Artsculture

'Open Season' on Dumb Kids' Movies

Enough with the animals and stereotypes already.

By Dorothy Woodend, 13 Oct 2006, TheTyee.ca

openseason

Bears and donkeys and consumerism, oh my!

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I think I'm having a breakdown. The final touch, the coup de grâce, as it were, was a kids' movie.

I wasn't going to take my son Louis to see Open Season, but he begged and pleaded, using the time-old saw, "But all the other kids have seen it." So, off we trotted and into the abyss I fell. Open Season is just about everything that's wrong with modern culture. That's a lot, you might think. Okay, I'll winnow it down; Open Season is the very worst that modern culture has to offer. That's still a lot you say. Okay, two words then: Ashton Kutcher.

I won't bore you with the plot details of the film. If you've seen any ads, you've probably gleaned pretty much the entire premise: it’s the old story of animals versus people. A bear named Boog (voiced by Martin Lawrence) is raised by a park ranger (Debra Messing). Boog is an animal who has come to love his own captivity (like an prisoner institutionalized love to his cage). The comforts of civilized life -- indoor plumbing, three square meals a day -- make life is easy, and old Boog is coddled with the age-old cozy handcuffs of security. Until, that is, a deer named Elliot (Ashton-please butcher-Kutcher) enters his world, and turns it on its head. Elliot (or idiot as he is referred to throughout the film) teaches the bear to embrace the wild animal within and return to his true nature. End of story.

All the set pieces are there: the Borscht-belt shtick that was old-hat when I was little, a few sentimental lessons learned, a villain soundly beaten, catch phrases masquerading as writing (example: "my bad"), scenes taken from other films (a little Braveheart), one big epic battle between the forces of good and bad, and everyone goes back to their respective places. Just another assembly line movie that kids drag their parents to after having been seduced by one too many toy tie-ins at Burger King. It's a product, made and marketed to children, imminently forgettable, with nary one genuine moment or original idea. So, what's the problem? Pay your money, take your chances and quit your bellyaching. This sounds simple enough to do, but there are a few issues that won't go so easily away.

Wandering minds want to know

While sitting through kid's movies, one's mind has time to wander, to question the nature of the universe, to ask imponderables -- like why is it inappropriate to fill adult films with racial stereotypes, but perfectly acceptable to do so in movies made for kids? Black people are lazy, Chinese people are greedy, the Scots like to drink, and the French are cowards. As long these ideas are clothed in cartoon-colours, they are somehow supposed to be innocuous, funny even. Propaganda that adults would balk at imbibing goes down in one swallow with children, often because they don't know any better. This is not a new idea but sometimes the sheer proliferation and the hard heavy sell of popular culture aimed at kids needs a firm critique on the behind.

Another curious aspect of the film is the sinking feeling that you've seen this all before. That's because, in fact you have seen it all before. Within the past few months, there have been a number of animated films with a very similar story line (i.e., animals in conflict with civilization). Over the Hedge told a similar tale about animals wanting what the humans have -- namely junk food and suburban track houses. Even the characters are pretty much interchangeable, such as a German house pet, who just wants to be free, trash-talking skunk chicas, and a hunter who shoots wee creatures for the sheer love of it. In Open Season, the villain is a mullet-headed red neck, while in Over the Hedge it was an exterminator with an out-sized lust for the kill. Another recent film, Barnyard, featured a story in which animals coveted the human world. Although Barnyard had a few even more troubling things about it, not the least of which was the deeply unsettling image of macho bulls sporting huge udders (there was something almost Cronenberg-esque about those big pink appendages). This may have engendered some deep confusion on the part of young minds. But again, the subtext of the film was the idea animals actually want to behave like people. What does this mean exactly?

Animal children

Part of this animal obsession is arguably socialization: animals stand in for children in kid's movies, since they are the characters children are supposed to relate to. This makes a certain type of sense, both are wild creatures, being socialized into civilization, taught to ape grownup things such as driving cars, living in houses, and buying stuff. If being an adult means buying into the culture, it is also about being tamed and trained to do what is expected.

