Crap My Kids Watch

A tongue-in-cheek look at children's movies through adult eyes. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-29797587-2']); _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', '.tumblr.com']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[crapmykidswatch]

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

"Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" is one of the more underrated children's movies of the last few years.  While it's wonderfully inventive, incredibly silly, and plenty smart, it wasn't made by Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks, so it seems to have gotten lost in your local video store and doesn't sit on the wall of "classics" put out by the other studios. And it's a shame, really.  It pulled in just $124 million in theaters, which unfortunately deems it a money loser in today's world of children's cartoons, where computer animated movies cost over $100 million to make.  (Sometimes it seems that it would have been cheaper to make them live-action.)  It is based on a popular children's book, but the book is little more than illustrations of food covering buildings.  There are no characters, plot or story to speak of.  The movie created them all.  And after roughly seventy-three viewings in the last few weeks, I'm still finding little details in the story that make me smile. So if you haven't seen it, you should.  Your kids will love it.  And when you've finished watching it, the rest of this post will make more sense.  Head on over to Amazon and order it.  Your kids will thank me.  It's the story of a young, awkward inventor who develops a machine that turns water into food.  Through  a series of unfortunate events, his invention ends up floating in the clouds, causing it to rain food on the town below.  Everyone enjoys this new situation for a while (casually ignoring how incredibly disgusting this would be), before the machine grows out of control.  The food starts coming down in unintentionally large portions and starts to wreak havoc on the poor island of Sardine Falls.  The young inventor, Flint Lockwood, must travel to the skies in his flying car and put an end to this raining food nonsense once and for all.  And when I say "disgusting", I mean, "I feel sticky just thinking about this movie."

And of course, he does.  And everyone lives happily ever after.  The end credits let us know that everything was perfect from then on.  Flint and his father put good use to one of his other inventions (spray-on-shoes) as a roof sealant, start a new business together, and everything's all hunky-dory.  But as the credits roll, I can't help thinking that they royally screwed things up.  Flint Lockwood had created a machine that turns WATER into FOOD.  If my mother and Sally Struthers were right, there are some starving children somewhere, and while that knowledge did little to help get me to eat my peas, it does seem that a machine that can create food would be immensely helpful to them.  It turns water into food.  Give this guy a Nobel prize.

Sure, raining food isn't the best distribution method.  First of all, it's gross. 

From the live action version.

Second of all, it's wasteful.  Consider Leftover Mountain.  For the safety of your stomachs, I am NOT showing you a picture of Leftover Mountain.

And third, it's possibly dangerous.  While the movie plays for laughs the possibility of getting smacked in the face by a steak or piece of pizza, this could be potentially injurious to actual pedestrians in this situation.  Not to mention the lack of control over the machine.  When un-monitored in a controlled setting, what's to stop the machine from over-mutating the food and creating hot-dogs the size of Buicks?   Even with images like this, the movie kept it's "G" rating.

Still, it seems all of those problems could be solved with a few well-placed bolts or a simple redesign.  Secure the machine to the ground, make one for every town, and the world's food shortages would disappear overnight.  It's not as if the machine is expensive.  Flint created the machine out of spare parts found lying in his backyard.    He's like a hoarder squared.  He uses his crap to make more crap-making machines.

  He lives at home, has no job, and his father works at a Sardine Bait and Tackle shop.  If his meager funds could produce it, it seems to me that the good folks over at GE or Dole could whip up something a bit safer.  But no, instead of saving the world from famine, Flint abandons his invention after a rough start and goes into the roofing business.   In order to please this guy. 

Flint started inventing because he wanted to make the world a better place.  By the end of the movie, he's happy because he's earned the respect of his father and found a new girlfriend.  This is all well and good, but the world is not improved by the end, only his life is.  The town's financial troubles couldn't possibly be any better than they were at the start and are probably much, much worse.  (Twice, the town's mayor takes out short-term high-interest loans to fix up the town.  Twice, those improvements are destroyed by Flint Lockwood.  Finally, the mayor abandons the town.  It's portrayed as a cowardly move, but really, can you blame him?)  Flint can change his mind if he wants to, that's only fair.  But he has not only failed to accomplish his goal of improving the world, he has actually done much more global damage than good.  He seems to have learned his lesson and won't be risking the world's safety anytime soon, but within his failure lies the power to save it, if only he'll try.    I'm telling you, this is all he needs. 

