Sisterhoods and Bromances: Where Are the Love Stories?

Posted on August 19, 2008 at 10:00 am

We have a lot of tender love stories in movies this year but they have mostly been about friendships. I can’t remember a time when there have been so few movies about falling in romantic love. What used to be the most reliable genre for movie success, the traditional “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl” (and variations thereon) has all but disappeared from the screen this year.
If you look at the top 20 box offices successes of the year so far and the current releases, you see movies about girlfriends (“Sex and the City,” “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”) and “bromances” (“Step Brothers,” “Pineapple Express”). We have some superheroes who long for romance but neither Batman, the Hulk, Hancock, nor Iron Man can be said to “get the girl.” The closest we have to a superhero love story is “Hellboy 2.” There is some incidental romance in the new “Indiana Jones” and “Mummy 3” but it is almost an afterthought at the edges of the action, just as in “Get Smart” and “Don’t Mess with the Zohan” it is at the edges of the comedy. But we’ve seen nothing along the lines of last year’s romance-centered movies like “Enchanted,” “Dan in Real Life,” or “Juno” and stories of falling in love seem relegated to television on the Lifetime channel.
We watch romantic movies for the same reason we watch action films — they are both about life’s great adventure, both ways for us to anticipate and relive our own choices and experiences.
More than halfway through 2008, the most romantic love story of the year so far at the movies has been this one:

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Who Should Be Offended by ‘Tropic Thunder?’

Posted on August 16, 2008 at 4:03 pm

A coalition of disability group has called for a boycott of the R-rated satire Tropic Thunder. They are asking people not to see the movie because they say it
demeans, insults, and harms individuals with intellectual disabilities by using the “R- word.” Furthermore, it perpetuates derogatory images and stereotypes of individuals with intellectual disabilities including mocking their physical appearance and speech, supports the continuation of inappropriate myths and misperceptions, and legitimizes painful discrimination, exclusion, and bullying.
Special Olympics Chair Timothy Shriver said
Some may think we ought to lighten up and not get so worked up because this is, after all, just a film. But films become part of pop culture and character lines are repeated in other settings time and time again. It’s clear to me that lines from this particular film will provide hurtful ammunition outside the movie theatre. While I realize that the film’s creators call this a parody and they never intended to hurt anyone, it doesn’t mean those words won’t.
I respect their concerns for the dignity of the disabled, but they are simply wrong and their comments reflect such a fundamental misunderstanding of the film that it is impossible to believe that anyone connected with these statements actually saw it. I side with the other movie critics who have said that this film is not disrespectful or inappropriate in the treatment of disabled people.
The movie in no way makes fun of developmentally disabled people. On the contrary. It makes fun of pretentious actors who think they can win awards by portraying developmentally disabled people.

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Remembering the Hays Code — Movie Censorship from 1930-1968

Posted on August 14, 2008 at 8:00 am

NPR’s Bob Mondello has an excellent essay on the Hays Code, which governed Hollywood films from 1930-1968, when it was replaced by the MPAA rating system.
A reaction to some provocative films in the days of the early talkies, the code was named for the former Postmaster Will Hays, who created it at the request of the movie studios.

Among those considerations: that no picture should ever “lower the moral standards of those who see it” and that “the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.” There was an updated, much-expanded list of “don’ts” and “be carefuls,” with bans on nudity, suggestive dancing and lustful kissing. The mocking of religion and the depiction of illegal drug use were prohibited, as were interracial romance, revenge plots and the showing of a crime method clearly enough that it might be imitated.
There was very little about violence in the Code but there were restrictions that seem quaint today in other areas — for example, it prohibited portrayals of clergy that made them appear corrupt or foolish. There are legendary stories of battles over whether Rhett Butler would be allowed to say “I don’t give a damn” in “Gone With the Wind” (he was) or whether Bette Davis could get away with murder in “The Letter” (she wasn’t). And writer-directors like Ernst Lubitsch and Preston Sturges prided themselves on getting past the censors with subtle double entendres.
The Code was abandoned 40 years ago in favor of the ratings system. While it is very far from perfect, it does have the advantage of making it possible for movies to cover a wider range of subjects and characters.

The ‘Traitor’ Commercial Gives Too Much Away

Posted on August 10, 2008 at 8:00 am

It infuriates me when trailers and ads give away too much of the movie. This often happens when all the best jokes or special effects are strung together to get you to buy a ticket but once in a while an important plot twist is given away, too. I try very hard to be careful in my reviews not to give away anything I think the audience is better off discovering in the movie. If you have any plans to see the fine terrorism drama “Traitor,” starring Don Cheadle, please don’t watch the ads because they reveal an aspect of the plot I am sure the director and screenwriter wanted to be a surprise.

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Parents Television Council Report on Sex on TV

Posted on August 5, 2008 at 1:45 pm

The Parents Television Council released a new report on the way sex and marriage are portrayed on prime time television this afternoon.
Today’s prime-time television programming is
not merely indifferent to the institution of marriage
and the stabilizing role it plays in our society, it seems
to be actively seeking to undermine marriage by
consistently painting it in a negative light. Nowhere is
this more readily apparent than in the treatment of sex
on television. Sex in the context of marriage is either
non-existent on prime-time broadcast television, or is
depicted as a burdensome rather than as an expression
of love and commitment. By contrast, extra-marital
or adulterous sexual relationships are depicted with
greater frequency and overwhelmingly, as a positive
experience. Across the broadcast networks, verbal
references to non-marital sex outnumbered references
to sex in the context of marriage by nearly 3 to 1;
and scenes depicting or implying sex between nonmarried
partners outnumbered scenes depicting or
implying sex between married partners by a ratio of
nearly 4 to 1. (emphasis in the original)
Most likely due to the competition from cable, DVDs and online media, broadcast television is spending more time on edgy, exotic, transgressive, and disturbing depictions of sexual behavior for the purposes of entertainment, not on a sympathetic or illuminating manner but usually as the source of humor or in the context of law enforcement dramas.
…Even more troubling than the marginalization
of marriage and glorification of non-marital sex on
television is TV’s recent obsession with outré sexual
expression. Today more than ever teens are exposed
to a host of once-taboo sexual behaviors including
threesomes, partner swapping, pedophilia, necrophilia,
bestiality, and sex with prostitutes, to say nothing of
the now-common depictions of strippers, references
to masturbation, pornography, sex toys, and kinky or
fetishistic behaviors. Behaviors that were once seen
as fringe, immoral, or socially destructive have been
given the imprimatur of acceptability by the television
industry — and children are absorbing those messages
and in many cases, imitating that behavior.

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