History Main / LifeTimeMovieOfTheWeek

* ''Film/TheBurningBed'' is a made-for-tv movie that dramatizes the real-life story of a battered wife who sets her abusive husband on fire.[note]Ironically, it first aired during National Fire Prevention Week.[/note]

** In "Bart The Murderer", Bart is accused of apparently killing Skinner and soon, there's a TV movie titled, ''Blood On The Blackboard: The Bart Simpson Story''.

Lifetime Movie of the Week is a genre of {{Made for TV Movie}}s that feature similar plots and thematic elements -- mainly aggrieved women and their struggles to find empowerment of one sort or another. The {{Trope Namer|s}} is Creator/{{Lifetime}}, a cable TV channel in the United States with programming geared toward female audiences, which is well known for giving rise to the subgenre. Despite being the Trope Namer and TropeCodifier, Lifetime isn't the only source of movies in this subgenre; some of the most well-known (''Not Without My Daughter'') and most-parodied (''Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?'') movies weren't Lifetime Movies at all, although they now are frequently re-run on that channel.

* DeathBySex: The cheating husband just ''might'' avoid this but the attractive, promiscuous "other woman" will either be killed or be raped.

* UnfortunateImplications: Men are evil unless they're either gay or slavishly/brainlessly devoted to their women. Good women are super helpless, dumb and whiny, and if they toughen up it must be through lots of abuse. Any woman who's more attractive than the heroine is an evil whore. What a man is crucified for, a "good woman" will get away with. And it goes on, and on, and on...

* ''Film/TheBurningBed'' is a made-for-tv movie that dramatizes the real-life story of a battered wife who sets her abusive husband on fire.

** The Philippine soap "Huwag Ka Lang Mawawala" (Just Don't Be Gone) fits the trope, mostly since the lead woman only wants nothing but to take her son back from the husband who cheated on her. She succeeds, but doesn't kill the husband (since he ends up in a mental hospital) and both women (the latter whom the husband had an affair with but later revealed that she was just a substitute for the protagonist he ''still'' loved) get their happy ending.

** And continued by ''LaRosaDeGuadalupe'' ("The Rose of Guadalupe") and ''CadaQuienSuSanto'' ("To Each His own Saint", transmitted by Televisa and TV Azteca respectively, which is about [[XMeetsY the same but with religion played in]].

* Woman against man. A woman suffers from DomesticAbuse, ParentalIncest, or has a StalkerWithACrush. RapeAsDrama may be involved or merely threatened. This plot is very likely to end in a KarmicDeath for the Evil Man.

Lifetime Movie of the Week is a genre of {{Made for TV Movie}}s that feature similar plots and thematic elements -- mainly aggrieved women and their struggles to find empowerment of one sort or another. The TropeNamer is {{Lifetime}}, a cable TV channel in the United States with programming geared toward female audiences, which is well known for giving rise to the subgenre. Despite being the TropeNamer and TropeCodifier, Lifetime isn't the only source of movies in this subgenre; some of the most well-known (''Not Without My Daughter'') and most-parodied (''Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?'') movies weren't Lifetime Movies at all, although they now are frequently re-run on that channel.

* ''StrongMedicine'', in MedicalDrama format.

For the opposite, see SugarWiki/AHallmarkPresentation, named for the ''HallmarkHallOfFame'' series of [[MadeForTVMovie films]] which, appropriately for a greeting-card company, tend towards [[RoseTintedNarrative the other end of the scale]].

* The 1993 remake of ''AttackOfThe50FootWoman'' fits this formula. Men are abusive, sex-obsessed monsters? Check. Women are weak, spineless victims? Check.

One reason for the films' similarities is that they are designed to play on the fears of their target demographic. Thus, the themes of [[TheUnfairSex violent or uncaring men]], female rivalries, [[MyBelovedSmother smothering mothers]], [[TeensAreMonsters difficult children]], and [[ThereAreNoTherapists absent support systems]] are prevalent. Though notionally intended to send a message of empowerment by having the female [[EarnYourHappyEnding triumph]], it can seem like they have the [[BrokenAesop opposite effect]], as the world is depicted as harshly uncaring and even antagonistic toward "good" women, and rarely does a protagonist succeed [[DoubleStandard without help from a male ally]]. For the same reason, expect RippedFromTheHeadlines and VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory to come into play (and be heavily advertised).

** That particular episode ("A.T. the Abusive Terrestrial") is itself a parody of the LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek...and ''Film/{{ET|The Extraterrestrial}}''. Roger feels neglected by Steve, so he makes friends with a new boy (an {{Expy}} of Elliot). The boy eventually turns abusive, which Roger tries to hide from Steve. When he does find out, Steve helps Roger figure out a way to escape safely by pretending he has to return to his homeworld. However, the boy catches on, so Roger settles for [[GroinAttack kicking him in the crotch]], pushing over his bike then walking off.

