Technology in Lifetime Movies
As I was getting ready for work this morning, I watched the scintillating 2009 movie Web of Lies about this woman whose boyfriend dies (or “dies” I cannot be sure as I haven’t seen how it all ends), and she is, get this, an Internet Security Designer. I love fake Lifetime movie jobs about as much as I love Fake Lifetime Movie music. Even more than that, I love technology in Lifetime Movies.
1. Passwords—this woman is a security expert and she learns her dead boyfriend is an expert hacker. She’s sitting at her laptop trying to guess his password. She starts with his birthday then her birthday and then she spots a necklace and types in, “Isadore.” Passwords these days generally require letters, numbers and characters. The rules for my work email password are so annoying as to make me very irritated. Wouldn’t a hacker have a more complex password than Isadore?
2. Extremely large type on monitors with like 600 x 800 screen resolution.
3. Lifetime Movies cannot afford Macs.
4. There’s a hacker named Spider and we know she’s a hacker because her hair is ratty and dyed and she wears a slouchy hat.
5. When engaged in an online chat the main character, Abby Turner, speaks as she types so we know what she’s saying and reading and sometimes, we see the screen at the same time. What’s even better is that she does all this fake typing with a fake typing sound effect and her hands are never quite where they should be. Honestly, I live for this sort of thing.
6. The laptop is approx. 5 inches thick and must weigh a lot.
7. Hacker is really an all purpose term for someone who does nefarious things with computers.
8. Fake computing nonsense about the “network”
9. Someone has mysteriously deposited $10 million in her bank account. OHNO!!! She finds this out by doing some absurdly easy “hacking” that is largely incomprehensible.
10. Even Abby’s cellphone was jankity. Wouldn’t an Internet Security Designer (DESIGNER!!!) have a smartphone that didn’t look like it was a new model Zack Morris Phone?
11. Never forget these classics:
