A BAY!!

[lizbee]

I finished watching Dance Academy during the week. It was a lot like being hit by a truck, and then the truck reverses over you and the driver gets out to punch you a few times. IT WAS GREAT. I was spoiled for Sammy's death before I even watched the show, but even so it was devastating. (On the other hand, Tom Green could play a young Tony Stark if this is anything to go by.) I really hope that Ollie is around next year, just to negate the general "kill all your gays" problem with Sammy's death.

What I loved, though, was that the season ended with Tara and Kat going out to the country together, and Tara apparently accepting singlehood for the time being. I know it's not uncommon for teenage girls -- not to mention adult women -- to flail around and feel incomplete without a love interest, but I really feel like Tara needs that space to figure herself out. So, yay.



Anyway, one of my weirder hobbies is reading Christian pop culture reviews. This stems back to my childhood, when one of my parents' even-more-conservative-friends, concerned that we kids were being exposed to decadent secular television like, Star Trek and, um, Babar, gave Mum and Dad a book of Catholic movie reviews. They never even cracked the cover, but I read every single review. It was like looking into an alternate universe where Star Trek III: The Search For Spock was a deliberate slap in the face of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, and not just a mildly boring movie. I loved it.

These days most of the review sites are run by evangelical Christians in the US -- Catholic reviewers are really into paywalls for some reason -- but I make do.

Anyway, I am especially charmed by this review here (the top one) where the 11 year old reviewer is concerned about the teen angst and semi-nudity, there's also this:

Than she and Kat jump off a BALCONY in their bikini's into a bay, with no idea about what could be down there! A BAY!!!!

A BAY, YOU GUYS! (Actually they jump off a high jetty into Sydney Harbour, and frankly, last time I was in Sydney the Harbour was full of jellyfish, so no thank you. But A BAY!!!!)

My other favourite is a review on one of the other sites that describes Korra as "a spiritually dubious heroine." YES! TENZIN HAS BEEN SAYING THAT ALL ALONG!



(I must point out that, passive-aggressive gifts of Catholic pop culture guides aside, I wouldn't have been allowed to watch Avatar if it had been around when I was in the target age group, and the Asian spiritualities would have been part of the reason why. But the main reason would have been the martial arts -- imitative violence and all that. I have never seen any incarnation of TMNT or Power Rangers.)

(As you can see, my parents' belief that isolating their children from pop culture would produce a family of intellectuals has ... not quite paid off. Sure, my brother's doing a PhD, but you should see his DVD collection!)

Comments

[unjapanologist]

I totally understand being extremely unimpressed by the idea of jumping into random bodies of water, but I never would have thought of making it into a moral outrage. That's beautiful.

The martial arts in Avatar? It doesn't seem extremely likely that you'd start firebending at random people, but I suppose you never know. There is something to that imitative violence idea. Once when I crossed a school yard I was attacked by a little Power Rangers imitator who kicked me in the leg, and it really hurt. I have no proof of Power Rangers' pernicious influence on the young beyond that one piece of anecdata, but it should be banned regardless.

[lizbee]

It doesn't seem extremely likely that you'd start firebending at random people

OH SURE, CRUSH THAT DREAM WHY DON'T YOU?

[unjapanologist]

Sorry, lizbee. It is possible that you'll wake up a firebender one day! Just not bloody likely.

[tree_and_leaf]

On the other hand, I once knew a Catholic priest who seemed to get far too much amusement about repeatedly dragging Buffy in as a sermon illustration. I'm not sure what the little old ladies made of it (although for all I know, they were fans too), but the student section of the congregation were very amused...

[unjapanologist]

...What was Buffy a sermon illustration of, exactly? Occult cooties that kids get from pop culture? Resilience and courage?

Now I wish I'd gone to church as a child. Apparently I would have learned about a lot of cool shows much earlier in life.

[tree_and_leaf]

Resilliance, courage, etc. He was a big Buffy fan.

[unjapanologist]

Awesome :D

[marymac]

Yeah, my little cousin got big into trying out Power Rangers kicks on people when he was seven or so. Somehow me and his sister kicking his ass for it failed to convey the message and he then tried it on my dad, who grabbed him by the ankle and dangled him upside down while carefully enumerating the ways he would meet a horrible death if he ever tried that on again. Got through that time.

I don't blame the Power Rangers for it though, I blame the fact his parents didn't have the sense to a) make sure he knew it was TV only and b) channel his desire to kick people in the head into judo or something.

[sapote]

I do that! I'm actually signed up for emails from movieguide.org, which I found satisfyingly wacky compared to, for instance, the American Family Association's review site. My favorite was its extreme concern, circa the X-Men movies, with "female anatomy ghosting through clothes". They loved The Avengers, though. Apparently it was "good to see America back in charge". ::facepalm::

[lizbee]

I liked the review of The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy that went, "This seems to be English."

[philippos42]

Was that the whole review? Because from a Yank p.o.v., sometimes that's all you get.

[lizbee]

No, it was along the lines of, "This seems to be English, which accounts for its godless evolution, cross-dressing and people turning into knitwear." I paraphrase.

[liviapenn]

Oh, man, you just reminded me of these newsletters we would get at the (non-denominational Christian) church my family attended when I was little... and they were all on a rack outside the office along with a lot of other random "inspirational" type stuff. I'm sure it was mostly gross political stuff, but I only remember the pop culture section where they would go through current episodes of things like "Friends" (or even stuff like "Married with Children" that presumably, no one expected was going to be decent family viewing!!) and salaciously note every single swear word, sex reference, blasphemy, sass from a rebellious teenager, etcetera. And any time I could, I would be over there READING EVERY WORD. I always had my nose in some kind of book, and I'm sure my parents never bothered with Salacious Puritan Magazine, so they had no idea I was reading about masturbation and threesome references on "Seinfeld," or whatever.

Your Power Rangers story reminds me of a story the writers of Batman: The Animated Series tell about the first episode of B:TAS to have a catfight. They were always getting notes from the censors at FOX Kids about violence, and this time the censors said, "Harvey Dent's girlfriend can't slap the lady mobster in the face. Face-hitting is too easy for kids to imitate." "Well... what can she do?" And the note comes back and says, "She can pull her hair and kick her." "Uh... okay." So in the episode, Grace grabs the other lady's hair, pulls it, swings her around BY THE HAIR, and kicks her into a wall. *facepalm*

[violetisblue]

The U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops has its own non-paywalled review site, though you have to do some clicking to find the links. I go there sometimes to find out how badly I'm Failin' The Faith(tm) (though they did adore Deathly Hallows, unlike the evangelical reviewers).

[lizbee]

Oh, right, they do! I think they're the ones whose review of The Last Airbender went, "This would be spiritually problematic, except it's such a bad movie your kids will be brain dead by the end anyway."