I was blissfully unaware of a 1988 American Pippi Longstocking film. Sadly that bliss is gone now. The "children" in this version are played by teenagers! I don't think America understands children. It tends to either make them like adults, or soak them in saccharine.
Leon Spinks said...
More mindless anti Americanism by dumb-as-shit Europeans. Why are Europeans both spectacularly stupid and lazy? It's a bad combination.
Leon, I did not intend this to become an us-vs-them thing. (And even less an us-vs-US thing:) The world has too much of that. Any culture has its good and bad points, and in fact I like ten times more American movies than European ones, for example.
The theme song makes me puke. Must be some union composer recycling a discarded tune from some cheap 50s style college teenpic. (Compare to the original theme song from the Swedish TV series.)
ReplyDeleteThe Hollywood sadim touch at its purest.
Now, I have to go watch a Fry&Laurie sket
...ch to get the image out of my mind, for example this one.
ReplyDeleteHey, you need to see "Leon", it's American and has children as children.
ReplyDeleteOh wait, that was a French Director filming in the US. I guess Freaks and Geeks is the only one that really has children as children
More mindless anti Americanism by dumb-as-shit Europeans. Why are Europeans both spectacularly stupid and lazy? It's a bad combination.
ReplyDeleteThe typical European's exposure to America is through it's exported image. There are two facets to exportation, the exporter's content, and the importers acceptance of that content.
ReplyDeleteIn Europe we only see as much of America as we are shown by the exporters, filtered through the acceptance of the importer.
Based on this, Europeans cannot comment on America, only the presented American image.
However, as a immigrant I can sample US culture in situ. Granted I only see a West Coast perspective on the whole.
The thing with media is that it presents ideas and ideals, not truths. How the TV industry is perceived is based on the viewers perspective. If you grew up in a community where every 16yr old has their own car, and every weekend there is a palatial house offering a party, then you can accept that as true. If you grew up in back to backs or tenements and only saw one car parked on the street you would find the parties and cars world a fantasy wonderland.
Maybe American kids are more grown up when teens. Maybe they are more cute when younger.
However, maybe you could furnish a counter example us dumb-as-shit Europeans have not yet encountered, we are open to ideas. But if you look at the presented examples, Beaver, Cosby, Fresh Prince, Diffren' Strokes, Lucy, Clueless, which of these are good examples of realistic presentation of children?
Apart from F&G Rosanne is one of the few which does not sugar it up.
There are so few examples where the kids look or act the age presented. Even Romeo + Juliet, at times the actors seem the part, but mostly they seem too old. Ziffarelli had a more credible Juliet. In "Leon" and "Heat" Natalie Portman acted her age. Though I enjoy Lohans earlier movies, there was always something idealized about her.
So Leon, help us see the good in America, don't just give us a knee jerk insult.
I'm not a huge boxing fan, but I recognize Leon Spinks as a boxer - I think maybe a dead boxer, although that might be his brother. This is a troll like any other.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I looked it up - they're both boxers and still alive. I must've been thinking of someone else. I think I may have been picturing Sonny Liston. Now there was a bad motherfucker if ever there was one.
ReplyDeleteOh, absolutely, Europeans are both spectacularly stupid and lazy. This is why the economy of a country like, say, lazy and stupid Germany is stuck at the bottom of the pit, while the USA have a budget excess by the hundreds of billions.
ReplyDeleteNot that I'm casting any stones at US workers. It's their leaders who are exceptionally inept for the last 7 years. Such a pity, when the USA are honestly a great country.
With some great issues. But everything's relative. Saudi women are petitioning, hoping to be granted the right to drive a car in 2008.
There are issues, and then there are issues.
If you think European movies are bad, you should try watching arab TV!
You can understand everything that's going on, even if you can't make out a single word. That's how abysmally cliché the acting is.
But I admit, it's a very revealing fact when european directors prefer to go work in the USA.
US immigrant Alex testified...
"Granted I only see a West Coast perspective on the whole."
Is West vs East a more significant difference than North vs South?
"which of these are good examples of realistic presentation of children?"
HAH! That's an easy one: Webster, and Arnold.
And Samer the honest, articulate and clean-faced little shoe polisher, a series which aired over here before the days of color TV.
(Excuse me while I go pipp... pipp... pyu... BLEAAAARGH!)
Pascal,
ReplyDeleteWhen you say N/S do you mean back in Blighty between say Newcastle and London, or do you mean between USA and Mexico, or between San Francisco and LA?
I would have to say that my friends from LaLa Land (LA) are differently minded to my friends from SF Bay Area.
