Ralph Lauren Pretends His Catalog is a Book For Kids

Posted on May 1, 2011 at 9:07 pm

Renée Loth writes in the Boston Globe this weekend about Ralph Lauren’s new “book” for children — really a thinly disguised catalog. They’re calling it “The first ever shoppable children’s storybook.’’

“The RL Gang: A Magically Magnificent School Adventure’’ is a 32-page volume, aimed at preschool-age children. Its slim plot involves a group of eight impossibly cute classmates, all dressed in Polo Ralph Lauren finery, with names like Willow, Oliver, Hudson, and River. The junior fashion icons use magical paintbrushes to draw themselves a garden party that comes alive, complete with ice cream and kittens.

Woozy yet? Reading along in the online video version — narrated by Uma Thurman — parents and kids can take a break to “look inside Oliver’s closet,’’ for example, and buy the twee outfits. “The RL Gang’’ is touted unblushingly as “an innovative way for parents and children to explore style, literature, and digital technology together.’”

It’s bad enough when product placement makes movies and television shows into infomercials and cross-promotions turn all kinds of products and almost-always unhealthy food into promotions for movies and television shows. But this is essentially a catalog designed to sell very expensive clothes to children, who are not old enough to understand the fast-disappearing line between writing and pictures that are intended to tell a story based on imagination, experience, and heart and writing and pictures designed to make you think you want things you would otherwise never have thought about.

To complain: CustomerAssistance@RalphLauren.com

Movie Theater Popcorn: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Posted on April 3, 2011 at 9:00 am

The Food and Drug Administration released its proposed rules on disclosure of nutritional and calorie information for the food served in chain restaurants. But intense lobbying by the theater industry has led to a great big loophole — movie snacks are not covered, “even though a large popcorn and soda can contain as many calories as a typical person needs in a day.”

Movie theaters have to send all of their first few weeks’ ticket sale revenues to the studio. They get to keep a portion only later, after early crowds have already seen the films. They make their money on the jumbo snacks with the jumbo mark-ups. (Movie popcorn usually costs them less than the cardboard vats it is served in). And they know that giving consumers accurate information about the calorie and fat content of the snacks might scare customers into coming into the theater with a pocket full of baby carrots to munch on instead. The trade association argued that people want to take a break from their diets when they go to the movies, just like they want to take a break from their daily lives. That may be true, but it is no reason to keep them from the information they need to make that decision.

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Thelma Adams Takes on the Sexism in ‘Mars Needs Moms’

Posted on March 13, 2011 at 8:00 am

I was delighted to see US movie critic Thelma Adams go after “Mars Needs Moms” for the retro sexism of its plot. As she notes in a comment following my review, she wrote on her blog about the weirdness of a movie for kids in 2011 about a planet where the females have no feelings, the children are raised by robots whose feelings are extracted from earth mothers (selected for their willingness to be disciplinarians), and the males are “dumb as a bag of rocks,” incapable of even the most rudimentary comprehension or achievement.
She says:

ere’s the takeaway: the working mothers of Mars have lost their ability as women to love and nurture. They have to import an earth breeder to take care of that one chip necessary to continue the race. And the poor oppressed men, who live in substandard conditions, without a vote, without power, have been totally squelched to the detriment of Martian society.

The answer, my friends, is blowing in the hot air: The reinstitution of the nuclear family – happy mommy, happy daddy, happy baby of either sex — and the annihilation of the cranky crone. If sci fi plots allow their creators to work out real-life issues, then here we see a bunch of angry Hollywood males crying out against their feelings of emasculation with nostalgia for a reinstatement of the nuclear fifties family. Hmmm.

The weirdest part is that it just doesn’t make any sense. Forget the part about how Martian babies are produced by popping out of the ground, without any involvement by parents of any gender. How exactly does this planet work? The shrewish female leader is a totalitarian who thinks she can protect herself and the other females from feelings. So, why program the robots with the memories and views of an earth mother who may be stern but is also affectionate and supportive? What is it that all these working females do, other than march around? I am surprised that the few good reviews this movie got emphasize its lessons about family; I’m glad Milo learns to appreciate his mother, but it would have been nice to show her as capable of more than sending him to bed without television and being willing to sacrifice herself to save his life.

