her book. Regardless, of the mistakes and misidentifications people will watch this movie and decided they want to get into birding, and that is amazing!
Congratulations to Sarah and I wish her much success!
Love to hear your thoughts or if you read the book or watched the movie! Let me know!