Movie: Steel Magnolias (brutal spoilers)

I'm going to be blasphemous.  I didn't care for Steel Magnolias.  In fact, I kind of got the impression that people have confused it with a similar but better movie.  Everyone who's suggested it to me as been all "Yay, strong women sticking together and supporting each other, yay!" and um...  OK. If you say so.

It's a very typical -- I'd say archtypical -- 1980s women's picture.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's another movie where even if you haven't seen it, you've probably seen it.

I probably would have enjoyed it more if I'd been able to pretend that Shelby had some rare condition that was completely not diabetes.  Because that was completely not diabetes.  They even tried to make it "special" diabetes, but it's just not cutting it.

First, so she has an insulin reaction, and you can tell because she has a... kinda seizure-y type thing? That's... unusual.  I'm not saying it's not possible, but it's unusual.  My grandmother's aunt, or so I'm told, would fall asleep when she had an insulin reaction and could not be woken up until some form of sugar had been forced down her throat.  My grandmother would turn violent or throw a temper tantrum.  My extremely diabetic teammate in high school once had a bad insulin reaction while on a field trip bus, and they knew because while trying to fall asleep on his seatmate's shoulder in the middle of the day, he asked "isn't it cold in here?" -- in 90F weather with no air conditioning.

You look up "insulin reaction", seizure is not one of the common things to come up.  It's usually some form of cognitive change (confusion, temper, or temper tantrum), or falling asleep and not responding to attempts to be woken up.  If it gets to the seizure point, a doctor needs to be called, even if the juice makes them feel better.

Next problem with the diabetes issue comes as a result of the other big problem with the movie: a woman with baby fever with no regard for her own health.  Death is an acceptable side effect if it gets you a kid made of your very own genetic material.  Real women have babies. Full stop.
Yeah, it's one of those.

So of course Shelby has to have a baby of her very own genetic material with no consideration that she's got a very good chance of passing on her "special diabetes".
Now the major concerns of a diabetic woman becoming pregnant are:
1) Birth defects.  Blood sugar levels off either way can cause problems, so you have to keep them under control.  (Shelby didn't put any thought on-screen into this aspect of her choice.  What little we see is "It might kill me but I'm OK with that because Real Women Have Babies.")
2) High blood pressure and it's associated effects.  From my reading, blindness is usually the first major complication that shows up from diabetes-induced high blood pressure during pregnancy.

Not with Shelby though.  Somehow the "special diabetes" completely trashes her kidneys while doing absolutely nothing else.  No eye problems, no heart problems, just boom.  Kidneys are completely gone.  (It's OK, she just borrows one from Mom.  And you thought it was bad when your kids take off with your clothes!)

And then finally she just goes into fatal renal failure with virtually no warning signs.  Two pangs of pain in the back and boom, she's braindead.  No fatigue, no nausea, no extremities swelling, no abnormal creatinine levels.  Just drops like a rock.

But not before she drags the telephone outside to try to call for help, instead of calling from where the phone is located.


There are better Female Buddy Flicks out there.

(Poor Netflix.  You know how it tries to bring up suggestions on movies you might like?  It's just thrown up its hands and given up with me.  Can't say I blame it.  I mean, I loved Van Helsing and liked League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, yet didn't care for Underworld.  How to you guess with someone like me?)