But have you ever wondered why so many films made for children take as their fundamental subject the difficult lives of animals in the first place? Obviously there is the historical literary tradition from which to draw upon, as well as a sense of disenfranchisement, a feeling of being other, subject to the all-powerful whims of adult society. A state that most people remember and can empathize with. But in the classic animal tales -- Lassie, The Yearling, Old Yeller, Black Beauty -- there is often a component of tragedy, as if the animals stand in for the kids themselves, whose lives are precarious, fraught with problems, and often cut short. Here was a means to inoculate children to the harshness of life, the hard truth of injustice and death, suffering and grief.

If you extend this analogy to contemporary kids' fare, what are the lessons being offered? Anthropomorphizing has been around a very long while, hard-used even before old Walt Disney set pen to paper to steal everyone else's ideas. But the new lessons often seem to be that the natural world, for all its naturalness, is a pretty crappy way to live. The charms and ease of civilization -- the chocolate bars and the chainsaws -- are what make life more pleasant, and infinitely easier. The natural world, the one that Bambi grew up in for example, has grown far closer to civilized world; perhaps they aren't even separate anymore. But do modern children relate in the same way to tales of put-upon animals? If Louis is any indication, perhaps not; the empathy is simply not there. And really what child could possibly relate to Gary Shandling or Martin Lawrence even in fur-face? I don't even get Martin Lawrence, and I am fully grown.

Animation fatigue

The exhaustion of the animated genre is clearly evident, but even more troubling, is the fundamental lack of respect for children's intelligence. If they were any good at organizing, perhaps modern kids might take to the streets, protesting this lack of suitable content. Because it truly feels like a desert out there. Kids want to go to the theatre to see movies, the same as anyone else, but there is so little you can actually bear to take them to. Even the Vancouver International Film Festival, which finishes up today, has nothing much to to offer anyone under the age of ten. Certainly there are classics of the genre available on DVD, but you can only watch the same movie so many times, before you lose your mind and your child's attention. So parents of the world: what to do? Since your children are arguably reliant on you for guidance, taking them to a few crappy movies, won't warp their small minds very much, most likely, but you feel so ill-used afterwards, is it really worth the boredom and suffering?

Walking through the mall after the movie was over, it struck me like a blow over the head: I hate so much of modern culture. I hate the message that buying stuff is all there really is. I hate capitalism. I hate the city. I hate the mean old lady running towards the bus who yells at Louis and me to get out of her way. I hate the big lie that this is all there is.

It made me think of a long lost feeling from my own childhood, of coming home after a day in the woods: dirty, cold, and hungry. Night had closed around you, but still you lingered outside in the dark and the cold, feral, wild, your eyes shining like lanterns, unable to go into the warmth of the house, to be tamed once more. It was better to be outside, alive and free, even if you knew eventually, you'd have to come slinking into the light, nervous and twitchy as a fox, the huge darkness of the night beyond, still calling out to you.

Dorothy Woodend reviews films for The Tyee every second Friday. [Tyee]

21 Comments:

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  • ianmack

    5 years ago

    Comments on "'Open Season' on Dumb Kids' Movies"

    Wow, that was an excellent review. You touched on subjects far exceeding the scope of the cookie-cutter film. But it's interesting actually, because most people would say "so what? it's just a movie." One can only hear that for so long before realizing our lives are permeated with mass-produced products that insult our intelligence and respect for actual wonderment.

  • clubofrome

    5 years ago

    The children must be programmed to consume at an early age. Falling short of imprinting the TV or iPod as a parental unit the object diet must continue to be steady to produce the clone like effect desireable in next gen consummers.

  • Fii

    5 years ago

    "It struck me like a blow over the head: I hate so much of modern culture. I hate the message that buying stuff is all there really is. I hate capitalism. I hate the city." Dorothy writes.

    This mantra has been running through my head for years now... do your son a favour, Dorothy. Last night I rented "Darwin's Nightmare"- not a cutesy children's film, no doubt. Watch it with him. Then get him to tell all his friends to see it. There's a scene where orphaned Tanzanian street kids are fighting over a pot of rice-mush. Tell him that this is reality for a majority of the world's children.

