7/9/01

"They Can Fake Killing,But They Can't Fake Kissing"

My girls have become movie buffs, but they draw the line between special effects (SF-X) and special affections (S-X).

    I've always had a problem with women. No, I didn't mean it like that -- it's just one specific problem: I can't get a female to sit and watch a movie with me. My mother, my sisters, one wife, hundreds of girlfriends, even my friend Ellen, who sleeps over at the Cinematheque during the film festival: put 'em on the couch next to me, switch on the TV, and they're asleep before the end of the opening credits.
    That's why, ever since my daughters were kindergarten age, I've been making them into cinema buffs.
    I had another motive: They were becoming Disney dumdums, hypnotized by the homogenized morality and predictable plot resolutions. (Look, if anyone is going to take the role of global Big Brother it might as well be Disney, but its quest for domination of the world's young minds -- and money -- is relentless.)
    (Ol' Walt was the most lovable anti-Semite in history, but now his empire is run by Jews, so there.)
    There are two other types of films mesmerizing young kids nowadays:

    1. Superhuman, superhero, blazing action. The standard technique for a movie like this is to sustain nonstop action sequences of impossible human endurance, so that no one has a moment to think, and realize how unrealistic this stupid stuff is. 
    After my girls watch a film of this genre, I always get the feeling they regard me as a wimp, because I don't walk around shirtless showing my bulging, oiled muscles, toting a machine gun, strolling nonchalantly through fire, killing bad guys left and right, and if I were to be blown sky-high by a massive explosion, I'd probably get hurt, so what kind of man am I? (Also, because I'm bald, which superhuman superheroes never are. And any daddy who won't agree to drive through a mall and smash everything in sight like in The Blues Brothers is the  worst kind of wimp.)

    2. Animal movies. They're all exactly the same, except for the featured animal. Uncritical viewers -- which my kids aren't anymore, because I spoil the fun by pointing out all the flaws as we're watching the film -- get locked on the predictable formula.
    Dozens of movies have been made from one original script: freckle-faced kid meets cuddly beast, kid wants cuddly beast as a pet, kid is somehow sensible and mature enough to realize that cuddly beast doesn't belong in a cage, kid -- unbelievably -- does not whine and wail and throw a tantrum and beg to keep the animal, but obeys parental wisdom and actually feels good about it, kid releases animal to its natural habitat where it (the animal, not the kid) immediately finds a mate and, looking over its furry shoulder and actually smiling to the kid, has sex.

AND SO, I decided on a long-term plan to give my kids some culture ("culture" is defined as "that which I like"). The eventual aim was to get them to beg to see anything directed by Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, written by Ben Hecht, or about baseball, or any combination thereof.
    I have to compromise sometimes: my girls will happily watch anything directed by Spielberg, starring Julia Roberts, Jim Carey, Robin Williams or Hugh Grant, and about weddings. (Feel free to make a clever pun about Carey/Grant; I couldn't think of one.)
    We watch each movie at least twice: the first time, to get the general gist, the second, to pick up on the subtleties -- of direction, acting, writing. Also, to laugh at Daddy blubbering.
    Yeah, I'm a movie blubberer, and I'm really embarrassed by it. (Maybe I really am a wimp.) The only noise I make is a sort of choking sob squelch, but we'll get to the dramatic climax of a story, and instead of watching the theatrics on the screen, my girls will shift their attention to the theatrics in my throat. I'm never overcome like this during the first time I see a movie, only  during subsequent viewings, because then I know what's coming. I assure you, it never happens beyond the 14th viewing, which is how often I've seen ג€œField of Dreamsג€ (even superheroes weep at the ending of it).
    The girls pay attention to other subtleties as well: the cute quirks of charisma, the motions and emotions of body language, accents, facial expressions, tics, twitches and peccadilloes. We'll be watching, say, ג€œThe Gods Must Be Crazy,ג€ and I'll become aware that there are three 11-year-old Kalahari bushmen on the couch with me, grinning out of context, rolling their eyes, feinting mimicries of adorable little N!xau. (He should only know.) They'll practice it, get it right, and maybe months later they'll use it at a moment of timely relevance.
    Sometimes the girls watch a movie so often, I don't have to turn on the TV to see it.
    We don't watch movies for the mere intertainment. Hey, I'm a parent, there's gotta be education too.
    I give them a lecture on the film we're about to watch. This makes me appear very knowledgable and intelligent to my children, because the film then proves me correct. Aha, they think to themselves, watching ג€œGroundhog Day,ג€ Daddy was right about people staying stuck in the past if they refuse to change.
    And then I give them a lecture on the film we've just seen, to make sure they realize I'm brilliant.
    No, I'm kidding. Our animated discussions learn 'em a whole lot on the featured subject, time and place. We talked about the Sixties, then watched ג€œHair,ג€ then talked more about the Sixties, then watched ג€œForrest Gumpג€ and ג€œTo Sir With Love.ג€ For the Fifties, ג€œPeggy Sue Got Married,ג€ ג€œWest Side Story,ג€ and ג€œAmerican Graffiti;ג€ the Forties, ג€œThe Sound of Music,ג€ ג€œThe Great Dictator,ג€ and ג€œAnimal Farmג€; the Thirties, ג€œIt's a Wonderful Life,ג€ ג€œCity Lights,ג€ and ג€œTo Kill a Mockingbird.ג€ I gave them a full course on social history through the decades, the centuries (ג€œFiddler on the Roofג€), the millennia (ג€œThe Ten Commandmentsג€).
    These kids know the universe was not created, exclusively in Israel, in the 1990s.

