No you don't want nada
None of this, six gun in this, brotha runnin this,
Buffalo soldier, look it's like I told ya
Still a great song!
Earlier today I watched Wild Wild West for the first time since seeing it in the theaters as a kid and hot damn it's insane. First of all, I didn't realize how much racism there is in this movie. There's a scene where a large party of "rednecks" practically lynch Jim West after he drums on a lady's bossom. Apparently it was too much to show him in the scene with the noose around his neck, but it's still dangling there and the mob is still intending to lynch him. As a kid, I didn't really get the racial aspect of this movie at all. I just thought they were mad for touching the woman's boobs, not because a black man did it. Certainly I realized he was a black man, but I didn't really make the connection at the time.
In another scene there's a conversation between West and Loveless with sly asides about "a coon's age," "half a man," and "a monkey's uncle." Loveless also only refers to West as boy. I understand that in the time period there was a lot of blatant slavery, but to turn it into humor for a kiddie movie seems a bit much to me. Yeah, it's rated PG13, but I definitely saw it when I was 9.
On the other hand, Will Smith is barely clothed for about the first fifteen minutes.
At least there's equal opportunity with the butt shots in this movie.
Anyway, it makes me wonder about what else I consumed as a young kid. I vaguely remember seeing Alien when I was about 5. Sometimes as a kid I used to have bizarre nightmares with aliens in them, so clearly seeing that kind of film affected me. If something could change how secure I felt with this universe, I wonder how it shaped the way I interact with people. There must be a way to save kids from culture that could be dangerous to how we relate to one another without turning them into those strange people who for example, never saw the Lion King or read any of the Harry Potter books.
The other night my father asked my brother and I if we had seen Eclipse. Not only was I shocked that he even knew what this was, he actually knew what it was about. We said we never saw it, and we don't have an intention to. He explained that it was actually his girlfriend and her daughter's idea of a great movie. Her daughter is maybe 6 years old! I was so bothered that her mom is letting her watch that movie. Twilight allows terrible gender roles to seem acceptable to kids while making it seem appealing to be a helpless girl as long as she has two men who can protect her. Oh, and if she gets pregnant and is not going to college... and her baby is potentially going to kill her it's okay to not even consider abortion. I explained this to my dad, then later on his girlfriend asked me if we wanted to watch it. I was trying so hard not to explain this to her, instead I just told her that the author was Mormon.
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