    Tell him that "All there is" is everything he already has and has had from day one- love, shelter, comfort, a full tummy at the end of the day, warm blankets, peace... and thus he won't need that consumer sh**. Instead of a movie next time, take him for a nice stroll at the Endowement Lands where he can see real animals- people and their pet dogs- interacting with nature.

    That's what I would do, if I had a child.

  • charling

    5 years ago

    It's not easy being a parent these days. I don't envy you Dorothy or anyone else out there who has to compete with the bombardment of product messages out there for their kids' attention... What a great review indeed though. Oh how me loves reading such thought provoking reviews in the Tyee! Although i haven't had to spend much time taking in these frivolous pieces of cutesy kiddie shlop they do seem to be gaining momentum recently and seem to have quite a snowball effect on the whole kid genre, even from an outsider's perspective. They really are tightly wounded packages of unorginality though. But like Dorothy says I guess - its "modernity", what else is new. I guess it's all a matter of educating the young on the devils of the media. And getting them started early on such things like the Tyee! :)

  • massromantic

    5 years ago

    agreed.
    when i was younger i remember watching tonnes and tonnes of disney movies.
    that was still when they were making GOOD ones.
    now i just look at all the recent kids' movies, and all the new children's programming on TV and it makes me sick.
    95% of the time it's already been done.
    they're getting more and more horrifically violent
    and it seems sometimes they're almost getting too big for their breeches, allowing more mature themes and subplots to happen in movies/shows obviously geared towards a younger demographic
    they're also including a lot more questionable adult references, that granted maybe the kids won't get, but is it really necessary?
    i don't get it
    but i thought this review was absolutely right on.
    thank you!

  • Stump

    5 years ago

    I don't think Darwin's Nightmare would make appropriate viewing for children under the age of about eight or ten.

    I'm a fairly optimistic grown-up and it just made me want to nuke the planet from orbit, to prevent our mad, bad ways from propogating throughout the universe.

    It's the only way to be sure!

  • Stump

    5 years ago

    Some grown-up movies that are appropriate for kids

    "To have and To be" (English translation of the French title which I am loathe to attempt on memory) - a French doc. about a year in the life of a one room school house. Utterly charming, and at times, terribly moving.

    "March of the Penguins" - Has anyone not seen this yet?

    "Anything Can Happen" - A Polish made documentary. Set a young kid loose in the park and watch him quiz senior citizens on the big, tough questions. Might be hard to find however and probably not entertaining to a kid who isn't old enough to keep up with sub-titles. Nonetheless, worth a look.

    "The Iron Giant" and "The Incredibles" - Simpsons alumni Brad Bird's two big screen animation efforts, both with great messages for kids (and adults).

    I'm sure there's others I've not thought of. Love to hear what they are, from others with kids.

  • tessa

    5 years ago

    "So parents of the world: what to do? Since your children are arguably reliant on you for guidance, taking them to a few crappy movies, won't warp their small minds very much, most likely, but you feel so ill-used afterwards, is it really worth the boredom and suffering?"

    I don't mean to be nitpicky, but i found the word "small" in this line really ironic. Just a reminder that we all do the same things, i guess.

  • Jeffrey J.

    5 years ago

    "It struck me like a blow over the head: I hate so much of modern culture. I hate the message that buying stuff is all there really is. I hate capitalism. I hate the city." Dorothy writes.

    An excellent, thoughtful and insightful article. My wife and I too have echoed the above thoughts, over and over again.

    Other suggestions for change: unplug the TV and rent good quality DVD's. We did it years ago. Our son at first had a huge temper tantrum. Then, he started reading more. And more. We still joke about it (he's now grown and in college) but we have no regrets.The longer you live without the boob tube, the better life gets.

  • Mkitty

    5 years ago

    Excellent article. I too just saw Open Season this weekend at the begging of my 10 year old son. It got a couple of laughs out of me, but I feel the same way Dorothy did...and was scratching my head too at how eerily similar it was to Over the HEdge. Is it just me, or does every movie in Hollywood seem to repeat itself every other year?? (ie, also Capote, Infamous...wtf?)

