thekyrose

I should have known better. I had gotten a box set called "The Original Christmas Classics". It's the 1 with Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, The Little Drummer Boy, Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Original Frosty The Snowman, The Cricket On The Hearth....and THIS mess. I thought it was the 1 with Crystal. How I regret that it isn't. Did someone @ CBS owe a loan shark with an artist wanna-be for a grand child? To say that this is the worse sequel since Halloween 3 can't even cover it. The only thing it has in common with the original is that there are humans in it, it's the Christmas season and a snowman comes to life...oh, and it names the snowman as "Frosty", and he is white in color. While characters in this "presentation", may make references to elements reminiscent of the original, that's stretching it a bit...so is having to give this a rating of 1 (awful). I didn't see any ratings in the negative like -9 terrible, -7 horrible, -5 sucks...-3 blows chunks...-.9 animators need to be drawn & quartered, hung, shot AND disemboweled. While I have seen different actors who regret doing certain projects, I gotta wonder just how far they'll pimp their talent? John Goodman is a fine actor, but...why this one? This monstrosity makes King Ralph look like Masterpiece Theatre.

Despite what the "impression dujour" is on the discussion boards, about Mandingo, I didn't like it and still occasionally have unpleasant memories about it. It all began when I was loaned the VHS for this by an acquaintance a few years back. He told me that this was 1 of his favorite movies and that he watched it over & over....several times a year. He just couldn't wait to share it with me. When I asked him what this was about, he said, "oh...let's just say it's a love story, in a different place & time than today." I knew he was 1 of these kinda quirky people and I was expecting something Sci-Fi. I was intrigued when I realized it was set in the Old South.

I was shocked...shocked that people would make such a film and shocked that such a nice guy like that would love something I thought Neo- Nazis would enjoy. Raping the slaves was bad enough, but killing not 1, but 2 innocent little babies...in such a blasé' manner (the young wife beating the slave into a miscarriage & the Dr and Old Massa letting the baby bleed to death) was even more repugnant. When they were telling the "Young Massa" about his girlfriend's miscarriage...I was further disgusted. "She slipped her sucker.." At first I was wondering why the slave was playing with those little fish that hitch rides on sharks, then I realized they were referring to her pre-born child. To refer to black babies as a "suckers" was more disturbing than I can say. On 1 hand it's a crude reference to breast-feeding, but it also conveys imagery as the babies (and slaves) as non-human animals. Then the conduct of the new wife was WAY off base. While the 70's was women's lib & all that, the Old South didn't allow high born white women to behave like that. Rare occurrences apparently happened, but Women were repressed in every form & fashion imaginable. Whale bone corsets were so tightly laced that they couldn't draw deep breaths and therefore spoke in breathy little "lady-like" simpering ways. Being prone to "an attack of the vapors" was a woman's way of being excused to go out of the room to fart and or burp. Again, those whale bone corsets were at work, constricting abdominal & thoracic space...making having gas an ordeal. Who could get a burp out when you couldn't draw enough breath to do it? They were always fainting (oxygen deprivation)in moments of stress. There was a whole, elaborate set of mannerisms and euphemisms for anything that could destroy a woman's mystique & grace. Men could refer to a chamber pot, or a slop jar. The ladies had to call it a "night glass." As for her taking her husband's slave as a lover...the society just wasn't that forgiving.

I was a very shy, withdrawn teen in the 80's. I was constantly ridiculed and sometimes bullied. I would watch Jem to see what NICE cool young people were like. Jem & her band was the type of people I WISHED I could encounter. Yeah, I knew it was a cartoon, but it was full of the kinda things girls go through (and not the obvious things, either). In an era of HEMAN & TRANSFORMERS & THUNDER CATS, Jem was a wonderful girls' show. I liked being able to see social situations solved in positive, uplifting ways. I liked the wild makeup even more...they made it look elegant. They could wear wild stuff and still look girly, glamorous and cool. Yep...Jem's audience was bigger than you think. :D