This sort of thing happens a lot in children's movies.  In "Tangled", Rapunzel has magic hair with healing powers.  But she abandons this gift in order to save her boyfriend.  More commonly, the villain has the magical or incredible powers that could be hugely beneficial if used prop, but instead of trying to focus that energy towards a good, useful goal, they must be defeated, their powers dying along with them.  See "The Little Mermaid", "Shrek 2", "The Princess and the Frog", "Up!", "Shrek Forever After" and "Enchanted", among many, many others.  What's the lesson supposed to be here?  Don't try?  Don't be ambitious?  In all of these movies, the hero (or heroine) learns something valuable about love and family.  And that's just wonderful.  But do they need to learn these lessons at the expense of helping others?  The two aren't mutually exclusive, are they?  Time and time again in children's movies, our hero is forced to make a choice:  save your love, or save the world. You can't often have both.  And time and time again, our hero lives happily ever after by saving their love (for lack of a better word, the selfish move), and letting the world worry about itself.  (They may save the world from being destroyed, but they do little to improve things).   

Granted, in movies like "The Little Mermaid", it may just be wishful thinking to think that Ariel would ever be able to stop Ursula from using her powers for evil.  Killing her off and stopping her evil ways may very well be the best option.  If she had the power to make herself beautiful all along, why didn't she ever use it?

But in "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs", that choice is really nonexistent.  The entire movie could play out just the way it does.  Then, once the credits start to roll, Flint could begin work on Model 2, complete with bolts to safely harness it to the ground and a controlled water supply.  Voila!  No more starvation in Africa. The choice between love and accomplishment isn't a real choice.  Once a girl shows some interest, that is no reason for a young man to abandon his goals in life.  If one of my children is ever so bright as to create a world changing invention (hopefully for the good, but I'll love and support them no matter their choices), I'd like to think that their loved ones, myself included, would stand behind them.  And more importantly, I'd like to think that my love wouldn't be enough to make them satisfied, abandoning all ambition to start a roofing business. But that's just me.  I know plenty of parents who would rather their children not risk their lives playing mad-scientist.  To me, that seems a little boring, but whatever.  So long as your child has dreams, encourage them.  Even if those dreams are evil.  ("Despicable Me" and "Megamind" both feature villains with wonderful, possibly-earth-saving, inventions who become good by the end of the film.)  If they don't have the support now, they may give up on all their dreams once some flimsy love-interest comes along and gives it to them.  In fact, when watching "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs", the argument could be made that all of the negative consequences of Flint's machine are caused by his desire to please others, namely the Mayor and his love interest.  Multiple times Flint ignores the warning signs at their suggestions or because he thinks it will impress them.  If only his father had supported his dreams, he may not have had to almost destroy the world.  Parents should take that to heart.  

Bad parenting caused this. 

[crapmykidswatch]

Cars

"Cars"

Pixar's "Cars" made a hell of a lot of money.  There aren't very good record-keeping systems for this sort of thing, but it's almost certainly one of the top ten most profitable movies ever made.  Seriously. 

I know what you're thinking:  It didn't make that much.  It's not in the same realm as "Titanic" or "Avatar", or any of the eight "Harry Potter" movies, and you'd be right.  In fact, if we're limiting ourselves to just the box-office receipts, "Cars" didn't even place in the top 50 earners of it's decade.  It's not even the biggest Pixar earner.  It's their third-worst.

Still, it's hard to complain when you need stacks of boxes to hold all of your money.

But "Cars" sold a ton of toys.  At the box office, "Cars" earned $461,981,604.  Just under half-a-billion.  That ain't bad for what many considered to be Pixar's worst movie to date (a title recently overtaken by "Cars 2", although if you ask me, "Cars 2" is the superior movie - but that's an argument we can save for another post).  But when you count the merchandising, "Cars" earned almost $12 BILLION dollars, prior to the release of "Cars 2"!  That's Billion.  With a B.  And that's the amount that Disney collected from their small percentage of liscensing fees of "Cars" merchandise.  Typically, they take about 30% of the retail cost, but that can vary wildly depending on the product, the company who makes it, the store who sells it, etc.  The actual dollar amount of "Cars" stuff sold is much, much higher.  Look at that graph again and guess which one is getting the next sequel.  

I voted for "Up 2: Falling Down", but "Up!" didn't sell any toys.

With that kind of money rolling in, the movie was really just a commercial for the toys.  It could have lost every penny at the box office, and Disney would still have been more than happy so long as the kids kept buying their crap.  And as a parent, I'm more guilty than most.  My son has "Cars" pajamas, "Cars" sheets, a "Cars" bed, all of the "Cars" cars, and to top it all off, he even had a "Cars" kiddy toilet.  That's right.  The Crap My Kids Watch has started dictating how I Watch My Kids Crap.  (I wrote this whole post just so I could use that line.) 

It makes engine noises when you flush!  Do they come in adult sizes, you ask?  If they don't, they should.