    I also agree with a previous poster about Iron Giant. Monsters Inc was also brilliant..and my personal favourite: The Emperer's New Groove. They were intelligent, funny and had a great moral about family being more important than money.

    And now, we shall expect an onslaught of Penguin movies with TWO penguin children's movies slated for the next few months! ARGGGH! My theory is that everyone goes to the same parties in Hollywood and gets the same ideas, then they all run back and make movies on the same thing...can we have some originality people???!!!!

  • Aimless

    5 years ago

    I see a darker side to this "animals wanting to be human" slant. As human endeavour encroaches ever more severely on the wilderness (where animals live), it plays nicely into the expansionist agenda to plant the seed that animals are better off living in zoos, under human care with all its advantages, than in their natural environment.

    I'm not saying there's a deliberate conspiracy here, but rather that a zeitgeist of hopelessness in the face of our massive environmental problems (global warming, pollution, over-fishing, habitat destruction) is surfacing. If we Tyee readers are not yet willing to write the natural world off, our children, having learned from movies like Open Season, will be.

  • mjscox

    5 years ago

    The thing that cut to the quick for me about your review is that I am guilty of writing a children's movie in which endangered forest animals revolt against humans, and start a tiny revolution that forces a town to rethink its relationship with the other creatures. Two things make my story stand apart from the ones you mention in your review.

    First and foremost, I think my screenplay, labored over many drafts, is an intelligent story which doesn't dumb down the humans or the animals, and tries to make the animal behaviour somewhat within the range of what each animal is capable of doing; secondly, no one has bought or optioned it (although it was a runner-up in several screenwriting festivals in the US, notably at Austin and the respected Chesterfield competition), so no one has had to sit through it, and I haven't had to watch it butchered and made "funnier" by a studio. I may adapt Smiley Nuthatch as a children's novella sometime; it hurts to think of all those months writing, and how these crappy films have killed any chance my script might have had.

  • kootowl

    5 years ago

    Three movies that I watched with my son when he was around 7 were "The Emerald Forest," "Gorillas in the Mist," and "Microcosmos." I cite these three because they all led to great discussions afterwards. "Excalibur" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" have remained perennials, although the sexuality in "Excalibur" might be too much for some kids...still a good kidflick IMO.

    The way the trailers are pitched in theatres and on DVD previews (that you can't FF :-/) is incredibly annoying for adults and alluring to kids.

    I remember reading a review somewhere about a Disney show called "Dinosaurs" that pointed out the movie's central message: keep up with the herd or get left behind to die. And who did the voices of the dinosaurs who were likely to be left behind? Elderly actors, actors who sounded like black people, and actors who were women. Most of the "survivor-type" dinos had their voices done by young anglo-sounding male actors. Now that's scary!

    We tried to rent "The Incredible Journey", but found ourselves viewing a dumbed-down, tech-happy remake. Yuck. When I finally found a copy of the original, my son pronounced it "boring."

    Any "Wallace and Grommit" shows are fun. "Chicken Run" and "Babe" are pretty good, too. A friend of mine rents old Charlie Chaplin movies on a regular basis for her kids.

    Kid flicks are a lot like kids' books; there are lots of good ones out there, but they aren't marketed with mega-bucks, so you have to talk to librarians, bookstore managers, and other parents to find the gems. Carl Hiaasen's "Hoot" is both a good book and a decent DVD. The characters are a bit flat, even stereotypical in the DVD version, but the message is empowering, even given the rather corny Hollywood treatment.

  • benalbanach

    5 years ago

    Quite simple really.After a successful dumbing down of USA they are intent on doing the same to us, while getting rich in the process.

  • anne cameron

    5 years ago

    Well, if kids get conditioned to the idea that being "wild" is the same as being unhappy, cold, wet, hungry, and just pining for a chance for something else it will be easy to put the last remaining wild animals in zoos and pave over every square inch of parkland, except, of course, for those parts of it needed for ski lodges and runs, fish lodges, and "nature walks".

