When in 'Doubt, fire' the ex

Last night as I was impatiently waiting for the Jazz game to come on because of an error with FSN, I randomly came upon a show that I had not seen in years. The story was a simple one, man has marital issues, man divorces wife, man attempts to win kids over (fails), man becomes house maid dressed like an old lady to stay close to the kids and keep tabs on his ex. You’ve guessed it, the incredible story of Mrs. Doubtfire!!! Apparently my memory is not so good because after watching for a couple of minutes I couldn’t believe how crazy the premise of this movie is.

Take a second and pretend that you are fifteen years old again. You have seen your dad everyday of your life and know him better than you know anyone else. Unfortunately, your parents decide to get a divorce and to compensate for taking care of you and your siblings, your mother hires a housekeeper. Oddly enough the new housekeeper looks exactly like your dad in a huge fat suit (Mrs. Doubtfire is the largest British housekeeper ever, has a strange body structure, and always wears the same thing), and to boot has a funny accent (did I mention that your dad was a professional at impersonations?) At any point would you suspect that this might be your dad? (you nodding your head slowly) YES!!!! It’s such a convoluted plot. How did the writers create the script? Here’s my take:

Screenwriter: Ok, I just talked to Robin Williams and he wants to make a new movie. He wants to do lots of impersonations and funny voices and that’s about all he said.

Writer: Hmmm, he does do that fantastic old English lady impression.

Screenwriter: Yeah, I’ve seen that. Ok, let’s see…how about he impersonates a housekeeper of some government official so that he can spy on them?

Writer: No, he’s not a great action actor. We need something with kids.

Screenwriter: He’s a hip housekeeper for street kids and helps them get their lives on track.

Writer: Wasn’t that kind of the premise of Hook?

Screenwriter: Ok, they’re his kids and he’s trying to be around them without them knowing it’s him

Writer: You’re on to something…

Seriously, how was this movie created? (It was actually based on a book, but it’s funny to think of a bunch of writers sitting around trying to create a movie this movie out of thin air) When I think of how you could get this kind of story I am stumped. Despite my misunderstanding of how this movie was created, I found some parts of the movie very funny, especially when you contrast it with Arrested Development. For AD fans, you’ll remember how Tobias dresses up as Mrs. Featherbottom so that he can see his daughter more regularly, but it is painfully (as in laughing too much pains) obvious that Tobias is the new housekeeper. I know I’m a bit late to hop on the mocking bandwagon of Mrs. Doubtfire, but AD ridicules how blatantly obvious it is that Robin Williams is the housekeeper in Mrs. Doubtfire. Does the movie ever address why there no background check? Name check? (how many Doubtfires exist?) Social Security check? Did Mrs. Doubtfire go to all this trouble to provide this false information?

All this thinking about Mrs. Doubtfire led me to some self evaluation. Don’t we sometimes want to remain in the lives of those who we break up with? Many people react to break ups in the same way as Robin Williams reacted to the break up with his (her) family in this show. I came up with six similarities:

1) After break ups, many girls (and boys) quickly find a way to get back into their ex’s lives. Examples include, attending the same church or club, going to a party they know the ex will be at, or in one crazy case actually moving into the same apartment complex as the ex. (this really happened and they are actually married now) Most people try to stay around and be friends with the ex in vain (sometimes legitimate) aspirations to rekindle the flame that has been put out.

2) Being friends with the new man (woman) in the ex’s life. Now this one is a little weird and to pull it off the person has to be very clever or subtle. In Mrs. Doubtfire, she sort of befriends Pierce Brosnan (new boyfriend) to keep loose tabs and make fun of him at every opportunity. Sometimes it is a lot more obvious. One time I met a really cool girl and we soon became friends on Facebook. Later that same day I received a friend request from someone who I did not know at all. I noticed that his friend’s included the girl I had recently met and her sister. When I questioned the girl about this she confirmed that he was her ex and that he added every boy that she met. I’m serious about this. The funny part was when I was hanging out at her house a week later and he came over. “Hey, you added me as a friend last week on facebook.” He mumbled something and walked into the other room. Weird…..

3) Parties. This is the easiest way to stay around in someone’s lives, especially with the advent of Facebook. Mrs. Doubtfire always finds ways to be at her (his) kid’s big events even though the dad can’t be there in person. He is still involved in the fun times. How easy is it to go and see what events someone is attending and randomly show up at that event (on the contrary this can help if you don’t want to randomly run into someone at a party)? Parties are a non-confrontational, relaxed environment that provides a place of casual conversation with an ex. Parties are a safe place to “run into someone” and chances are that the other person is going to be civil and maybe even kind. If you are really lucky they’ll realize that they made a huge mistake and start trying to date you again. Maybe.

4) Text. Although the texting craze hadn’t quite hit a stride yet when this movie was made it still proved that limited contact was necessary at some level. Robin Williams could see his kids once a week and only for a brief period and he was still relevant in their lives. The text offers limited contact in our day, but can mean many different things. Usually we have no idea why an ex is texting us, but this list gives a pretty good overview:

a. I’m sorry I hurt you

b. I hope that you come around

c. I’m still thinking about you

d. I’m not thinking about you enough to call

e. I still want to be friends

f. I want to ask you some irrelevant question that I already know the answer to

g. I’m lonely

h. I want to get back together

i. Remember how good of times we used to have

j. I am lost and have no idea what I’m doing

k. I want to hurt you in some way

l. I want to show you that I am more mature than you

m. I want to see you to see if there is anything between us still

The list goes on and on and on. The text is a wildcard. No one really knows what the other person’s motives are in texting. That is why it is called text, its 160 characters of words. Trying to derive any emotion out of text usually leaves people more confused. One of the most confusing things in a text from an ex is ‘how are you’? “Well I’m sad, you dumped me” “I’m over you”, how to you respond? There is no way to decipher what the words ‘how are you’ really mean. Refrain from using this at all costs.

5) Wasn’t Mrs. Doubtfire essentially stalking her (his) ex and children? He was obviously not in full custody of his children and seeing your children when you don’t have visiting rights is illegal. Stalking also happens when break ups occur. This does happen. The bad thing about stalking is, it is so easy. People can of course do it from a distance these days through social networking, but does that really diminish how crazy it is? There are times when you want to see how the ex is doing or what they have been up to lately, but it can go much further than that. I guess as long as you aren’t dressing up as a housekeeper at your ex’s house and cleaning up after them you are probably in good shape.

6) The straight up approach. At the end of Mrs. Doubtfire she finally comes clean, or rather is found out. She (him) states her motives, her love, her desires for her children and a reasonable solution (reasonable in the sense that this would be unsettling to find out your dad has been cross-dressing for months) is found. Sometimes the best solution is to get back together and sometimes the best solution is to cut all ties with the other person. If there exists any smidgen of doubt about where the relationship stands, the best thing to do is talk about it directly with that person. I spent the better part of a few years reading into signals (I guess they weren’t signals) that I perceived to be someone’s interest and I was wrong. I should have asked some tough questions and been clearer.

Maybe the writer of Mrs. Doubtfire had been divorced, maybe the screenwriter had been in a tough relationship and then tried to reconcile with his ex. Someone got the inspiration to write this movie and provide a blueprint of how to not do things when it relates to a break up of any kind. There are kernels of wisdom in explicitly not following the path that Mrs. Doubtfire walked.