"Cars" is just the most successful recent example.  "Toy Story 3" is expected to bring in $7.4 BILLION in merchandise sales.  That's on top of the billions earned by parts 1 and 2.  If we focus just on the decade from 2000 to 2010, eleven of the fifty highest grossing movies were cartoons.  Children's movies make up roughly 10% of all tickets sold.  And still, all of that box office money pales in comparison to what the same companies can make on the toys that the kids buy after watching the movies. 

Pixar, one of the most successful studios of all time, pulled in over $7 Billion at the box office after their first TWELVE movies.  COMBINED.  That's a damned good figure.  No other studio in the history of cinema has had that kind of track record.  But it's still less than they made off of the toys sold for just one of their films. 

Mr. Pixar.

As of today, the most successful film (in terms of box-office) for this current year, has been "The Lorax".  This is a film that makes fun of corporate sponsorship.  In fact, in the movie they even show a billboard saying "Lorax Approved" to sell some product as a way of criticizing such actions.  Still, if you turn on the television or go to the supermarket, you will find everything from kitchen cleaner to Mazdas being sold as, you guessed it, "Lorax Approved".  The true figures may never be released, but I'd bet that the movie makes more off of the liscensing and merchandise than off the movie itself.  They usually do. 

But what is it about "Cars" that makes it so successful?  How does one of Pixar's worst performing movies become the best cash cow?  

"Cars" doesn't just do a good job being a toy commercial posing as art, the movie's a lesson in pure capitalism, and it's the morals of the film that I think drive the kids to the cash registers.

Today's lesson in capitalism is brought to you by Coca-Cola and Pixar.

If you ask any child what the lesson of "Cars" is, they will tell you it's about a fast-paced race-car who learns to slow down and enjoy life and the importance of friendship.  And that message is there, sure.  But Lightning doesn't retire from racing.  In fact, when "Cars 2" begins, we find that Lightning has won a record four championships.  This is not a guy who slowed down.  

But there are much bigger lessons to be learned from the film.  Here are a few I picked up: 

First off, forget the American dream.  In the world of "Cars", you can't be anything you want to be.  Lightning McQueen is a race car.  That's who he is and what he does.  Mater is a tow truck.  Mater will never race, Lightning will never tow.  Firetrucks are firetrucks, planes are planes.  Sure, some may be lucky enough to have choices:  they may have stores or become lawyers, but for many, there is no choice.  Their abilities are limited and their place in the market is fixed.  Some of the children watching will grow up to be astronauts.  Some will be garbage men.  It's just the way you're built.

Sorry, Sid.  It's just the way it is.  

Second, forget charity.  (Ayn Rand would love this movie.)  When Lightning wants to help all of his new friends, he doesn't bail them out, he buys things from them and gives them jobs.  He builds his new training facility in the town.  Every nice thing he does isn't just a nice thing, but a financial transaction where he walks away with something in return.  He wants to help out Luigi, he buys some tires.  He pays Ramone to paint his car.  

And happiness!

Third, prizes aren't everything (but money might be).  As Doc says, the Piston Cup is "just an empty cup".  Losing the race isn't the end of the world.  In fact, Lightning loses on purpose in order to help out an older race car.  (Not charity.  He may have done it with charitable intentions, but first of all, the prize isn't important, and second of all, the act secures him a fame and respect, which are shown in the film to translate into sponsorship offers with financial incentives.)  The prize isn't all that important.  But the economic decay of the town is a tragedy that can only be solved with money being spent.  Lightning is a hero for helping provide for the town economically. 

With all that money, you'd think he could buy some pants. 

The movie really couldn't be more republican if it tried.  With a movie with that kind of message, it's no surprise that it's profits rank in the eleven figures.  Kids may not be buying the toys just because they're cool and fun, but because the movie told them that buying things was the best way you could express your feelings. 

If it was really just about the toys, you'd think "Toy Story" would have earned more than "Cars" in merchandise.  But movie for movie, it hasn't yet. (Although love your toys is a powerful message.  $7 Billion doesn't come in second place very often.)  And that movie tried as hard as possible to teach young children that loving toys was the very best thing they could do.  But it didn't teach them to buy things, it taught them hold on to their toys forever.  "Cars" showed us that cars age.  They retire and make room for new cars to come along.  When a car crashes in "Cars", they're done racing.  When Woody loses his arm in "Toy Story 2", he's repaired so he can keep playing.  And if your kids are anything like my kids, they will rush to buy new cars every chance they get, while one Buzz Lightyear toy seems to be enough to keep my son happy.  I don't think that's a coincidence.  

And all of that commercialism is fine, so long as you remember:  you may think they're just watching a fun movie, but what they're really seeing is this:  

Buy one of everything!  

And that's all Disney ever intended them to see. 