Bad Manners and the Rules of Engagement — Reminder

Posted on March 12, 2011 at 3:43 pm

I love hearing from the people who read what I post here and it is my hope that we can create a community that welcomes a spirited discussion on media, culture, and values. I am lucky to have found a job as a critic because it suits my interests and personality. I love movies (I often say that the primary qualification for the job is the willingness to watch an unlimited number of awful movies) and I love to express my views. And as a critic myself, I love to hear the views of other people, whether about the movies I review or the reviews themselves. Opinions are less often good or bad than interesting or uninteresting, well-supported or not well-supported. You don’t agree with what I had to say? Bring it on! Nothing would make me happier than hearing about what you saw in a movie that I missed.

But I have no tolerance for bad manners and it is important to me that everyone feel that this is a safe place to ask questions and express views. You are more than welcome to disagree, but no one will be allowed to be disagreeable, hostile, or rude and I will delete any comments I consider inappropriate. “Why do you think that?” is fine. Corrections are appreciated. But insults of any kind are not permissible. That includes questioning anyone’s motives or the legitimacy of their views.

I do not understand what makes people feel that it is all right to be rude or hostile in an email or a comment when they would never do so in person. Please keep in mind that you diminish the credibility of the points you are trying to make when you post insults instead of arguments. We want to know what you are thinking. Lack of courtesy does not tell us anything interesting about what is on your mind.

Many thanks to those of you who have taken the time to write thoughtful comments. You have made me laugh, you have made me think, you have made me fix mistakes — you have made this a better place to be and I will do my best to make this place a welcoming and safe community for you. I hope you will return often and keep letting me know what you think. Those whose comments I have deleted are also welcome to return; I know you can do better and I look forward to hearing from you again.

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Colin Firth as Henry Higgins?

Posted on February 19, 2011 at 11:52 am

There are rumors that Colin Firth (“The King’s Speech,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Bridget Jones’ Diary”) may be the new Professor Henry Higgins in a forthcoming remake of “My Fair Lady,” to be directed by Joe Wright (who directed the Kiera Knightly version of “Pride and Prejudice”). Carey Mulligan of “An Education” might play Eliza Doolittle.

I am skeptical of remakes in many circumstances, and of course the George Cukor version of My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn and the divine Cecil Beaton designs is unquestionably iconic. I side with Cary Grant, who, asked to play Henry Higgins, famously said that not only would he not accept the part, but unless Rex Harrison repeated his Broadway performance on screen, he wouldn’t even go to see it.

In my dreams, though, I try to imagine a version with Grant opposite Harrison’s Broadway co-star, Julie Andrews. It would have been great. And so, just as the plays of Shakespeare are constantly new again for each generation, so can other stories. We saw a terrific production of “A Comedy of Errors” last week, in a sort of fantasy Edwardian setting, with a opening act introducing us to a small modern-day British acting troupe who would be performing the play, so that the real life actors were playing contemporary actors playing an early 19th century version of a 16th century Shakespeare about confused identities. And don’t forget, Shakespeare was doing his own version of a play dating back to ancient Rome.

And of course “My Fair Lady” itself is the musical version of “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw, inspired by an ancient Greek myth. “Pygmalion” was made into a wonderful film under Shaw’s personal supervision, with his choice to play Eliza, Wendy Hiller, and Leslie Howard as Higgins. I have always been fascinated by Shaw’s decision to chance the ending of his play for the movie version. In the afterward he wrote for the play, Shaw makes it very clear that Eliza and Higgins have no romantic future; he explicitly says that she marries the hapless but doting Freddie. After all, the story not a romance; it is about class and politics and religion and ideas — like all of Shaw’s work. But when it came time to write the screenplay for “Pygmalion,” he could not help reverting to the myth that inspired its title and at least leaves the door open for the idea that Eliza and Higgins fall in love, and that was carried over into “My Fair Lady.”

It is exactly one century since Shaw’s “Pygmalion” was written, and 55 years since “My Fair Lady” opened on Broadway. Shaw could never have imagined that class barriers would dissolve as much as they have. And yet, the play has enduring relevance and appeal. I think we’re due for another try, don’t you?