what do we do with our in-between times?

we challenge our bosses to blog challenges 

and we try to determine what what to do in this scenario: 

Aliens have come to earth. 

You have one movie to show them what humans are like. 

What movie is it?

Before you start calling me an anarchist, let me explain. 

It's not often that we get the chance (hypothetical or otherwise) to preemptively tell people/things/extra terrestrials about our human race, so I took my time thinking of the movie that would most adequately encompass our species.

First, I was really tempted to manipulate my new alien friends into believing that our lives were routinely interrupted by spontaneous songs and jazzy dance numbers by showing them a musical (It is taking all of my self-control not to write HELLO DOLLY in a large font and call this blog challenge done and won). 

But really, wouldn't it be nice if this were our life? We would hop out of bed singing Good Morning and we would go to work on the Trolly and everyone would tip their hat to everyone else and no one would be sad because everyone would be singing!! 

However, I had a feeling this would be more confusing than constructive, so I moved on to the classics. I thought about picking an American Film Industry favorite like Casablanca or Citizen Kane, but that would definitely be the easy, cliche way out (besides I have never actually been able to sit through Citizen Kane). 

Then, I thought about all the hard movies - Saving Privat Ryan and Step Mother came to mind before I remembered that I had intentionally not subjected myself to either movie for fear of the inevitable violence and/or unhappy ending. 

For a brief minute, I even thought about showing my aliens something silly like Wedding Crashers but I had a feeling a lot of the humor would have gotten lost on these pop-culture neonates.

As my thematic approach to picking a movie was clearly not working, I started making a list:

My movie would illustrate (not too violently) the human hubris (Think Pride & Prejudice) 

My movie would ultimately highlight (or at least hint at) the remarkable prowess of the human spirit to grow and rebirth hundreds of times over the course of our lives (Think Under the Tuscan Sun)

and, no surprise here, I knew my movie would have to involve love of some kind. 

Why love?

I believe that love is the driving force of our human race. I like to think that I can trace any present-day problem back to Aristophanes and his theory of soul mates, however, I recognize that this is both idealistic and ignorant. 

Regardless, these are my alien friends and this is my movie showing. 

Inevitably, they are going to get a picture of the human race taken from my camera. 

In the end, after much vacillating, I decided on 

Enchanted.

... it touches on divorce (an amalgamation of many human hubrises - selfishness, arrogance and a general unwillingness to love, compromise and see the other side... to name a few) and angry jealous people (... the evil witch) 

... it gracefully and beautifully illustrates how we grow up, and continue to grow up, every day through every experience (illustrated by the entire movie) 

... and ultimately, (through a song and dance number) Enchanted leaves viewers understanding the basic economics of love. 

Namely, that love attracts love (think "That's How You Know"). 

If you are loving and open to the world (and sing and dance), 

the world will open up to you.* 

(And even if the world does not open up to you, you are singing and dancing, meaning that you are chemically "happier" than you were before your jazz number).

Back to my aliens. At the very least, they will be able to relate to Giselle (coming into a new and different world), and at the very, very least we will bond over the adorable talking chipmunk (I doubt they will have rodents from where they are from, but who wouldn't think a rodent - let alone a talking/acting/singing rodent - wasn't precious!?) and spend the afternoon singing and twirling to "True Love's Kiss." 

*I would put this on a magnet for my aliens and their new fridge