Movies: Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

Voices by: Scott Menville, Tara Strong, Greg Cipes, Khary Payton, Hynden Walch, Will Arnett, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Michael Bolton
Directed by: Aaron Horvath, Peter Rida Michail
Written by: Michael Jelenic & Aaron Horvath from characters created by Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Arnold Drake, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, William Moulton Marston
Warner Bros., 2018
PG; 84 minutes
4 stars (out of 5)

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Every time we travel as a family, it seems like at some point we turn on a hotel television and Teen Titans Go! is on. We do it as a way to entertain the kids while we (the adults) try to relax for a few minutes before whatever next big thing, but we always get sucked in and end up watching too. And it's so . . . dumb. But it never fails to make me laugh.

If you're thinking a Teen Titans Go! movie is more or less an extended episode, you're not entirely wrong. You're not entirely right, though, either. I think the humor is more sustainable in smaller bites, but there is plenty here to amuse. The general plot is: Robin really wants a superhero movie to be made about him. So the Teen Titans try to make that happen. They're told that a superhero has to have an arch-nemesis, and they find one in the form of Slade. It goes from there in predictable fashion, with a few songs thrown in.

As I mentioned, there are a number of funny moments. However, the relentless focus on Robin (who, for me, is the least interesting of the characters), and the need to push some jokes into your face rather than let them play in the background (yes, I know, typical of the show), lessened the joy. Not by a ton, but by enough to notice the debit.

Still, I found myself laughing in spite of myself. Which is really all this movie is required to do: entertain and make people laugh. In which case it does a fairly solid job of it.

Television: Danger Mouse (2015)

It almost goes without saying that when one grows up with something, that person is predisposed to like any "new" version of that thing less than the original. And so it goes with Danger Mouse and me.

I used to watch the original series on Nickelodeon, and I loved it. Sometimes my best friend and I would play Danger Mouse, and I would be DM and she would be Penfold. I was even thinking of being Danger Mouse for Hallowe'en a few years back; it would be such an easy costume to manage.

My kids are now quite familiar with the original series as well, having watched it extensively first on YouTube then on Netflix. So they were keen to see what the reboot would be like.

They didn't like it either.

Even my 6-year-old can tell when animation is cheap. He told me flat out he didn't like "the way they did the pictures." Though the pilot attempted to hang a lampshade on that by having Colonel K go on about not having enough money. Hmm.

The voice acting bothered me a bit. They tried to more or less replicate the original voices, but it's just off enough that I'd almost rather they had done something completely new and different rather than imitate. And Baron Greenback is now Baron Von Greenback and inexplicably German. His famous rasp, meanwhile, is not all that . . . raspy.

Overall, the whole thing gives those of us who love the original Danger Mouse a sense of having been thrust into a bizarro version of it.

To be fair, however, we've only tried the first episode. I will give the show a couple more tries before dismissing it completely.

Movies: Bronies

So this is a documentary about the men who enjoy My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. I use the word "men" loosely, though, since most of the subjects followed throughout the documentary were boys and young men.

I wanted to see this because I was hoping to better understand what drew Bronies to the show. But I don't feel I received a satisfactory answer. It was all very general, a sort of, "Well, the show is about having friends and makes me feel good." There are a lot of shows about having friends, and probably a number of them that could make a person feel good, so . . . Why this show? A cartoon about ponies?

The Bronies averred that the writing, animation, and voice acting in MLP:FIM is all "top notch." I think they're probably a little biased. I find the animation and voice acting passable, and the story lines sometimes quite weak.

Oh. Do I watch MLP? Well, my three kids do, and I sometimes join them. I grew up playing with My Little Pony—my best friend and I made up great stories with them—and I remember the 80s cartoon and the movies from that era. My daughter has claimed all my original ponies and has quite the collection of FIM ponies as well. And my sons also find the show engaging, though my 8-year-old would never admit it. Still, when it is on, it's not as if he goes to find something else to do.

Okay, but back to Bronies. From the small pool of guys they chose to follow for the documentary, I noticed they all had few to no friends. Now, I don't know that for sure, but that was certainly the sense that was given—and maybe it's just they didn't want their friends to know about their Pony habit, but then again, they're in a freaking documentary for Christ's sake, so it's gonna get out. Anyway, what I extrapolated from the data given is that these lonely young men are drawn to MLP:FIM because the show makes them feel part of the friendship. And then they go online and find others like themselves and start to feel connected in ways they don't in their day-to-day lives.

It's not a bad thing. I'm just saying MLP fills a need for these men.

Is there a stigma for these Bronies? I don't know any in life, unless they are closeted . . . And it seems that any contempt may depend largely on one's immediate environment and culture. In the film, one boy named Lyle has a very "conservative" father who has trouble accepting his son's enthusiasm for a little girl's show. A young man named Alex lives in Appalachia and is subject to physical threats when he puts Pony memorabilia on his car. The overarching slur seems to be that boys and men who like MLP must either be gay or pedophiles. There is a whole argument regarding the genderfication of childhood here, but I don't feel like getting started on that.

