All About Anne

I'm running a blog with drawings of my significant other while she's out travelling. Here's a couple of the recent additions, and here's a link.

I must be getting old

Since September, Danish newspaper Extrabladet has been running a man hunt (as their style is) on a website owner, who had been displaying for the world a collection of rather crudely drawn cartoon child pornography.

Before the end of the year, this person had presumably been threatened on his life and/or manhood on several occasions by Extrabladet's readers, and willfully pulled the plug on his site out of fear for his own well-being.

Enter February, where  the Danish (supposed) Social Democrats set forth a proposal of banning animated or drawn depictions of children in sexual situations by law.

This all managed to escape me until earlier today, when a 27-year-old female elected representative of parliament spoke for this ban on national radio, without any further reasoning than that of a few psycologists, who said this type of imagery could stir the same urges in a potential child molester, as could looking at actual child pornography.

Here's more (in Danish): http://www.information.dk/224815

Long story short:

Where the Wild Things Were

So, after seeing this film a second time, and learning that it will not make it to the theatres in most of Europe, do to being completely ignored by the Oscars and ultimately deemed "not a kid-friendly movie" by the broad majority of American reviewers, I felt I should have a look at the wake it has left.

I have NEVER seen an audience this divided!

(link shows user comments from Metacritic.com)

As chimes true for many user quibs, most of these comments are not particularly detailed, but it appears the average lover of the film saw it alone and the average hater is a parent who had kids along.

Common critique is that Max seems to;  -not learn anything,  -be spoiled and raised poorly, -be mentally sick, and that the Wild Things are; -nightmarish, -whiny, -depressing.

To my eyes, none of this is true. But I can see what these people are getting at.  This movie is not a cup of hot chocolate with infinite whipped cream refills. It gets a little gritty visually, and emotionally it gets downright unpleasant.

It is meant to make you feel the loneliness of not being understood, and the pressure of dealing with the unpredictability of someone who does not yet know the meaning of their feelings;

Max becomes the king of a flock of giant kids, as to learn the importance of the parent figure, and why he cannot fill out that role, being a child himself. He learns to value the lengths to which a parent will go to protect their child, and that in order to get attention, you must pay attention.

One scene with the wild thing Judith hits this point in the bull's eye. She feels left out, but Max only pick up on an accusation against him. They mouth off to one another until they are both about to break into tears, and Max has to deal with having made her feel worse, despite earlier swearing to end her and the others' loneliness. He simply is not versed well enough in the world of human emotions to sort out other people's inner turmoil.

One father mentioned having to cover his 3-year-old's eyes time and time again. Though no specific scenes were mentioned, I am fairly certain he was not doing the child a favor. Being kept in the dark is way more frightening than anything he would see in this film, and alas; the father reports the boy now being scared of the book even, despite it previously being his favorite.

Can you follow the logic? If his dad, his all-powerful protector in the dark movie theatre was too afraid to see something, it must have been horrible beyond imagination. Way to traumatize your kid, mister.

This may sound a little basic, but I think many aren't used to seeing films that display the darker sides of humanity this openly, and they expect their kids least of all to understand, or even take an interest. And just maybe, they think watching bad behavior will have their kids behave badly, which of course is paying the minds of children a lot less respect than they deserve.

If you were left unsettled or depressed by this film; good. Your emotions are on the phone, pick up for once.

If your kids were bored; well duh. Kids are always bored by the stuff their parents make them do.