Reviews and awards have become an issue in our increasingly divided society. For probably 30 years I've used bad review scores as a guide to which movie I should go and see. Likewise I've used the Academy Awards for film and the Hugo/Nebula Awards to science fiction as "do not watch/do not read" list. Lately things have gotten worse, with "award winning" being code for "avoid at all costs."
There has been some uproar around one particular review this week, so I thought I'd have a look and see just how bad it was.
The title shows us what we're in for:
Because a cartoon about cute puppies for children is an appropriate vehicle for messaging about marriage and manhood.
Subscript:
'The Secret Life of Pets 2' Film Review: Cartoon Offers Outdated Messages About Marriage, Manliness"
Because a cartoon about cute puppies for children is an appropriate vehicle for messaging about marriage and manhood.
Subscript:
Come for the adorable puppies, stay for the toxic masculinity and antediluvian notions regarding love and family.
From which we are to understand that this movie has fallen far short of Full Woke (tm) and the author is very disappointed.
Milking human's collective affection for our furry and feathered pals, the original "The Secret Life of Pets" imposed the "Toy Story" formula on animals living in New York City in order to show us what they do when we are not looking.
He doesn't have a problem with the first movie in the franchise. (I should interject that I haven't seen Pets 1 or 2, but I did see Toy Story 2 and I found it to be CREEPY AS HELL. The toys are -people-? Oh, dude. That's fucked up.) But let us continue.
"The Secret Life of Pets 2," on the other hand, for which both Renaud and Lynch reprise their roles, effectively acts as an animated ode to heteronormativity, toxic masculinity and patriarchal worldviews, passed off as harmless plot points to entertain young audiences.
That's simply fascinating. Say on, O sage.
"Pets 2's" descent into the bowels of what reads as conservative messaging begins as Katie (voiced by Ellie Kemper), Max's owner, randomly meets a young man, quickly marries and has a child.
Okay, so "girl meets boy, they get married and have a little family" is now bad conservative messaging. Got it. Uh, why is it bad?
In this fictional universe, that's clearly the only natural progression of events in a woman's life. That trope is later reinforced through the pet characters.
Oh, I get it. Getting married to a member of the opposite sex and breeding is a trope, and we're supposed to be presented with the whole QUILTBAG of pervy third-sigma from normal sex options instead. In a kid's cartoon. Okay then. Onward to complaining about the female characters!
To achieve this, she partners with dismissive cat Chloe (Lake Bell), but in no way can "Pets 2" possibly pass the Bechdel test.
So we do have some non-male-oriented scenes between two female characters, yay! But they don't pass the hallowed Bechdel Test, so boo! Because that's what's important in a kid's movie, the Bechdel Test. For fuck sakes. But let us move on...
In case it wasn't obvious, "Pets 2" makes no attempt at diversifying the notion of what a family is today. No same-sex couples are in sight as pet owners, much less as parents. Nothing that deviates from the default straight married couple is even hinted at.
Oh, the horror.
But now we get to what really got under Carlos Aguilar's saddle, the toxic masculinity part! (I know you were waiting for this ~:)
But now we get to what really got under Carlos Aguilar's saddle, the toxic masculinity part! (I know you were waiting for this ~:)
Making matters worse, Harrison Ford is cast as Rooster, a hyper-masculine shepherd dog brazenly teaching Max how to toughen up.
That sounds terrible!
Rooster is the embodiment of phrases like "Men don't cry," and " Rub some dirt on it." This alpha dog rejects vulnerability by preaching about how sissified city dogs are. The character is disturbing in his unapologetic validation of behavior society as a whole is trying to eradicate. He equates courage with arrogance and other outdated perceptions of manliness.
Yes, apparently society as a whole is trying to eradicate cowboys who suck it up and work through the pain to get the job done, whatever job it may be. But why do we care that a cartoon dog character is a leathery old cowboy?
Defenders may argue it's absurd to attribute such weight to an animated feature, but on the contrary, this is the content to which we should be paying the most attention. Family-friendly releases have the power to communicate nuggets of knowledge to young viewers, and when the information transmitted is this regressive, it's worth raising the alarm.
Yep. There you go. It makes it harder to groom little boys into drag queens when they've seen legendary hard ass Rooster the dog git 'er dun in the cartoons on Saturday morning. They see that old cowboy, and feel the echo in their hearts. They see the mom and the dad taking care of the little baby on the screen, and they start wondering where their dad is. They begin to question if poor little Heather is getting ripped off because she only has two mommies.
Bottom line, Carlos Aguilar's complaint is that the normal nuclear family and the normal Western adult male have been presented in a positive light in a film for children. He is angry that the little tiny segment of society waaaaay out at the skinny edge of the bell curve, that 3% of humanity, has not been given center stage. Its fucking up his propaganda campaign, is why he's angry.
And that, my friends, is why awards and reviews should be used backwards. This review is different from most only in its boldness, not in its aim. Carlos Aguilar actually says what he wants, the rest try to hide it while they worm away at us. The more the critics like Carlos Aguilar hate a movie, the more likely it is to be fun.