I do wish Bronies had perhaps talked to a few more girls and women about how they feel about boys who like their stuff. I realize that wasn't the point of the film—the point was to examine the boys and their points of view. But there were a lot of girls at this BronyCon from what I could see, and I want to know why, and what they think of these guys "appropriating" something designed for them. Not that I think these girls would be angry or slanderous; they seem generous in their own rights. But the fact that something only becomes important enough to look at once boys are interested? If only girls were attending these conventions, there wouldn't be a movie. Right?

What I really want to know is: Do the girls think these guys are weird? Or are they happy these guys are sharing their enjoyment?

Because I have minor in fan psychology, I find the fan interactions with the text most interesting. That these guys make music and write stories and do Pony art . . . And MLP is great for that kind of thing because anyone can create a pony identity for him- or herself and join the world of Equestria in this idealized form. (I'd love someone to make me a pony. I'm useless with art, but if some of my characters could become ponies? That would be awesome.)

I guess, though, what gave me a skewed view of the whole Bronies documentary was that it was produced by Lauren Faust and that John de Lancie was the one to come up with the idea for the film. That knowledge made this feel far more biased and propaganda-ish. I don't think they mean it that way, of course; I honestly think de Lancie et al. mean well in that they want these Bronies and other MLP fans to be comfortable with themselves. But let's be honest: When fans are happy and feel accepted, they buy stuff. And if the fandom is more widely accepted, the fan base grows, and . . . Even more stuff gets sold. So a documentary like this is in the interest of the show and its creators.

On the whole, it was interesting but ran a bit too long and, as I mentioned, didn't really answer any key questions regarding why the Bronies are so drawn to the show, which is what I really wanted to know.

Children's Television: The Magic School Bus

I realize this is an older show, but my kids love it. It's fun, it's educational—they come away from each episode with a bevy of facts they're dying to share with me. "Mom! Did you know . . .?"

But what I wonder is whether teachers ever got upset about The Magic School Bus. Because I can see how and why they might. I could imagine an educator arguing:

We've got to get kids off this Magic School Bus trip. It sets unreasonable expectations for teachers to be fun and inventive. I'm getting students who expect to go on field trips, for God's sake. I've been teaching for fifteen years, and I don't have that kind of energy. I want my kids to sit down and shut up, not be exploring topics and demanding hands-on experiences.

Or something to that effect.

I was lucky to have a Frizzle-like teacher from kindergarten through fourth grade (though some might have thought her taking us to pick cotton like field hands was going a bit far—but hey, we sure learned to appreciate the hardships of slave labor). Now my oldest has a science-minded teacher who encourages his natural curiosity as well. And for all those out there without such benefits, well, there's The Magic School Bus. It's education by proxy, but it's good stuff. Kids are natural learners, but they learn better through experience (think of the way infants learn—it's the ultimate in immersion, going from the womb to the world) than from having someone lecture them. Take them on a ride, even if only on an animated bus.

Television: Dogtato

My two young children enjoy an animated show called Dogtato. It's in Japanese, and even though I turn on the subtitles for them they are not yet readers, so I'm not sure how much of it they really understand.

If you haven't seen Dogtato—and I'm going to err on the side of assuming you haven't—it's a show about a dog potato and his other half-animal, half-vegetation friends (like Croconion, who is a crocodile onion, and Dogtato's girlfriend who is part hedgehog and part sweet potato). It's strange, but my kids find it weirdly fascinating, maybe because they can't understand the dialogue and so are exercising their minds by trying to follow the action. I'd like to think they'll come out of repeated viewings (they ask to watch it pretty often) with a smattering of Japanese, but that's probably hoping for too much. I speak a rusty smattering of basic Japanese and French, but the kids haven't seemed to catch on to any of it, except to figure out that I slip into French when I'm really, really angry.

Anyway, the thing I want to focus on here is an episode of Dogtato in which a group of the characters visit Straight Land. The king of Straight Land insists everything and everyone be, well, straight. The citizens of Straight Land go so far as to gather in the streets and shout, "Hooray for being straight!" It's more than a little disconcerting.

I know, of course, that even if my kids could understand the Japanese being spoken, they would not make a connection between the Straight Land episode and any kind of indoctrination regarding sexual orientation, but still . . . It's so in your face and over the top as to be simultaneously hilarious and unconscionable. (You can see it for yourself by downloading it here. I have a DVD, but I'm guessing since this site caters to English-speaking viewers it will have dubbing or subtitles?)

I'm not saying a discourse on homosexuality was the agenda behind the episode; I don't know enough about Japanese culture to editorialize on that. I'm just saying—if that wasn't the intent of the writers and animators—sometimes things really do get lost in translation.

As the kids get older and more savvy, I'll probably need to prepare myself for the questions and comments . . . But then again, as they get older they're less likely to want to watch Dogtato anyway. I suppose there will always be something, though, some show or pop musician keeping me on my parental toes. They've shown some interest in Card Captor Sakura . . .

