I am currently residing in a small, poor community in the upper Midwest. Needless to say, there isn’t much to do around here, particularly in the winter. So when a friend asked if I wanted to walk down to the local movie theatre to see a matinee, I agreed. She explained it was going to be an awful movie, a Disney movie. I thought, OK, I am a fan of the so-bad-they-are-good kinda movies. Many of the more recent films for children are chock full of adult humor (ala Shrek et al,), could be mildly amusing. And it’s from Disney, how bad can it be? *shuddering at my own naivety*
So we went to the theater on Saturday for the cheaper matinee. We found our seats just in time, sitting up on the balcony next to the operators booth. No one decided to join us up there, but we didn’t mind one bit. The previews began, some action movies, some other children’s films. Apparently National Treasure was so awful, it was granted a trilogy. Lovely.
The name of the move is Enchanted. The premise is that a fairytale princess is somehow teleported into the real world in search of true love. A plot only Disney may be able to pull off (or not so much). Here is a synopsis: The princess is sitting in her woodland cabin making a dress for herself, with the help of all of the forest animals of course, so that she may look her best when she meets ‘her one true love’. She sings to the animals, they dress her and do her hair. Cut to an evil queen, hell bent on holding on to her kingdom that she does everything she can to keep her son under wraps so that he will never, ever find his ‘one true love’. The two do manage to find each other, through song of course, and fall instantly in love, planning their marriage the next day. The queen disguises herself as a hapless old woman and pushes the maiden into a well….which leads directly into a manhole in the middle of NYC. The princess nearly gets run over and finds her way to a casino, with a castle as an advertisement. She gets taken in by a man and his young daughter who fall for her and all her silly, overly-optimistic ways. The prince falls down the well to find his princess and ends up in the middle of the city. The two continue to search for one another, adjusting to reality. Long story short, obviously they find one another, but the princess has now fallen in love with her caretaker that she no longer wants to go back to the fairytale.
The more I think about this movie, the more it disturbs me, principally in the messages it is sending to young girls. The following are some of the finer points I would like to highlight:
1. The father gives the daughter a book on powerful women in history. They read a passage on Marie Curie, a famous physicist who pioneered work on radioactivity. Unfortunately, she died from exposure to radioactivity. The movie talks briefly about her, and makes a big point that she crazily ‘devoted her whole life to research’ then died for it. The man read it to the little girl who was horrified at the thought. Not a very favorable look on women in science.
2. The princess brings this weird sort of optimism to the family, one that he immediately squashes but adopts it in the end. Her happy go lucky attitude wins out in the end. Promoting the idea that if you keep believing in something, it will come true.
3. The evil queen keeps trying to kill the princess with poisoned apples. Sound familiar? C’mon Disney, seriously.
4. The way that the Princess solves a problem is by either singing or going shopping and getting her hair done. (With what money I don’t know.) If you avoid your problems, they will go away.
5. The movie kept saying over and over, “Nothing is as powerful as true love’s kiss”. Me, I am skeptical of this one. So many questions here.
6. I wonder if young children are going to start jumping down manholes in NYC trying to get into the fairytale. Bet that would be one big lawsuit for Disney.
7. I also wonder who is keeping an eye on these movies. Seems to me that adult movies are more strictly regulated than children’s movies these days. Show some skin and the parent’s get outraged. Look at the sort of messages this movie is sending. I haven’t seen any of the new Disney movies since Mulan. Are they all this horrible? Disney must be spinning in his grave.
9. The princess dropped her slipper at the ball, and the prince put it onto the caretaker’s fiance, for a perfect fit. Again, weaving a little of all the classic Disney stories into this mess of a movie. Is it that hard to be creative? I was not amused.
10. There were quite a few big name stars in the movie (Patrick Dempsey, Susan Sarandon, etc.). None of these seasoned actors had any issues with the storyline? I would feel ashamed to be a part of something like this. Even more ashamed than Tim Curry is of his involvement in Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I am glad we were alone on that balcony. All we did was laugh and snicker at the lack of originality of the film. Next time, I’ll think twice of going to the discount movie theatre for a children’s movie, no matter how bored I am.
