I asked my mother if she watched the Oscars earlier this month. She told me she didn’t because she didn’t watch any of the movies that came out. “They’re all full of killing and dying,” she complained.

A great start to planning Family Movie Night.

The dilemma is this: I have to find a movie that is complex enough to keep my father engaged, interesting enough for my brother’s attention span, calm enough to satiate my mother’s personal Hayes code, and not a Marvel movie (for my own sanity). The challenge is further complicated by the fact that my family refuses to stray too far into the “esoteric” category — that is, anything that doesn’t align with their established worldview. 

My family, as many average moviegoers, don’t take well to anything that is a harsh challenge to their schema. Even Wandavision, the one Marvel show that I liked, was too unfamiliar for them. If they’re stuck constantly asking “what’s going on?” whatever message the movie is trying to send flies over their head. They don’t watch movies to let themselves be changed by them; they watch movies that affirm what they already believe, movies that are easy to digest, movies that keep them comfortable. Hence: no killing.

And how can I blame them? Not everybody watches movies to radically change their worldview. For my family, who are constantly moving and working and worrying, Movie Night is a time to unwind after a long stressful day. If my mom wants a cute Hallmark movie after frying her brain with spreadsheets for eight hours straight, then all power to her.

But I’d rather swallow a bullet than watch a Hallmark movie, and my father would probably agree. So I follow what I like to call the Brooklyn 99 formula. 

My parents took fast to Brooklyn 99 for a few key reasons: short episodes, snappy humour, and the subtle ways it challenges the status quo. While Brooklyn 99 showcases a perfect white all-American main character, it also centralizes the experiences of multiple black characters, female characters, and queer characters, all with their own interesting personalities and dynamics. By nestling depictions of minorities in the comfortable formula of a workplace sitcom, the show picks at my parents’ established worldview in small easy-to-swallow bits. 

For that reason, Bottoms (2023) was an excellent hit with the family. It’s a campy comedy chock-full of jokes that aligns with a discernible genre of the teen movie while also including ironic nudges to difficulties of the queer experience. And yes (spoiler), it does have killing, but it’s so unserious that even my mother liked it. Palm Springs (2020) is another good fit: it’s fast-paced, the time loop is an easy-to-understand magical mechanism, and while the characters are multidimensional, their complexities are bundled up in an easily-digestible plotline. To top it all off, my parents already love Andy Samberg!