Here's the thing. There is a new movie hopscotching to theaters on July 24th. A movie about an apathetic child killer. Yep, it's that time of year again. (Omen - June 6th, 2006, Joshua - July 6, 2007...although there is also an obsession with September: the Bad Seed (1956), the Good Son (1993), the Orphanage (2007)...but I digress) This Hollywood trope, once fresh and invigoratingly shocking, has debilitated into cliche-ridden, addled scripts with more shamelessly repetitive and pointless twists than the local high school sock hop. And I haven't considered the remakes yet! These evil baby machines are money makers, nevertheless, so they will prevail. My diatribe notwithstanding, I personally enjoy goreless bad kid movies, provided they offer a creative and thematically satisfying trick and resolution. Or a couple "hide and seek in a darkened, creepy house" and 'say, why is the butcher knife missing?' scenes - I'm not that difficult to please.
The current monster kid of the year, however, is receiving not just early buzz, but an altogether unexpected audience reaction. Orphan might receive more publicity for its offensive content than anything else. You heard correctly. In the generation of torture porn, 3-D decapitations of teenagers, and entire films that serve as ninety minute tributes to snuff, someone has criticized a movie for "villainizing" parentless children. How cruel can a scary movie get? Some people prefer their bloody murderers to have a soccer mom and PTA dad, thank you very much. I guess that way, we can hold someone with a drivers license responsible for the mayhem caused. Horror movies have really gone too darn far these days.
All joking aside, this is a serious accusation. Originating with nonprofits such as the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, the complaints have impacted Congress. (http://www.hollyscoop.com/movies/orphan/us-politicians-protest-orphan-movie_1610.aspx)
Dr. Jane Aronson, CEO of the former group, says that Orphan "continues to perpetuate gross misinformation about adoption” as “the movie trailer has already caused great distress on adopted children who have seen the trailer in their neighborhood theaters and the comfort of their homes.”
Seriously, people? Who actually feared that twisted little girl because she was an orphan? If it weren't for that pesky title, who would have noticed? Beyond that, who would use a cliched horror flick to sway their opinion on a whole social group of people?! People like that are bigoted fools who probably wouldn't have adopted anyway! Are there sane people out there who would assume, after watching the trailer of course, that even .01% of orphaned children are murderous fiends? I guess I should also revile ice cream men, dentists, stepparents, parents of any kind for that matter, the guy who mows our lawns, fishermen, high school teachers, college professors, and EVERY CHILD IN EXISTENCE, whether unborn or undeniably adorable. These are only a small portion of people used as fodder for stupid horror movies.
Am I honestly defending horror movies? Not as much as I'm admonishing Congress for overreacting and encouraging paranoia in orphans everywhere. Adoption is a beautiful experience, and no movie is going to adversely affect the decision of anyone truly devoted to giving a child a loving home. And if someone is that capricious, should they be raising kids at all? By drawing attention to this movie, you are bestowing more power on it than it warrants. Let's treat it like any other crude, anti-family movie: watch it if you want to, ignore it if you don't. It's just a fanciful, possibly supernatural thriller, people, not a case study.
In the meantime, there are plenty of other horror movies that need to become societal pariahs for just being distatefully gross - the Saw series anyone? Now that's offensive. Oh, and anything by Rob Zombie. If William Shatner wants to protest a movie, let it be the one that grossly mismarkets his face. Halloween caused me great distress as a kid. I can never hear the Mr. Sandman tune again, and the original Captain Kirk still makes me uneasy.
Horror movies are kind of creepy.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
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