THERE WEREN'T many kids in their kindergarten who saw ג€œMy Left Footג€ (or ever will). But films like that, together with our discussions, helped them develop social consciousness, and a couple of years later, my girls were breaking ranks with the "kooliot" of their class, and befriending handicapped unfortunates.
    That was their first serious movie, and they got through it. Finally, I had found female couch company.
    Their learning process was an eye-opener for me.
    Soon after, I put on Chaplin's ג€œCity Lights.ג€ This perplexed them: "Daddy, you say the flower girl is blind, but she has eyes; her problem is, she can't talk." It was the first silent they'd seen.
    ג€œFiddlerג€ had all the ingredients for a little girl's interest: a little girl, animals, a wedding, music.
    Perfect!   
    What a disaster.
    This movie had a terrible ending, for me, right in the middle of it. With the pogrom-at-the-wedding scene coming up, I was prepared to console my little 'uns. This was the essence of Jewish tragedy through the ages. I girded myself, so I shouldn't blubber, so I could be strong for them. And then the Cossacks burst in with their wheeling horses, the Jews ran in terror, the soldiers ransacked the celebration -- and my girls burst into hysterical laughter. This, they thought, was FUNNY.
    I snapped off the TV, went away to sulk at the sacrilege, and it was years before I ventured to try that film again.
    I was surprised again by their reactions when we watched ג€œWest Side Story.ג€ They were intently entrapped in the building drama, the conflicts, the fated relationship. Tony is killed, and Maria flays herself upon his corpse. No problem. Then: "THE END."
    The girls blinked in disbelief, gasped, and went nuts. What d'you mean he died? He CAN'T die! There has to be a miracle, or it's a dream, it's a mistake -- it's a MOVIE, it HAS to have a happy ending!
    That day's lesson was that movies, like life, sometimes has a sad ending. This was news to them.
    Disney never left them dejected. In ג€œLion King,ג€ when Mufassa died -- sure, my girls broke down and wept, and hugged me and made me promise I'd never die -- he stayed in touch as an omnipresent spirit, replete with reassuring voice and hovering physical presence. If that's death, I can't wait. My girls easily got over it, and weren't sad anymore by the end. Bambi's mother  dies, but her death is sensitively glossed over, and it's almost like she's been written out of the movie -- she simply doesn't show up anymore. The girls, and I, didn't even realize she was barbecued. 
    ג€œThe Ten Commandmentsג€ they found boring. Boring?! But -- but it's Cecil B. DeMille!!  A cast of thousands! The greatest epic of its time! What's boring?! The special effects, they said, were pathetic; comical rather than breathtaking. It didn't help to explain that the movie came out the same year I did, because my special effects are just as outdated. 
    By now, they've got a thicker layer of sophistication (no thanks to their schooling), and they'll eagerly watch any Cary Grant film I can find. Long after we'd watched ג€œArsenic and Old Lace,ג€ and ג€œHis Girl Friday,ג€ two or three times each, the girls were practising their Cary Grant twitches, gestures and deadpans on each other, and I must say, they've mastered the master.

COULD BE you're wondering what kind of father I am to promote TV indolence. Trust me, my kids run around plenty. And they read. At the very least, we read all the movie credits, looking for funny names.
    Our bedtime story for a while last year was Orwell's ג€œAnimal Farm,ג€ which tells you something. The girls showed impressive comprehension of the political satire, except that kept confusing the terms: "Daddy, are we the communism or the democracy?"
    When we finished that book (and saw the animated movie), I reached back to a treasure of my youth and read -- bit by bit, over several months ג€“ ג€œTo Kill a Mockingbird.ג€ By the end of it (they knew it was the end, because I blubbered), they could have written a doctorate on the Deep South during the Depression. Then, of course, we watched the movie. They were mildly disappointed that the actress playing Scout didn't look exactly like their friend Sophie Jonah, because while we were reading the book, that's who they imagined Scout to look like.
    Curiously, the girls could not watch through either ג€œElephant Man,ג€ or ג€œRain Man,ג€ so disturbed were they by their misfortunes. Most interesting, this: the girls are unpurturbed by gratuitous death and violence in movies, but a person with a condition gives them nightmares.
    They're unaffected by the violence because they remind themselves what I've told them: it's all ketchup and stuntmen. Pure fakery. With this rationalization they easily detach from the scariest scenes. A hundred people killed, ho-hum.
    But kissing? My girls are behind the couch. They need only see two people of opposite s-x (they won't even utter the word) looking at each other "in that way," and they know what's next. They clamp their hands on their faces, writhe in tortured agony, make loud braying noises (to muffle the sound of slurping lips, I suppose) and shriek "Is it over yet? Is it over yet?" Then the scene shifts and another hundred people are killed, and they're relaxed again.
    I asked them about this. They were about seven, and I think we'd just watched ג€œRocky.ג€ The poor galumph is beaten to a pulp, blood and sweat (ketchup and vinegar) oozing from every pore, his eye puffs up and the trainer slashes it with a razor, every inch of his body has been brutally tenderized (now there's a contradiction in terms!), and he keeps going back for more, and the girls say "Yeah!," but then here comes Adrian into the picture, and they can't bear to watch -- in case they kiss.
    Ever so eloquently, the girls explained the difference: "They can fake killing, but they can't fake kissing."
    OK, so?
    "But they're not even married to each other!"