* Simultaneously played straight and subverted in a ''SomethingPositive'' arc, in which Kharisma's arrest for murder is portrayed as an inspiring Lifetime Movie...but even the actress portraying her knows it's a load of bull.

* DeathBySex: Almost always non-chaste women and/or the cheating husband.

* RapePortrayedAsRedemption: Lifetime movies tend to take sadistic pleasure in breaking attractive promiscuous women.

* StalkerWithACrush

* UnfortunateImplications: Men are all evil unless they're either gay or slavishly/brainlessly devoted to their women. Good women are super helpless, dumb and whiny, and if they toughen up it must be through lots of abuse. Any woman who's more attractive than the heroine is an evil whore. What a man is crucified for, a "good woman" will get away with. And it goes on, and on, and on...

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: The Evil, Evil Men and Bad Women.

* SlutShaming: If you're a good woman in these movies, DON'T YOU DARE BE IN TOUCH WITH YOUR SEXUAL ATTRACTIVENESS IN ANY WAY.

!!Examples

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* ''{{Enough}}'' features a protagonist who, after abuse and cheating from her husband, breaks into her husband's house with the full intention of beating him to death with her bare hands. Her threat, "self-defense isn't murder", rings pretty hollow considering she's instigating the fight in his home and not hers, goes out of her way to remove anything he could use to defend himself, and even plants evidence to prove the version of the story she plans to tell the cops. She gets the upper hand, but then [[TheDogShotFirst she chickens out. After more struggling he falls out a two-story window]].

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* ''BetweenFriends'' bears many aspects of this genre, although as much as men are depicted badly, the allegedly "empowered" women are depicted as hyper-insecure, DoesThisMakeMeLookFat types who both agonize over buying the low-fat double-whipped frappucino and also pound back the cheesecake like there's no tomorrow.
* ''ForBetterOrForWorse'' has Michael's novel, ''Stone Season''. The plot concerns a woman stuck in a loveless marriage with an abusive husband which she makes no effort whatsoever to escape until the 'empowering' climax: he goes out into a storm to hit the bar and doesn't return. She goes searching for him, finds him seriously injured and weakened, and he berates her to help him. She says "No", and leaves him to die. She's a PinballProtagonist who only exists to suffer tragically until 'fate' disposes of her husband for her, and is praised as 'strong' and 'amazing' for this. (The excerpts given on Michael's CharacterBlog also depict 1960s Canada as being more or less like the 1860s in the rest of the Western world.)

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* In [[{{Transmetropolitan}} the future]] Lifetime movies can be about men, too. Men who struggle with raising headless children, saving nippleless strippers and dodging insane police snipers to save the world from crime by telling everyone that it is wrong.

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* A predecessor to ''Enough'' that also plays on the thriller aspect of a wife escaping the grasp of her abusive husband is the JuliaRoberts-starring ''Film/SleepingWithTheEnemy''.

* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Menbad, women good. Or "it's me/us versus him/her/them, I am/we are PERFECT, s/he is/they are are EBULLLL!"

** The "Woman against herself" type have female protagonists who swearloudlyby this trope, and are so self-absorbed that often the viewer ends up ''begging'' for the other charas to punch her.

* DistressedDamsel

* VillainWithGoodPublicity

* BlackAndWhiteMorality

* GayBestFriend
* GirlsNeedRoleModels

* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: A woman in a position of power over the protagonist, such as a boss or mother, will usually be a bitch and often the villain.

* MadonnaWhoreComplex: Often enforced which is ironic for movies that are supposed to be "empowering" for women.

* MamaDidntRaiseNoCriminal

* SlutShaming

* A variation of this can be found in ''VForVendetta'' in the story arc of Rosemary Almond, a gentle and demure housewife whose husband, Derek, just can't wait to get home every evening so he can get to beat her up and get drunk as a way to vent off his everyday frustrations. Derek is then killed by [[OneLetterName V]] himself, making her a WidowWoman. She is then hit on by one of her husband's co-workers whose sole purpose is to sully her husband's memory by fucking his wife. He is also killed by V later on. She is then expelled from society and is forced to become a showgirl to support herself. Eventually she snaps [[spoiler:and assassinates England's dictator]].

* A predecessor to ''Enough'' that also plays on the thriller aspect of a wife escaping the grasp of her abusive husband is the JuliaRoberts-starring ''SleepingWithTheEnemy''.