Sweet Jebus wept.

[fredericks]

The lovely atraxia and I went to see the new Disney flick The Princess and the Frog yesterday. Immediately after viewing the movie I was filled with something akin to righteous indignation about what I'd sat through, but as I've had time to mellow out all I really want to say about it is a)it's a pretty bad movie and b) the song playing over the credits was perfomed by Ne-Yo, which atraxia impressively guessed right off the bat (frankly Ne-Yo, Omarion, Chris Brown, and all those kids sound the same to me anyway).

I'm pooped right now so I'm not going to pull out the bullet points (unless prompted, because OMG I sort of want to) but the songs were awful, the characters were trite, the storyline was full of so many blatant holes and ridiculousness I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes (example - "we have to accomplish this task by midnight or we're royally screwed! let's take a riverboat ride to our destination and relax while watching this character play in a ragtime band! cue a happy song even though we're supposed to be building tension!"), and (AND!), why does the black heroine keep spouting the benefits of hard work? It really rubbed me the wrong way, particularly when she ended up accomplishing her goal through simple *luck*.

Just, yeah. Not a good movie. Is Sherlock Holmes out yet?

Comments

[atraxia.livejournal.com]

the whole big daddy part is still cracking me up.

[blood-of-winter.livejournal.com]

sorry to hear it was such a bomb :/

i sure hope SH is good at least...im looking forward to it just to see how they interpret it although Jeremy Brett will be hard to beat

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

I do hope SH is good. It's garnering mediocre reviews and there's so much eye candy and overt slashiness can do to distract me from shoddy work, but RDJ is always good for at least a couple of laughs.

[emily-goddess.livejournal.com]

why does the black heroine keep spouting the benefits of hard work?

It sounds like the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" trope, doesn't it? Racism and sexism won't block your way if you just work hard enough, dontchaknow?

I've heard many unpleasant things about the film's caricatures characters: the Southern hillbilly, the Voodoo bad guy, the princess who talks about being somebody but ultimately settles for being paired off...yeah, if you wanna share your bullet points, I'd love to see them.

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" trope, doesn't it? Racism and sexism won't block your way if you just work hard enough, dontchaknow?
Definitely, which was my main gripe. You just get tired of black folks saying "you have to work twice as hard as caucasian Joe Smith over there in order to prove yourself," particularly when that crap is being spouted by a Disney cartoon character. Every other song the woman sung about was "hard work" this and "working hard" that. No fucking duh: use your talents and apply yourself and hopefully things will work out, but why is it that the *black* "princess" now is a bastion of the American bootstrap ideal, while all her paler foreprincesses danced around and got their happy ending? And after all that shit about hard work she ends up getting her dream by simply marrying into royalty and having him use his funds and social standing to get enough money to purchase property from some disturbingly racist realtors (seriously - the two white guys firmly implied they didn't think the black woman would make a good restaurant owner because of her race; not overtly, but I damn near was taken back by the balls it too the screenwriters to put that bit of realism into the script. THEN a damn alligator began to play a trumpet and sang a song about wanting to join a ragtime band and my eyes damn near rolled out of their sockets).

There really was very little in the way of redeeming qualities for this movie. I don't have a problem with voodoo being used by a bad guy as it was also used by a good guy, but the villain was just ridiculous. I can't believe I'm sitting here typing this, but I still don't know what his motivation was to do what he did.

The prince was a philanderer and a womanizer, but suddenly he sees the light and settles down with the black woman. What a lesson to give to little girls: find a rich guy who'll give you the time of day even if he's a dick, and if he marries you you'll live happily ever after. It's like the movie was sponsored by a firm of divorce attorneys.

I just --- yeah. I'm pounding on the keyboard at this point. Great outlet for anger, this film.

[aearonlinn.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

You know, I was horrified this was exactly what would happen with that movie, because Disney simply cannot be trusted to be sane and, I don't know, NOT OFFENSIVE. I mean, we're not asking anyone to break down barriers. Just DON'T BE OFFENSIVE. But no. That's crazy talk.

Sherlock Holmes, fuck yeah. That's where I'll be on Christmas Day!

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is I get the feeling the main credited writers for this thing are minorities. It's worth much, as I know Disney would have taken the story and doctored it up until it maybe didn't resemble what the creators had intended, but still.

And TOTALLY Holmes. The slashiness in the ads alone are making me giddy.