By saying West Coast I embrace the general culture of LA, SF, San Jose, Seattle, Portland. These are the cosmopolitan industrial ports on the Peripherary of the Western world. It is a culture founded differently to the East Coast. Again industrial, cosmopolitan, but less mellow than the West.
European directors working in the US? Same as us in the tech industry. You go work where the work is. What about the great European Directors who moved to the US, like Hitchcock, Lang and Besson. Hitch was strong enough to have the studio system work for him. Lang returned to Germany as soon as the Reich fell. Besson, despite working in the US still seems to have a very European flavor to his films, but those he wrote, and were directed by others, like "The Transporter" have a different feel. Indeed the Transporter seemed like a Taiwanese action flick.
I guess there is a time when moving is a good thing. I can understand my move, it happened when I was free to move, and located me in the heart of the industry. The UK, I'd have to move towns every time I change employer, here they are all clumped together.
LA is the same, most of the acting talent and studios, and film finance is located there. It achieved critical mass.
I'm neither American nor European, and I have traveled across both the U.S. and Europe.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that I have steadily increased my love and respect for the European, while I have learned to embrace the inbred dumb-fuck cliché of the typical American?
Could it be that, while traveling Europe, I have not ran across entire families living out of their cars? Or white collars holding "Will work for food" signs on street corners (downtown S-F)? Or that I have yet to see a European capital with hundreds of tenements with boarded windows just a couple kilometers from the government's siege (outside the tourist circuit, Washington is a dump, pure and simple).
Who are you calling stupid and lazy? Perhaps it would be time to get your head out of your ass, you ignorant schmuck.
Sorry Eolake, just couldn't help it.
I've lived just across the border here in Canada from those Americans for 75 years now, and I'll never forgive ruddy old England for letting those upstart rebels in those 13 colonies of long ago separate from their homeland and acceptable culture. Just because they have more firepower than the rest of us doesn't make them smarter or better. It just makes them less desirable as neighbours. You can always tell an American, but not much! And if "Dubya" had one more brain cell, it would be terribly lonely.
ReplyDeleteThis is why the economy of a country like, say, lazy and stupid Germany is stuck at the bottom of the pit, while the USA have a budget excess by the hundreds of billions.
ReplyDeletePascal, you may think that your fantastically toned abs and rock-solid ass (like two ripe cherry tomatoes) means you can get away with anything, but you're wrong. Germany's economic strength, as Lisa Simpson said, has partly to do with a strong work ethic, but also because that same U.S. economy, in better days, pumped all those greenbacks into the place after the Allies had spent several years destroying it. I believe this has come up before, and can only assume that all those drugs, booze, and wild orgies have dulled your mind. Don't think we haven't heard the rumours about you and Lindsay Lohan.
I'll never forgive ruddy old England for letting those upstart rebels in those 13 colonies of long ago separate from their homeland and acceptable culture.
ReplyDelete"when I came to the American war, I took my part, like a child as I was (until set right by my father) on the wrong side, because it was called the English side."
England has never really been much of a friend to Canada, of course, siding with the U.S. frequently in disputes because they were afraid of them. Of course, Canadians would never rise up like that - they just take whatever shit gets dumped on them. They complain, but never do anything about it.
"Don't think we haven't heard the rumours about you and Lindsay Lohan."
ReplyDeleteI believe it was Britney. I just saw a picture of her in an ambulance today. Be careful when partying with Dr P.
"And if "Dubya" had one more brain cell, it would be terribly lonely."
ReplyDeleteK.O.O.L.! Keeling Over Of Laughter! :-D
Joe, I'm shocked!
I mean, you had promised to keep the secret.
(About my greek god physique, I mean.)
Just because your intellect is as sharp as your razor wit, doesn't mean I'll take anything out of respect for you. Threatening my legendary humility is a red line.
(You've heard about our lebanese tradition of Red Lines, of course?)
Eagle-eyed Eolake observed...
"I believe it was Britney."
It's not my fault, if she can't take the truth reasonably. I just told her that my body belonged to the whole world and she shouldn't be selfish. Next thing you know, she went Kojack.
She's just too damn sensitive for her own good. At least, when Paris found my photo while in prison, she took it like a spiritual experience, as one should.
(Thanks Paris, for keeping my anonymity by just mildly saying that you had "found God".)
So! Who's up for tonight? I have a special batch of 7,000 year-old Nectar, and the Ambrosia is exceptional after the weather we've been having (thank you, global warming!). Add the usual crowd of perfect Vestals, and the Lost Girls promised to be there.