Kids & Television

I received an e-mail asking if this might interest me, and I have to say, just based on personal experience, I can see a real difference in my kids based on what they watch on any given day.

Hardly empirical evidence, I realize, but here's what happens in my house: My kids get up, and they know how to turn on the television BUT they can't change the channel because we keep the remotes up on a shelf (and we're way past the days of hand dials). So every night I make sure the channel is set to PBS Kids. Or sometimes Disney Jr.

And do I miss a few nights? Yes.

One morning I discovered the kids watching HGTV. They were weirdly mesmerized. And then they all went off to draw their own versions of a "dream house." Not so bad.

And PBS Kids is fine, and Disney Jr. is, well, okay (but never my first choice).

And then there are channels like Hub. Those shows are so cute, I totally get it, and my kids just love My Little Pony and Pound Puppies. But the commercials . . . I can't go to a store without my kids pointing out stuff they saw on commercials on The Hub.

Do I feel guilty that my kids watch a lot of TV? Well . . . What's "a lot" I guess is my real question? I watched plenty of television growing up. Loved Pinwheel, Danger Mouse, all that stuff Nickelodeon imported. But I was also allowed to watch Moonlighting and British comedies and Dukes of Hazard and Love Boat . . . My kids don't stay up and watch adult TV. And they watch a lot less TV than I ever did. I had my own television set in my room; we have only one television set in the whole house.

I don't know how much TV my kids watch compared to other people's. TV seems to have become a guilty secret that parents aren't willing to admit to. Like a drug they slip their kids from time to time. No one really talks about it except to say they never, or at least almost never . . . Except maybe when they're sick . . . Or when mom or dad really needs ten uninterrupted minutes . . .

But hey. My kids are really smart. They have fantastic vocabularies and can carry on extremely intelligent conversations. (The pediatrician is utterly amazed at my 3-year-old's ability to express himself.) I'd like to say it's all me. That having a writer for a mother means my kids will naturally be articulate. And maybe that's part of it. But I'm kind of sure Sid the Science Kid has at least given my children something to talk about and be interested in. And I know for a fact that my 3-year-old, the one the pediatrician thinks is so amazing, has culled a lot of his expressions from Thomas the Tank Engine.

I think TV is like any candy or junk food. Everything in moderation. It's about portion control, and it's about taking in the "right" nutrients. We've all heard of kids whose parents never let them have candy, and then those kids grow up and eat nothing but cookies and become diabetic and obese (or something like that). It's the same with television. Let them have a little junk now and then, and also make sure they're digesting the good stuff. But (at the risk of upsetting some parents and/or doctors) don't abstain completely. Your kid is going to see TV eventually—at a friend's house, at the mall, wherever—so start good habits early and you won't have to worry later.


 
Courtesy of EducationNews.org

Television: My Little Pony, "The Crystal Empire, Parts 1 & 2"

I realize it's not entirely fair to deconstruct and critique a show primarily designed to amuse children. I mean, surely we should be aware of the content aimed at our youth, but shows like My Little Pony are hardly designed to stand up to deep probing. And yet I feel compelled to poke at this two-parter that opened the third season.

Here we are introduced to the Crystal Empire, of which no one (viewers nor chief characters) has ever heard, for it has been missing for 1000 years. But it has reappeared! In the arctic north of Equestria!

Now Princess Cadence must work to protect the Crystal Empire. Unfortunately, she's wearing down, and so Twilight Sparkle & Co. are sent by Princess Celestia to figure out a way to protect the Empire without relying so heavily on Cadence's magic. A quick canvass of the locals reveals no one remembers their history (of enslavement by King Sombra), which means they may be doomed to repeat it. Lucky for them they have a library, and thanks to a history book, it's discovered that what everyone really needs is: A FAIR.

This is the bit that I find interesting. There is, after all, a long and rich history of pleasing the masses with bread and circuses. How many times has a king or queen lifted the spirits of his or her populace by throwing some kind of jubilee or other party? Particularly during times of discontent, economic or otherwise?

Apparently, the protection of the Crystal Empire—like any other empire in the world, really—depends on the love and good nature of its citizens, things an annual fair are designed to promote. Also, they need a crystal heart. But the heart is really just a way to collect the "light and love within" the crystal ponies and concentrate it, thus ridding the Crystal Empire of its would-be despot and keeping its people free. In the end, it is the collective will of the population, rather than reliance on a ruling figure, that saves the Crystal Empire and serves as its foundation. It takes a[n] village empire and all that.

I get that the cartoon means to engage children with thrilling stories wherein goodness and friendship defeat bullying and malice. The task given to Twilight and her friends here is designed with a sense of urgency: the empire will fall and the consequences will be grim! If we forget our roots, we will be unhappy and also fail as a society! We all must work together for the good of the empire! We must save our sovereign by taking on a share of the burden! Being happy citizens means our country will be happy, too! . . . Well, you see where this goes. Though I don't think My Little Pony is aiming for patriotic indoctrination, one has to sometimes wonder at the undercurrents.