The summer blockbuster
Transformers: Rise of the Fallen finished the weekend raking in over $200 million despite the abysmal reviews surrounding the movie. The PG-13 film at two-and-a-half hours in length features foul language, crass jokes, racial stereotypes, various parts of Megan Fox, and phallic imagery -- like a pair of wrecking balls dangling between Devastator's legs to symbolize... well, you can figure that out.
Which is all really quite a shame. Transformers are for kids! What an opportunity to pass the cartoon I enjoyed when I was a kid and the action figures I used to play with on to another generation. If Michael Bay had cut down on the stupidity, I guarantee the film would have raked in at least another $50 to $100 million, smashing the all-time record. But forget the kids. We'll leave the family films to Pixar, I suppose.
In the movie, Megan Fox is there mostly as eye candy. And she knows it. "Really, my only job is to look attractive," she said. She wears little and is often positioned in provocative poses as though she's doing a swimsuit calendar photo shoot. As she revealed (no pun intended) in a recent interview, all of this attention being in a blockbuster franchise, all the fame and glamor that comes with it, has not been a fun ride for her.
Megan says that she deals with insecurity, and it started when her parents divorced. She began craving attention. She thought that the best way to cure her fear of rejection was to become famous. However, her plan has backfired. That sense of confidence she thought fame would give her is now having the opposite effect.
"I felt like once I achieved that success then all of my internal issues would be solved and I would be this really confident person," Megan said, "and I'm not. It's not just physical insecurity. It's also a feeling of not being acceptable, and wanting to be. Of course, I think that has something to do with my parents' divorce and not seeing my dad and always feeling rejected. You don't ever really get past that."
The pressure of Hollywood, she says, has resulted in eating disorders and severe depression -- so much so that her hair was falling out. She's also found it difficult to just hang out and keep her friends. Some will cancel their plans to go out because they don't want to be seen with the star and have their picture plastered all over the internet. Other times, Megan doesn't know who to trust. She's just being used because she's famous, and she can't know for sure if those who say they are her friends really are her friends.
Her co-star, Shia Labeouf (pronounced "SHY-uh luh-BUFF"), said in an unrelated interview that Megan's search for confidence by being famous is not an uncommon theme in Hollywood. "Actors live dependent on being validated by other people’s opinions," he said. "I think acting is a con game. The good actors are all screwed up. They’re all in pain. It’s a profession of bottom-feeders and heartbroken people."
If Megan Fox is any indication of the cause -- that this heartbreak she deals with every day comes from her parents' divorce -- this is what happens when we neglect the future generation. As a
fellow-blogger recently put it, "Children need to be guaranteed the presence of their parents' love for one another." Rob is no expert on the subject, but he doesn't need to be. There have been enough studies to show that children thrive in a solid, functional father/mother parent environment, and languish without it. The result of divorce can be something like Megan faces every day -- an ongoing, never-ending pursuit to feel like they are loved, and that the love they find is real and secure.
There's no doubt that Megan Fox is a success story. Even kids from broken homes can see big things happen to them, though most kids from single-parent homes wind up in poverty. Either way, success doesn't change the inner struggle they fight. Nothing can make up in adulthood what they lost as kids. Transformers is just a movie, but the neglect that millions of children face each day as a result of broken families is real. Less than 40% of kids from broken homes say they felt "emotionally safe" growing up, as opposed to 80% of kids who came from intact families (Elizabeth Marquardt,
Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce). It's time we stopped neglecting our children. Husbands and wives, the love you show for each other is the best thing you can give your kids, and to our future generations.
1 Timothy 3:5 "If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?"
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