The Lifetime Television For Sadists…umm….Women remake of “Steel Magnolias”, featuring an all-black, mostly-star cast, brought in crazy ratings for the melodrama-loving network on Sunday – the third-largest audience in its history, somewhere behind that badly acted, badly written but still oddly sob-inducing Fantasia Barrino auto-bio-pic. Like the Fantasia movie, critics frigging hated it. They thought the acting was mostly great, especially Alfre Woodard and Phylicia Rashad, but that the transition from the 1989 big screen version (itself a play originally) to the small screen and the 200s was not smooth. And Shelby came off like a giant self-important nag this time, didn’t she?

Obviously, few who watched it cared and even if they did, Nielsen got them when they needed them, so they’re on record now. I imagine that my friends in media will wonder why such a badly-reviewed and not entirely successful film did so phenomenally. The wringing of hands and the not-so-subtle condescending disapproval of the Pablum-loving masses is sure to follow.

But without having to do a bit of research, I can tell you why. And it’s the same reason that Fantasia, and Tyler Perry movies, and “Army Wives”, and recent Diane Keaton movies, have been hits, even when they aren’t that good:

Because normal, adult women like to see themselves, or at least people who resemble themselves, on TV. They’re hungry for it, and will settle for even mediocre representations just so not to be ignored. They are tired of being made to understand that a 45-year-old woman can play the mother of a 30-year-old guy because women over 45 can’t actually have been the guy’s GIRLFRIEND, while Sofia Vergara and Al Bundy are a thing on “Modern Family”. They like a show about friendships, about real people like Fantasia overcoming the worst kind of setbacks, even though she’s a bad actress and was almost unconvincing playing herself. They love her anyway, and they love her story. And they love imagining that men fight over Diana Keaton, because she’s hot. They don’t believe that being over a size 8 makes you a heifer or unworthy of love. They don’t believe that non-white women have to be the quirky best friend or the secretary or the noble what-have-you that teaches the white women about love or sacrifice. And they don’t believe that you have to look like Kerry Washington to deserve hot sex.

“Steel Magnolias”, no matter who’s in it, is not emotionally complex, ironic or glib. It’s straight-forward in its manipulative emotionalism, its brave diabetic moms and grieving families. But it bears a heck of a lot more resemblance to a lot of grown people’s lives, even in its sweet pink haze, than a thousand episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” or “The New Girl” or what have you. I like escapism. But I also like some earnest goofiness where a guy moves into town to be with Alfre Woodard, because why wouldn’t he? She’s fierce! And hot black actresses who play the second banana in other instances get to be the hot, pursued star of Tyler Perry movies, even if they have to be in Tyler Perry movies for that to happen.

If audiences invest financially and emotionally in “Why Did I Get Married?” and such, don’t you think they’d also invest in a similar film that was actually well-made? Hollywood…perhaps if you made more movies and TV shows with diverse leads, about fundamental human stuff that didn’t have to be edgy or complicated, you’d get better ratings. Just saying. The audience is out there. What are you gonna do about it?