[crapmykidswatch]

Shrek

  Once upon a time, in a land not so far away...

There lived a man named Jeffrey Katzenberg.  

Our Hero.

He worked for a very powerful man named Michael Eisner.  

Our Villain.

When his extremely powerful boss became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 1984, our hero was placed in charge of Disney's motion picture division.  Katzenberg was soon credited with turning the studio around.  A company that had been floundering and fighting off takeovers left and right soon became successful once again.  Under his leadership, Disney produced "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", and "The Lion King", among others.  Katzenberg was also the figure responsible for the partnership between Disney and Pixar, further cementing Disney's dominance over animation for years to come.  

But things were not as rosy as they seem.  In 1994, when a tragic helicopter accident killed Disney President Frank Wells, Katzenberg thought that he deserved the position.  Eisner disagreed.  They argued vehemently back and forth, and Eisner, the evil King of our tale, forced Katzenberg to resign.  Katzenberg sued, and won $250 million in an out of court settlement.  

Disney suffered in Katzenberg's absence.  While Disney continued to put out movies, their so-called "second Golden Age" was done.  "Pocahontas", "Mulan", "Tarzan", "Hunchback of Notre Dame", while some are decent movies, there are few who would argue that the quality was anywhere near the reign under Katzenberg.  His replacement, Michael Ovitz, lasted only fourteen months before being forced out in settlement that took over ten years to settle in court.  

Our hero, Jeffrey Katzenberg, would not go down without a fight.  He left Disney and immediately started up a new company with a couple of friends of his.  Dreamworks SKG (The "K" stands for Katzenberg) would go on to give Disney a run for their money and their first real competition over the kids' movie market.  

In 2001, our hero released "Shrek".  Based on a children's book of the same name, "Shrek" is a different sort of fairy tale.  And it was made specifically as a giant middle finger to Disney.  

No caption needed.

"Shrek" is the anti-Disney fairy tale.  The princess does NOT end up with the prince.  Neither the hero, nor the princess, is beautiful.  

Not a Disney princess.

Instead of moving from the swamp to the castle, our princess does the reverse.  Instead of song and dance routines penned by our best song-writers, we have popular rock songs on the soundtrack.  And our villain?  In this movie, as in real life, it's Michael Eisner.  

Farquaad/Fuck Wad

Lord Farquaad, (or, "Fuck Wad" if you want to lose the subtlety) is directly based on Michael Eisner.  Both men are power-hungry control freaks.  Just as Farquaad elects to send knights out to save his princesses for him, then take all the credit, Eisner was more than happy to take credit for Katzenberg's successes.  

Just as Farquaad was driven to create Duloc, an ultra-clean theme park with few visitors, Eisner created Euro-Disney.

Pictured: Not Duloc.

Farquaad banished his fairy tale creatures to the swamp.  Eisner's Disney stayed away from fairy tales for awhile, preferring other public domain projects like "Hunchback" or "Pocahontas".  

Farquaad is very, very short.  Eisner is six foot three, but he hated short people.  He is quoted in court documents as calling Katzenberg a "fucking midget".  This was one more little way that Katz was sticking it to Eisner, as well as giving himself deniability. When asked if Farquaad is based on Eisner, he can say (and has said) that it can't be, because Eisner's not short.  

In the end, Eisner got what he deserved.  He was forced out of the company by none other than Roy Disney, grandson of Walt, who said that Eisner had turned Disney into a "rapacious, soul-less" company.  

Farquaad was eaten by a lovable dragon.  

Corporate takeover.

I should point out that Katzenberg has denied any intentional similarities between Eisner and Farquaad.  It is also worth noting that Eisner once sued an elementary school for using a Mickey Mouse logo on a wall mural without permission. So he's not the kind of guy you want to admit making fun of.  

Take that, School!  

It's also fun to point out that neither Farquaad or Duloc are in the original children's book.  Both were added to the story only when in development at Dreamworks SKG.  So make of the rumors what you will.  

"Shrek" went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, beating out Disney's "Chicken Little" and Pixar's "Monster's Inc."  Katzenberg still runs Dreamworks Animation and has turned it into an extremely successful studio, surpassing Disney films in critical reviews and box office receipts.  (Though he's still chasing Pixar on both counts.)  

All of the above is lost on children, who just love the nice little story of the lovable, ugly ogre who proves that true beauty is on the inside.  

But what the real life story teaches us is that sometimes there are deeper meanings hidden behind the scenes, even in children's movies.  And deeper morals, too.  In Shrek, we learn to follow the Golden Rule, for if you fail to treat others kindly, they may make a classic children's movie where millions of children will cheer when you die for years to come.    

Mirror, mirror... Where did I go wrong?