    I'm a grandma, and I'm very lucky, much luckier than most grandparents, I see my grandgrrrrrls every day. They are aged five and a half, four and a half, two, and almost-one. We live in a very small village on the west coast of Vancouver Island and I have a TV. I also have a car. We have used the car often to go to the beach, and we will be using it to go watch the fish come upriver. We've sat in it and watched a deer feeding, we've followed a bear as it ambled through town...and we watch cartoons together. And I absolutely detest cartoons, especially those which are supposed to be for little kids but in which having a boyfriend is all important, being "cool" is vital, and buying new outfits is serious work.

    The four and a half year old is now on a campaign of "I want it".."Could you buy that for me"...more frikken junk toys than any house would have room to hold!! I just say No, we can't afford it.

    We go to the library. Again, I am appalled at the outright shite which gets published and is aimed at kids.

    Right now the two older ones and I are having fun with Alice in Wonderland. They take turns being Alice and her sister. Alice slides off the sofa toward the floor while the sister screeches Alice you get back here, what are you doing, you're going to get it when you get home...

    and both of them get to be the rabbit and run around my living room hollering I'm late, I'm late what time is it oh I'm late..

    we'll never get to the end of the book at the rate we're going and I don't much care if we don't.

    And for all the crud in kid's cartoons their favourite is still Dora the Explorer. The other day the four and a half year old and I continued doing the chicken dance long after the Dora segment was finished.

    This is probably the BEST film review I've ever read. Congratulations to the writer, and to Tyee for giving her a place to freely publish her craft.

  • bardoponde

    5 years ago

    For those who choose film, television, etc. - as a way to entertain themselves (and their children), then you deserve the 'dumbness' or rather, the accompnaying 'numbness.'

  • dave49

    5 years ago

    Dorothy,
    Unless VIFF has changed their policy, only adults 18 and over can attend films. The censors cannot classify all these films. So, you have to purchase the membership, which allows you to see the unrated films.

    We tried taking my son to a documentary about caribou migration a few years back and that was the story. No kids' films at VIFF because kids are not allowed to attend screenings.

  • concrete_jungler

    5 years ago

    For the most part, I would have to agree with what this article says. What Ms. Woodend fails to recognize is that Over the Hedge was actually a brilliant comment on suburban living. The animals want what the humans have only in so much as the humans consume so much that plenty is left over for the animals to easily pillage. The fact that their natural habitat was destroyed for mini-mansions and suv-drivers led them to scavenge from human garbage. My six-year old daughter and I had a fantastic conversation about the implications of this type of lifestyle. One of my favourite moments in the film was when the racoon was explaining that suv’s are prominently used by humans because we are slowly losing the ability to walk. Number of humans a suv carries, "Uh, usually one."

    And for the person who commented that those of us who use films as a source of entertainment deserve 'dumbness' - its the associated discussions that create the learning atmosphere. CBC news is a great conversation starter at our breakfast table...

  • Yammer

    5 years ago

    This is the longest talkback I have ever seen for a film review here. Good review!

    Stump: try the Studio Ghibli animated movies from Japan which have been imported and dubbed by Disney. These include the movies by Hayao Miyazaki which are my kids' favourites: My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Also be sure to try The Cat Returns.

  • Nellie Jones

    5 years ago

    Why bother with mainstream movies? OK sometimes the peer pressure is unrelenting but we've been using Netflix and as we review movies their algorithm is recommending some really good children's movies that have touched my hockey boys' hearts e.g. "Children of Heaven" (Iraq) and "King of Masks" (China) as well as the "NHL's 100 Greatest Goals."

    As a Canadian family living in the US we are especially careful about the movies we attend and attempt to educate the boys about propaganda, socialization and values.

  • Stump

    5 years ago

    Further to the "can't fast-foward" complaint about DVDs. Usually pressing the "menu" key once it loads (the DVD) will skip the previews and take you to the main menu w/out suffering thru the marketing.

    Mr. Rogers DVDs don't have previews FYI.
    Still one of the best kids tv shows going.

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