Here's a list of some of the themes I expect to be tagging in my movie and book reviews here. I'll be adding to this list and posting longer discussions of each as my review database grows and I'm able to flesh them out more with examples.
Abuse Excuse
The childhood abuse theory of human evil has largely replaced the theological one in most contemporary movies and fiction. In the Lifetime format, usually a brief pro-forma flashback or description is used to "explain" why a bad person is so very bad. It more often appears as a device to enhance the plausibility of floridly evil characters than as an actual subject of the drama, though sometimes the specific form of abuse has plot implications also.
Bad Girls
Usually sexually manipulative sociopaths, though occasionally there's a "normal" woman deranged by childlessness or infidelity. It's unknown whether most Lifetime viewers enjoy tales of bad women as an exercise in social disapproval and self-validation, or as vicarious pleasure in forbidden bad behavior. (I tend to vacillate between the two in the course of a viewing, but the latter usually wins. Shhh, don't tell anyone!) Either way, these are pretty much the most fun Lifetime movies there are, in my opinion.
Demon Lover
Oh no, my perfect new boyfriend/husband or latest date is a scary stalker or wife-killer! Maybe! I won't know for sure until I break into his apartment/office/computer ...
Gaslighting
Nobody else can see the unnerving things I see! Is someone trying to drive me crazy, or just trying to make me look crazy to people who might otherwise help me?
Kill My Husband
Or sometimes just maim my husband. Ripped straight from the pages of Jane Eyre! Husband is maimed or killed in the course of attempting either to kill you, or just to commit various evil acts while suffocating you with his crazy love. You get the house, the kids, and the money and maybe a hot new boyfriend if he dies, or all of the above (less the boyfriend) plus a non-threatening (and probably paralyzed) grateful object of your care if he lives. And absolutely none of this is your fault! Grim, yet surprisingly common!
Secret Identities
You suddenly discover your husband is a completely different person than you thought he was, usually some kind of dangerous criminal, usually after he has faked his own death. Play your cards right and you might get the money, but you've got to stop him from killing you first, which you will! Potentially aggravating subsequent marriage counseling is obviated by his death or arrest. This is really a subset of Kill My Husband, but I think the frequency of the faked-death plot rates its own category.
Stranger Danger
A criminal or group of criminals threaten a family, which in turn is in the midst of some kind of trial of its own. The family bonds by repelling the outsiders.
Stranger in the House
This has some features in common with fairy tales about changelings, and with Heathcliff (probably a Gypsy baby!) in Wuthering Heights. A woman lets a safe-seeming person into the house--it could be a renter, or a handyman, or someone posing as a long-lost relative--and must discover the truth in time to repel the danger before she or her family is killed.
Lifetime Facts for Women
Not really a theme, but I'd like to keep track of them anyway. These are bald-faced lies about how the world works--usually touching on the legal system, but sometimes we get fake science and technology facts also--that are inserted into a Lifetime movie script to make the plot work. Kind of.
