A Little Happier: When Your Life Feels Like “Groundhog Day”: Movies That Capture Concepts

EPISODE NOTES

Recently, on an episode of More Happier, my sister Elizabeth and I talked about a question I’d been pondering, just for the fun of it: What are specific movies that stand for entire concepts? We were trying to think of as many movies as possible where we could invoke a whole concept or situation, just by saying the name of the movie.

For instance, if I said, “Gosh, I really want to find a different job. It’s Groundhog Day around here,” you’d know what I meant. Or if I said, “Gosh, I really want to find a different job. It’s The Devil Wears Prada around here,” you’d know that I meant something quite different.

I found it extremely entertaining to think about this question.

Last year, one item on my “24 for 24” list was to make a list of “24 Things That Please Me.” I enjoyed this exercise so much that I’m doing it again for 2025. In fact, if I make a list like this for the next few years, as I expect I will, I’m thinking that I might make a little book out of it.

I was trying to give a name to whatever it is that pleases me so much about this exercise, and I think—though I’m still not sure—that it’s the pleasure of examples. It’s so satisfying when someone offers up an interesting idea, and then provides many apt or surprising examples.

Now that I’ve started thinking about the pleasure of examples, I’ve realized that I do indeed have a deep love of examples, and I spend much of my creative time thinking of interesting, fitting examples for points I’m trying to make.

If you share this love of examples, here is my ongoing list of examples of movies that stand for concepts. Elizabeth and I thought of some of these; others were suggested by listeners.