[crapmykidswatch]

Toy Story

Quick:  Who's your favorite character in Pixar's "Toy Story"?  Buzz?  Woody?  Mr. Potato Head?  

Mine's Sid Phillips.  Yes, I know he's the villain, but I feel for the kid.  

How could you not love that face?  

First off, he's got my sympathies.  His house is a wreck.  It doesn't look like it's been updated since the '60s.  His backyard is a disaster area (maybe that's a little his fault).  He doesn't even get a lamp in his room, just a hanging light bulb.  We never see his mother, but we do catch a tiny glimpse of his father (or at least his foot), watching crappy television in his upstairs den (does having a tv room upstairs with the bedrooms seem weird to anyone else?), in the middle of the afternoon.  

I'd always assumed these were beer cans, but on closer inspection, it's soda.

Sid's parents obviously neglect him.  If they are paying any sort of attention to him, that might actually make them worse parents than if they ignored him completely.  I mean, come on, the kid's playing with matches and fireworks on a regular basis.  

He doesn't seem to have any friends.  (Andy doesn't invite him to his birthday party.)  And if he did have friends, you'd think he would have invited them over to watch him blow up Combat Carl.  And they would have come, too, because what ten-year-old in his right mind doesn't want to hang out at his friend's house and play with explosives with no supervision instead of sitting at home playing quietly with parents that actually pay attention?  Hell, I want to go play with Sid, and I'm in my thirties.  

And to top it all off, the kid's got braces. 

The kid's a poor loser with crappy parents and no friends.  How can you not root for him?  But much more importantly than that, the kid's so damned creative!  His toy mash-ups are awesome.  I want a baby-head-Erector-set-spider, and I want one now!  Why didn't that one get sold in stores?  If you would have put it on the shelf between Slinky Dog and Rex, I would've bought all three, just so it would have something to eat.  

I've never made anything half as cool as anything pictured here.  

The kid's productive!  He's got a workbench in his room!  When he gets an idea, he makes the work fun, like when he performs the "double bypass brain transplant" that switches the heads of his Pterodactyl action figure and his sister Hannah's Sally doll. (Which inspires my favorite line:  "I don't believe that man's ever been to medical school!" - Buzz)

The kid's careful!  He wears his mask when performing his medical experiments.  He's got his picnic table turned over, specifically to hide behind when blowing things up.  This kid's not going to lose any fingers anytime soon.  I can't say that I've ever been that careful whenever I've played with fireworks.  Hell, I was usually fairly tipsy whenever I tried blowing stuff up, so considering our records, chances are that I'll lose some fingers long before Sid ever does.  

I wish my next door neighbors were this cool.  

The kid's not bad!  He may pick on his sister, but who doesn't?  Aside from one scene where he steals her doll (who, remember, needed medical attention), we never once see Sid doing anything that he's not allowed to do.  Remember:  He doesn't kidnap Buzz and Woody, he wins them in a dropping-claw game at Pizza Palace.  As far as Sid is concerned, from that moment on, they are his toys.  How was he supposed to know that they belonged to Andy?  

Just look on the excitement on his face.  Adorable.

The kid's not cruel!  Okay, I might be losing you here, but hear me out.  This isn't some sadistic little brat lighting bugs on fire with his magnifying glass, this is a creative little boy who is setting his lifeless toy on fire with his magnifying glass.  We may watch the movie from the perspective of the toys, but remember, we're humans, and like Sid, we have no reason whatsoever to believe that he's harming anything other than a lump of molded plastic dressed up like a cowboy, that he owns!

Pictured:  None of your business.

Woody spends much of the movie reminding Buzz of one important fact:  "YOU! ARE! A! TOY! You aren't the real Buzz Lightyear!  You're an action figure!  You are a child's plaything!" Buzz and Woody belong to Sid at this point.  Legally, Sid can do whatever he likes with them.  They are just toys, after all, not puppies.  As far as we can tell, Sid is perfectly kind to living things (little sisters don't count).  His dog seems to like him, and that's good enough for me.  

Besides, having to be nice to our toys puts us into a morally shady area that I'm not really comfortable with.  If it's not right for Sid to do whatever he likes with his own personal toys, then where exactly should I draw the line with my own children and how we play with our own toys?  

I've got to admit, my son and I absolutely love crashing our Hot Wheels cars into each other.  Is that wrong?  What if we try to launch them through a ring of fire?  Inevitably there will be horrifically awesome car crashes.  And we will enjoy every single moment.  Will that make us bad people?  

Father/Son bonding time!

I hope not.  I'd like to think that treating our toys like they're people would stifle our creativity.  I don't want to follow all of the rules written on the back of the box.  I don't want to wait for age-appropriate toys.  Because if you ask me, toys are just tools to be used by the creative mind.  Are you going to use your Erector set to build bridges or robots?  Who knows?  I don't want to stop you from building anything you like.  I want my kids to grow up to be anything they want.  

