G-Force: Disney's Loveable Rodent Gets an AK-47
We live in a society that is bent on "safe." Germs, we are warned, are everywhere; on our floors, cabinets, walls, dashboards, air, and hands. Watch afternoon TV and you're attacked by ads for cleaners, disinfectants, and disposable "this and thats" -- all of which are designed to keep you and your family cocooned in a tomb of protective safety. Airport security protects you from terror across the world, while alarms, dogs, mace, bolts, fences and walls separate you from the violence that threatens outside your own front door. America is frightened, and television brings it all home.
I remember the films and TV shows I watched as a child as well as I recall my best friend's face. TV was our pal. Blockbusters at the big screen were captivating and commanding spectacles that we flocked to and talked about with friends. Big films morphed fashion, music, attitudes and even language. Hollywood tells us where we are, what we imagine, and what we are talking about more distinctly than any other book, poem, and oral history ever has.
Ever since I was at a metro stop and saw a poster of Wesley Snipes aiming his gun in The Art of War at the head of a woman waiting for a bus, I've been waiting for America's caviler attitude about guns to reach little children. This week Disney launched its D-Day assault. With the advertisements for G-Force gracing every highway across America, big artillery has reached the "cute" stage. No more Steamboat Willie, now Disney's adorable rodents are armed to the hilt with machine guns and AK-47's. Imagine Walt rolling over in his grave angry at what his namesake has wrought in America's subliminal mind.
America is a circular firing range. Violence is being adorably romanticized by Disney's advertisement. Callousness about guns has reached the flood level. In movie posters and popular culture, we've allowed guns to signal action and thrills simply because we've settled for the bang over the big writing. Just watch Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory to learn what a gun can do, or lose a child over a battle in the streets or in a war overseas and you'll feel the scars and tears that guns and violence deliver. I often imagine the sorrow and senselessness a victim of a gun shot must feel in their final moments as they bleed to death -- for nothing on the streets.
Today, driving through the canyons of Sunset Boulevard between the billboards and buildings it's easy to see guns everywhere. Get Smart, Tropic Thunder, and even Angelina Jolie's Wanted sported guns crisscrossing through their posters and billboards. Tobacco and alcohol have been ridiculously banned form advertising, but guns -- it seems, are okay to be scrawled anywhere -- for any reason.
If you're driving down the highway over the next week and your child looks out the windshield and shouts, "I wanna see G-Force", pull down the sun visor and change the subject. Tell him "it's not a movie but subversive mush that feeds on the worst sociological low, and soon -- before it's too late, I'm gonna give the world a piece of my mind." Then pull out the Pruell eye drops and disinfect his eyes and remind yourself everything is clean, and it'll all be okay.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
I think Walt Disney would be more disturbed by the fact the rodent is carrying a commie rifle instead of a good old Garand.
I have not seen this movie - only the preview and it looked "cute". Let's face it, fairy tales - which I grew up with are scary and violent. Tom & Jerry? Violent. The Road Runner & Wilie Coyote? violent. Somehow, we watched those cartoons and read those stories and we knew the difference between fantasy (a cartoon) and reality. Guns have been in movies for a LONG time.
I am in favor of gun control. I can't see why anyone should legally own an AK-47 or an assault weapon. A shotgun, maybe. A handgun - in reason as long as it has a trigger lock and it is kept in a locked gun safe and the ammo elsewhere. And only then if children are taught that it is not to be played with and educated on gun safety.
If your child is looking at these movies and hoping for his AK47 for a birthday or christmas present - then you have more problems than him just watching movies. Perhaps you should spend some quality time with your child. Disney movies most of the time are moral tales - they delve into areas that consist of teachable moments. The big thing is TO WATCH THESE MOVIES WITH YOUR CHILDREN & THEN USE THEM AS A BASIS OF DISCUSSION. Don't stop talking to your kids.
On another note, we were at an animal shelter over the weekend, considering adopting a guinea pig there. The staff were gritting their teeth and getting ready for an incoming FLOOD of unwanted guinea pigs that stupid parents will buy their kids as pets after seeing this movie, then ditch when they don't feel like taking care of them anymore. So yeah, G-Force might not be good for rodents OR kids!
I think for a parallel to this: look at Japanese culture and media and the way it has gone for the last two decades. Eesh.
I have no interest in this movie, or any other Disney movie.
Some of you people really need to get over your phobia of guns. We should be teaching our kids at a young age to respect firearms and their inherent danger, not fear them. It may save their lives someday.
If you really want to protect children, ban swimming pools. They kill many more children every year than guns.
Go watch The Searchers (or any John Wayne movie, really) and then come back and tell us with a straight face that Golden Age cinema was so wonderful and innocent. Human cultures have always glorified violence. Modern media technology just allows us to partake more directly today than our ancestors did.
Actually "The Searchers" was made by John Ford and it is not a movie that glorifies violence. Quite the opposite. The John Wayne character is no hero. He's a very, very bitter man who hates Indians. In is actually a movie about hatred and prejudice. It is also a character study, as were all of John Ford's movie.
It was strictly an adult movie. I do not see how this movie, or the original "The Unforgiven" glorified violence.
Neither of these movies were marketed to children.
Its teenage mutant ninja turtles.
By being armed
but with no weapons
great battles can be won.
Tao Te ching
What's even more telling on a kid's sub-conscious is that it's OK for Governments to act in covert, extra-legal ways - wasn't something along the lines of G-Force what V-P Cheney was up to?
Ban James Bond?
I's too bad Jerry Bruckheimer has branched into Disney animation. Is it wishing too much that he stay out of the children's sector after this?
Guns have always been a part of America. There are more than 300,000,000 guns in private hands here right now. We all have the express right to own and carry guns or other weapons without limitation, although many law makers feel they don't need to follow the laws set down for them by the people.
You can add to that list of things which keep us safe from the dangers outside: "alarms, dogs, mace, bolts, fences and walls" the all important guns we keep in our possession should those other safety measures be breeched.
I am a writer, a liberal, none-too-pro-gun, and I wish I could sterilize my eyes after reading this.
Like anything else, guns are symbols; in the case of action movies, they are symbols of authority and power, of the force of one's will extended to the life or blood (another powerful symbol) of another. Yes, they are killing devices and yes, they are none too good for your health. But--
If your kid is going into a Disney movie and then soaking up ITS moral message as opposed to YOUR moral message, then your kid had issues far beyond the movie. If your kid is watching a bunch of hamsters blow up cars and implied people, and says to his little self, "Wow! I wanna do that, too!", and you're not there to explain to him why or why not that that behavior is wrong, then you have an even bigger problem. If your guidance and firm hand are not there to help your child make his or her own decisions, then you have an even still bigger problem. You hold the moral authority, not the media. So let the cartoons have as much gun-related imagery in them they want; it is you who buy the movie tickets, you who explains things, you who possesses the TV remote.
Most of all, it is you who possesses the time to explain to your son or daughter the DIFFERENCE between fantasy and reality.
When cartoon guns are outlawed, only outlaw cartoons will have guns.
Let's see if I get this right-- if Disney made a show that glorified violence, without repercussions, in which the heroes used fists, clubs or swords to defeat their problems, you'd be okay with that? It's just the presence of guns that makes it wrong?
I think the problem here is not guns, but the way VIOLENCE is portrayed as an easy way to solve your problems, and where the people that run around killing are never punished so long as their cause is "just".
I've long felt that violence in general is portrayed as too easy, too callous, and too responsibility-free in our entertainment. That is where the problem lies, and it has nothing to do with the violence being caused by guns, knives, karate chops, or whatever.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
