Disney/Pixar Getting a Little Too Cute for Their Boots
So I’m watching Cars with The Bean, who now will occasionally deign to take a break from four or five episodes of How It’s Made per day to watch a movie, and we have the captions on, as is our custom since he likes to read them and I’ve got a long-standing caption habit dating back to his birth when I wanted the house very quiet. At the end of the first race when McQueen goes to make his appearance in the Rust-Eze tent, a comment from a random car in the crowd flashes up in caption: “That race was a pisser!”
What the hell? It’s one thing for that kind of line to be mumbled in a crowd scene so muddled as to be inaudible. Ha, ha, an adult comment in a kids’ film. Yes, we get it, you’re clever. But to put it in the captions? Do they just expect no kids to ever see those? In some houses “piss” still is a less than polite word, folks. What’s next–will I need to preview the captions on Aladdin to make sure that when the monkey, Abu, is leaping from stone to stone over the lava, he doesn’t really, in fully readable print rather than unintelligible monkey-squeak, say “Oh shit!” as it sort of sounds like he might be doing? (About 1:06 on that vid.)
Come on, people, get your act together. If you don’t want to make movies for kids, don’t. Don’t stick adult or even semi-adult language into kids’ movies, or if you do put in an inaudible nugget now and then, keep it out of the captions.
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You obviously haven’t played it backwards yet. All of the cars un-crash and, also, you hear the devil saying “I made poopies.”
Scandalous.
Comment by Allen — May 1, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
I missed that piss reference, but it’s not the only one. At another point in the movie someone refers to the Piston Cup and another asks “did what in a cup?” Oh well, most parents allow their kids to say “pee,” and it’s a matter of time till they asked what the P stands for.
Comment by Xrlq — May 2, 2008 @ 3:55 am
Yeah, I know that one too. That’s a little less intelligible to kids.
Do you really know any kids who have asked what “pee” stands for? Most kids I know have accepted that as its own stand-alone word. For me, the point is a movie supposed to be rated G, as in no prima facie (is that correct usage?) offenses against the generally accepted norms for children. “Piss” is not among those norms. True, it’s up to me what my kids watch and I don’t depend on ratings to make those decisions, but when it’s something you can’t even hear in the normal playing of the film and only pops up when you put on the captions … ? How do deaf parents feel about that, I wonder?
Meanwhile the Bean wonders, this morning, “Why didn’t you put on the captions?”
Comment by Anwyn — May 2, 2008 @ 7:37 am
I caved in when I realized that all kids’ movies have something offensive in them. Shrek has to fart, I think the warthog in “The Lion King” does, too. They’re addicted to pushing the envelope. Why? Because people like me cave and keep going, even though I’m explaining all the way home why the cat in “Stewart Little” shouldn’t have cursed and how that was unnecessary.
And now she tells me not to worry about what she sees or hears on TV or in the movies. At 13, she says she’s heard it all at school. From my time spent in the carpool line watching the middle-schoolers walk by, I’ve heard some of the worst language I’ve ever heard. I wonder what else she’s getting immune to?
Comment by Anne — May 2, 2008 @ 7:38 am
Probably not, but I don’t put anything past my three year old. Then again, he’s the one who announced a successful potty training exercise with “Mommy, mommy, I crapped in the can!” so maybe not a good example.
Comment by Xrlq — May 5, 2008 @ 7:25 am
Honestly, I didn’t know what “pee” stands for. I thought it stood for pee.
Comment by Anne — May 6, 2008 @ 12:44 pm