There's Sid, making a cameo in "Toy Story 3".  

On the other hand, I'd rather my children didn't want to grow up to be garbage-men.  So maybe Sid isn't the best example after all.  

[crapmykidswatch]

The Princess and the Frog

"I love animation.  I love animation because in the world of animation, you can be anything you want to be. If you're a fat woman you can play a skinny princess. If you're a short wimpy guy, you can play a tall gladiator. If you're a white man you can play an Arabian prince. And if you're a black man, you can play a donkey, or a zebra. You can't play white, my God!" - Chris Rock presenting the Best Animated Feature award at the Oscars this year.   Chris Rock was one of the highlights for me at the Oscars this year.  His introduction was the only moment of the night that was both entertaining and enlightening.  He got the laugh that he was looking for, and in the week since, I haven't been able to stop thinking about his underlying point.  In children's animated movies nowadays, black actors not only don't get to play white, they're often lucky if they get to play anything at all.   It may not be entirely fair to say that black actors are stuck playing animals.  These are children's movies, after all. Most white actors are stuck playing animals too.  Chris Rock played a zebra in the "Madagascar" movies (number three is on the way), but all major characters in these films are animals.  And of the four major characters, two of them are played by black actors.  (Jada Pinkett Smith plays a hippo whose fat ass is featured prominently in part two)  The "Madagascar" films also include appearances by Cedric the Entertainer, Bernie Mac, Will I Am, Sherri Shepherd, Al Roker, and Willow Smith, among others.   Dreamworks animation in general does a fairly decent job, comparatively, of casting black actors in their cartoons. Will Smith even got a lead in "Shark Tales."   I knew that fish looked familiar.  However, Disney, and Pixar by extension, are absolutely horrible by comparison.  While Pixar has been one of the most successful production companies of all time, I could only find two black actors cast in ALL of their films combined.  (Twelve so far...)  The two?  Delroy Lindo played the dog Beta in "Up!", and Samuel L Jackson played Frozone in "The Incredibles".   Why couldn't he be the Alpha dog?Disney has been dodging complaints of inherent racism since "The Song of the South" in 1946.  It seems that in order to avoid complaints about their portrayal of blacks on film, they chose the safe route and just didn't include any blacks at all.   In recent memory, they have been trying to do better.  They hired Eartha Kitt to play Yzma in "The Emperor's New Groove".   Although she does look a little pale.Eddie Murphy played a colorful dragon in "Mulan" and Samuel E. Wright played Sebastion in "The Little Mermaid."  They improved a bit for "The Lion King", and one should hope so, considering the entire movie takes place in Africa.  Still, one would think they could do better.   Progress for the black actor.Throughout the course of the movie, three different characters get to hold the title of "The Lion King", Mufasa, Scar, and finally Simba.  Two out of the three African kings are white guys.  The hero of our movie, Simba, is played by Ferris Bueller.   This is the black guy they chose.  Nala, Simba's love interest and our eventual Lion Queen, is played by a black actress as a child, but she grows up to be Moira Kelly.   Pictured:  African Queen.  But hey, at least they tried.  Disney had heard the complaints and started to move in the right direction.  Which brings us to "The Princess and the Frog".  This was where Disney was going to make everything right.  After giving audiences Asian, American-Indian, and Hawaiian heroines with "Mulan", "Pocahontas" and "Lilo and Stitch", we would finally have our first African-American prince and princess!   So what if they spend much of the movie being green?And you know what?  Its actually a good movie.  It's a well-told story with great old-fashioned, hand-drawn animation.  And despite being filled with magic and talking animals, it does a great job of feeling like it is rooted in the real world.   But it's the real world stuff that starts to bug me.  Every black character in this film is poor.  Even the rich African prince turns out to have been cut off by his family and has no money to his name.  Happily-ever-after in this fairy tale means owning a small business for our first black heroes.  Meanwhile, almost every white character portrayed is wealthy.   Our princess.  Random white character.  It goes deeper.  The film has a New Orleans jazz soundtrack, and most of the musicians shown are black.  So which great jazz musician did they choose to do the score?  Randy Newman.   The only black jazz musician they could think of was playing for Jay Leno.The first Disney movie with a black princess also gave us our first black villain.   The big lips are important to the plot.  And our first black prince!  And of all the actors they could have chosen to play the first prince with dark skin in a Disney movie, they chose this guy:   Really, Disney?  This was the only guy you could find?  So what do I care?  I'm a white guy.  My kids are white.  They don't know which actors played which characters.  But my kids are also too young to watch CNN.  We may have a black president and live in a post-racial America, but my children don't know who Barack Obama is.  They get all of their media in the form of cartoons and live-action movies that feature talking dogs.  Where is the "Cosby Show" equivalent in Disney movies?  It's all well and good that Disney gave their audiences some black characters, and it's almost refreshing that they rooted these characters in a somewhat real world, where the prince and princess don't live in a fairy tale and live happily-ever-after in a land far-far-away.  But I'm much more interested to see a story that isn't just about being black in America, but that features characters that just happen to be black.  Just as "The Cosby Show" gave audiences a look at a successful family that was only really different from them because of the color of their skin, I want my children to see that race isn't a story line, but a characteristic that should be overlooked.  Don't give me a waitress and call her a princess.  Give me a black Sleeping Beauty.  (I almost said Snow White, but caught myself).   Chris Rock was right.  In today's children's movies, black actors can't be anything.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  I want my children to grow up with movies that don't just show the world as it is, but as it should be.   Filled with singing, dancing animals.

