Someone liked Coraline less than I did

[essentialsaltes]

Violence: Moderate / Profanity: None / Sex/Nudity: Heavy

Christian Spotlight on Entertainment

I'm quite impressed that the reviewer seems to have spent some quality time with the book, but there's still plenty to scratch one's head about in the review. My favorite is the way that the reviewer and most of the commenters have some issues with the quasi-female form:

Gaiman’s book sexualizes the relationship between Miss Pink and Miss Forcible and shows them in relatively modest circus outfits. However, Henry Selick extends that content and portrays a naked Miss Forcible as a strip dancer wearing a sequined thong and stripper's pasties on impossibly huge breasts. The children in the audience cried out their disgust in tones of amusement and surprise, as if to say, “So that’s what they look like without any clothes!” It is a deeply misogynistic image which will elicit disgust in any Christian viewer, regardless of age.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I suspect the image was not supposed to be tittilating, but 'gross.' It appears to have achieved its result with the audience.

But the whole film is clearly just a big advertisement for atheistic lifestyles, for in the real world... dad cooks, while in the mirror world... pseudomom cooks.

Comments

[gotham-bound.livejournal.com]

Um... did they happen to catch that it was supposed to be a horror movie? A fantastical one, aimed at kids, but still.

The speech is clearly a slam at the kind of home where mothers cook and fathers work and parents speak of “sin” and “sinner” and “mercy” and “justice.” It is the kind of home that atheists imagine Christians live in: a Stepford Family reality of puppet people with no creativity or individuality.

The two sentences don't really connect, but reading between them I see the writer trying not to mention hypocritical Christian parents. Considering there are so many it's not hard to see why atheists might assume that Stepfordian value in many families. Maybe, just maybe, pedantic speeches on sin and mercy are at odds with emotional abuse.

[jmdryburgh.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was just me, and I'm willing to accept that it was... I didn't think this was an appropriate film for my kids. Just because I know my kids, and from the trailers, it looked a little... creepy for them. Not their cup of tea, I knew the youngest would be creeped out, and he's 9. There's no way I would have considered it for the under 5 set. That thing with the button eyes, creeped me out, and I could picture many nightmares as a result of taking the kids to see this.

I didn't know about the semi-nudity, which, while I agree, was probably not intended to tittilate, doesn't seem appropriate for a "kid movie". Not only from a Christian perspective, but most parents wouldn't be OK with any kind of nudity in a movie intended for children. It's the kind of thing that can create a life-long image for a child, that I don't necessarily want them to have. I'd rather they grew up and discovered these things for themselves and gained a more healthy perspective, than have an old woman dressed only in sequins as a mental image to battle with. An adult can see that image and be properly grossed out without thinking that every old woman they meet looks like that, or that they will look like that when they are older, because they have the mental reasoning to realize that is not true.

With all that said, I do agree that the reviewer is a bit off his or her rocker. They seem to take this film entirely too seriously. I doubt that there is an anti-Christian sentiment to be drawn from the fact that Dad cooks in the real world, and Mom cooks in the mirror world. I agree with the commenter who says that the mirror family is evil because they were twisted and selfish, not because they are the picture perfect opposite of the real family.

Watching the trailers for the film, I took an instant dislike to Coraline, and thought that she was a bratty, selfish child. That wasn't what made me think we shouldn't see the film though, lots of kid movies feature kids who can be described as somewhat unruly, and who get their comeuppance as a result; it just seemed too dark for my family.

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

I agree with most everything you say. Certainly I would have a different perspective if I were taking kids to see it. The movie is definitely pretty intense; 9 might well be too young.

I can't take the semi-nudity that seriously. It's a few seconds, and the reviews blow it out of proportion.

As for Coraline herself, one of the other things I didn't like about the film is that she doesn't seem to have learned much or become much different after her experiences. I don't need or want a heavy-handed moral, but the complete lack of change made it unsatisfying as a story.