IMPORTANT NOTE! For the reading comprehension impaired: if you are in some form of non-standard relationship, this is not about -you-. Really, I don't care what you get up to. It is none of my business what other people do in a free country. Just don't get any on my lawn, or expect me to do it your way, and we're good.
The Phantom
Update: Secret Life of Pets 2 beats XMen Dark Phoenix at the box office. So everybody agrees that little Carlos is a dumbass.
Update: Secret Life of Pets 2 beats XMen Dark Phoenix at the box office. So everybody agrees that little Carlos is a dumbass.
8 comments:
The HORROR!!!! The horror..........
Imagine the nerve! A cowboy dog is the good guy?!!! How can this be?!
I'd argue with you on one part-- it's not that the bourgeois were shown in a positive light, it's that they weren't caricatured.
Foxfire, from the review: Rooster the dog represents an "unapologetic validation of behavior society as a whole is trying to eradicate."
The dog is clearly a caricature of a cowboy, he has to be. Its a cartoon for kids, everything is broad strokes. That there even IS a straight family or a cowboy is "problematic". They can't be there.
For little Carlos to be happy, making fun of the cowboy and the nuclear family in a fun way, that's not enough. He wants them to be the BAD GUYS capita B capital G, and some flitting quiltbag of cutesy diversity characters is to be the good guys. Like gay CareBears with cute little bondage gear outfits and animated sex toy partners for extra "Diversity!" And no breeding. Babies are yucky.
Meanwhile, straight family and cowboy dog are cleaning up at the theater. That's why little Carlos is actually upset. Goddam Conservatives got a win! No no no!
I read where Dark Phoenix is super-duper Grrrrl Power and Woke, have you seen it yet?
Phantom- granted, caricatured "appropriately".
As for Dark Phantom...not only have I not seen it, I only saw ads for it in passing and nothing tempted me.
...and I'm hard core Marvel fan.
The Phoenix saga is one of the best pieces of Marvel history, and just like the Fantastic Four "reboot" I have a bad feeling that Sony did it no justice at all. The casting of a cute round-faced girl as Phoenix is completely wrong, as is the casting of Jenifer Lawrence as Mystique. JL is not mean enough to be Mystique, Rebecca Romijn was a far better choice. She might be getting a little old to fit in the outfit though. Time marches on.
Currently Deadpool is still the best X-Men movie. It kills me to say that, but it is.
Re: Dark Phoenix, I only know the X-Men from the cartoons, but both the Phoenix Saga and the Dark Phoenix saga were some of my favorites growing up. Which brings me my big complaint with the attempts to do Dark Phoenix: where's the regular Phoenix movie? Where's the film where the X-Men team up with the uber-powerful force of nature with the fate of the galaxy on the line? If you want to show the corruption of the Phoenix and the danger that represents, shouldn't you show the uncorrupted version first?
I think the tragedy of the Dark Phoenix loses a lot of it's power if you never show a "light" Phoenix.
"Which brings me my big complaint with the attempts to do Dark Phoenix: where's the regular Phoenix movie?"
I was thinking about this question of yours for a while. X-Men is by Sony Pictures, who seem to come out with clunkers all the time. They fundamentally do not understand how Marvel was able to be so wildly successful.
One of the reasons was pacing. From a story point of view, a movie is about the same length as a comic book. The comic can be viewed as the storyboard they make the movie from. You look at Iron Man, Thor, Ant Man, Capt. Marvel, Dr. Strange, those movies have a very short, uncomplicated plot. You have your origin, they introduce the powers of the character, there's a bad guy, and by the end the character is fully formed and beats the bad guy.
Sony never does that. You're right, there should have been a Phoenix movie. They're using X-Men: Apocalypse for that, even though the Phoenix character only gets a couple of scenes. That's "character development" for the producers at Sony, they figure close enough is good enough.
I think if one looks at Marvel and then at the Sony efforts, the difference between the two companies is clear. Marvel respects the characters and the stories. They respect the backlog of story that's been building since the 1960s. The story itself is the point of making the movie. That character, that hero's journey, that result. This is because they know they are playing to a fan base that is deep and wide. EVERYBODY knows who Dr. Strange is. EVERYBODY knows who Iron Man is. And they respect the fan base. They know what comic book readers want, and they give it to them.
Sony, they think its a gimmick. You got a guy who can shoot lasers out of his hands, he chases a bad guy, add some comic relief and a hot chick, badda bing badda boom, you got a movie. Or enough of a movie that idiots will pay $15 to see it. And because they're idiots, they won't notice if we make Johnny Storm a black kid, or if we completely ignore ALL the X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga so we can shove in more tits and ass, or if we use the movie as a vehicle for political propaganda.
I conclude that Sony Pictures management hates the American people and is using movies as a weapon to de-construct American culture, whereas Marvel is trying to give the audience what they want and sell movie tickets.
One of these will be successful, the other will lose millions of dollars.
Post a Comment