[crapmykidswatch]

Lady and the Tramp

My son's been watching this one continuously for about a week now, and it bugs the hell out of me.  It's a classic, of course, and well remembered for it's romantic spaghetti dinner.  But the lovely story is ruined for me once you start to pay attention to the details: 

First off, let's discuss the age thing.  The movie begins and ends with Christmas, and there is a winter in the middle.  It's pretty clear that the whole movie covers two full years.  Lady is born just before Christmas (she's a puppy when Jim-Dear gives her to his wife as a present), and she's a new mother herself two years later once she's gotten the Tramp to settle down.  So what?  She's a two-year-old mother, but this is a dog we're talking about, right?  She's fully-grown and a licensed adult at six months old.  The movie makes that pretty clear.  Besides, isn't every human year like, seven dog years?  I'm no vet, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that once or twice before.  So she's not really a two-year old mother.  She's a fourteen-year-old mother.  That's a lot better.  She could go on MTV and be famous for being a slutty teenager.  

The live-action version. 

What bothers me is the Tramp.  He's been around.  Besides being described as a player with a multitude of past girlfriends (a fact that seems to bother Lady, but she forgets about after awhile), he's also described by the dogcatcher as someone they've been looking for, for years.  When he first meets Lady and her friends, he goes on and on about how life with humans is, like, totally lame.  "Life on a leash," he says, is no life at all.  He's clearly been there before.  He knows first hand what life in a human's house is like when there's a new baby around.  While not explicitly stated, it's clearly implied that the Tramp once lived in a house, perfectly happy until a new baby came along, then was neglected and starved for attention until he decided he was better off on his own.  My point is that, at the very least, he's a year older than the Lady, probably much more.  But even if it's only a year, in dog years, that makes him twenty-one to the Lady's fourteen.  That's statutory rape where I come from.  So what if they're dogs?  They're also characters that sing and dance in a children's cartoon.  One minute, the Lady's just a puppy. Seventy-six minutes later, she's got four children with the town hoodlum.  Is that the kind of life your daughter should be looking forward to?

The Tramp never pays for anything!

Which leads me to my second point:  The Tramp is just that: a tramp.  He's your stereotypical bad boy.  He doesn't follow the rules.  He's not trapped by leashes, fences, or conformity.  He's constantly on the run from the law.  He depends on handouts for food.  He's a ladies man who's had many, many lady-friends in the past, including one shaggy haired cougar-dog who we meet twice: once when the Tramp helps her escape from the law (they're still on good terms, I take it), and once again when Lady meets her at the pound, where she's been caught and locked up once again.  It's at the pound when Lady first hears about the Tramps many past lovers, including his friend, the Chihuahua’s sister.  Hell, even the cooks at the Italian restaurant where they share their iconic spaghetti-eating scene point out that this girl is special, much better than all the other ones.  The Tramp goes there all the time.  Who knows how many spaghetti kisses he's been a part of?  This guy even gives Lady pet names, calling her "Pidge" or "Kid", never once referring to her by her real name!  Is this so he doesn't say the wrong name to one of his various girlfriends?

Look, we can talk about the other girls, or we can have a romantic dinner.  Your choice.

Who knows how many puppies he's scattered around town?  He probably doesn't even know himself.   When we first meet him, waking up in an abandoned lot and drinking water out of a drainpipe, his first activity of the day, before breakfast even, is to head to the local pet story and check out the new puppies.  He makes faces, comments on how adorable they are, etc.  Is it possible that these are the Tramp's kids?  They don't look much like him, but the end of the movie makes its pretty clear that the Disney animators had little to no understanding of how genetics work.  In their eyes, dog puppies come out in one of two ways:  looking exactly like their mother, or exactly like their father.  Maybe these Pet-store orphans just got their looks from their mother's side. 

So what?  He can change, right?  With the power of true love, the hoodlum from the wrong side of the tracks can change his ways.  In fact, he does by the end of the movie, living happily in a real house, raising his kids with Lady.  My issue is with the message this sends.  Should little girls really be given the message that bad-boys are suitable love interests? 

Here's a list of things the Lady and the Tramp do on their first date:

The Tramp bites a cop. 

They trespass into a zoo that clearly doesn't allow dogs. 

The Lady is almost eaten by an alligator.  

Romance.

They have a nice and romantic dinner.

They vandalize wet cement.

They spend the night together. 

On the first date!

They break into a chicken coop. 

They are repeatedly shot at, bullets missing them by inches. 

The Lady is captured and taken to the pound.  (Doggy jail!)

And of course his ex is there, too.  

How romantic!  I guarantee you that every little girl watching this movie will remember one thing:  The spaghetti dinner and the kiss at the end of the noodle.  They will all conveniently forget that the Tramp breaks her heart when he lets her get arrested while he keeps his freedom, and doesn't bother to check on her until much later, once she's already been bailed out and taken home.  (Although, her home now is sleeping outside in the doghouse on a chain, instead of in the bed inside.) 

She's furious with him, of course, despite the nice bone he brings her (I guess that's the doggie equivalent of flowers).  She questions him on all his past girlfriends, throws them in his face and tells him in no uncertain terms that she's through with him and his trouble.  Good for her! 

But then!  A rat sneaks into the house and the Lady needs the Tramp's help to get rid of it.  Suddenly, when the weak woman can't solve her own problems, she's willing to overlook the Tramp's problems in exchange for having a strong man around the house, despite the fact that he makes no apologies for being a scoundrel and makes no promises to do anything different.  The Tramp takes care of the rat, ends up locked up for almost killing the baby, and the Lady's owners adopt him and they all live happily ever after. 

The Tramp, despite spending every waking moment talking about never wanting to live behind a fence, is suddenly living in puppy heaven, lying next to the fireplace and looking over his four children with the Lady.  How long before he goes back to his wandering ways?  This isn't only not the life he wanted, it's the life he despised.  He has become everything he never wanted to be.  What kind of happy ending is that?  This is a relationship doomed to failure, not a children's fairy tale happily-ever-after.  

Mid-life crisis saved for the sequel.  

If that's not enough, there are three final details that bug me about this movie: 

It's implied that the Tramp was heroic when saving the baby from the rat and that he shouldn't have been taken to the pound.  Lady's owners, once they find out that there was a rat, actively try to adopt him instead of having him put down.  Really?  A stray dog came into your house and KNOCKED OVER THE BABY'S CRIB!!!  That baby could have died!  But once they find that there's a rat, they're okay with it.  He was protecting the baby, not endangering it.  Do rats attack babies?  Is that a thing?  Does that happen?  Should I be more worried about my own children and their possible rat exposure?  

If you kill your baby first, the rat won't eat it. The Tramp knew all about this.

Second, this movie was made in the fifties, but yet, there's no electricity in the movie.  While there are some cars, horses are still common on the streets.  But come on, this is a movie about dogs.  There's no reason whatsoever that this should be a period piece.  What was the point?  Had dog culture really changed in the first half of the century?  This has nothing to do with anything else we're talking about heret, but it still bugs the hell out of me. 

Lastly, exactly when were those puppies conceived?  Dog pregnancy lasts about two months.  At Christmas, the little scamps are already talking and know the names of their friends.  We're not given exact dates here, but I can't help but thinking that these little puppies were the product of their first night together.  That Lady may not be as proper as she seems. 

So what?  These are dogs, right?  But they're anthropomorphized to carry a nice little children's story.  Just your classic fourteen-year-old girl from a good neighborhood meets homeless-adult-gigolo, break into places, get shot at, has sex, gets arrested, gets pregnant and lives happily ever after until the old gigolo gets bored and depressed and moves on to the next pretty-young-thing that catches his eye, sort of love story. 

It's every little girl's dream, really.  It's what every parent wants for their children.  Thankfully, I have sons, so the message for them is much clearer:  Women are easy and gullible and will forgive anything you do if you're the least bit charming or tough.  

She'll love his meatballs.    

With that kind of message, it doesn't scare me so much that my oldest has watched the movie fifty times.  But for those of you with girls out there, I'd think twice before popping that one into the DVD player.  Someday, your daughter might meet my son, and she'll know deep down inside that she's the one who will change him. 

Good luck.  He'll be looking for an easy lay. 

[crapmykidswatch]

Bambi

http://dlvr.it/1N9gsT