OK, The Lizzie Maguire Movie.
My daughter loves to watch Zoog Disney and one of the shows she likes is Lizzie Maguire. I have never been thrilled with it, but never really thought it objectionable, just silly.
In the movie, Hilary Duff plays Lizzie Maguire, a recent junior high school graduate who is basically a klutz. They make her clumsy in order to make the character more down to earth. They cannot make her ugly, poor, they certainly cannot make her out of style, and even though they talk about "popularity" she really is not inflicted by being a "nerd" or "geek", so they make her clumsy. OK, whatever. The movie takes place right after her Junior High School graduation in which her class takes a two week trip to Rome.
The beginning of the movie is spotted with classist jokes. The popular girl insults Lizzie because she is an "outfit repeater" (which we never see in the show, by the way), another remark is made about "trailer park trash" and another about "ending up spending your life folding shirts in the Mall." Granted, these remarks were made by less sympathetic characters, but I get tired of seeing this kind of vitriol slung in our children's faces in the name of humour. While no one would dream of making racist jokes, even by the overbearing school principle (which is a good thing), jokes about having less materially are always welcome.
Fast forward the class is in Rome touring around and Lizzie bumps into Italian pop-star, Paolo who basically picks her up by saying "excuse me, haven't we met somewhere before?" Lizzie bears a striking resemblance to his ex(huh, he is 17) and ex singing partner Isabella. Now here is where I object. The character just graduated Middle School. That would make her last grade eighth making her her like what-13? She spends the next few days lying about being sick, having her best friend and later other classmates cover for her, missing out of the opportunity to have Rome toured, and spending time with her "best friend" to go flitting about a strange country with a guy she just met.
There is a big climax where the principal finds out she was being sneaky, and her best friend covers for her by saying he was sneaking out. In the end it turns out Paolo was scheming her to perform onstage at some major international music award show. Wow, what a tricky guy. Here's the part I do not understand. Lizzie performs onstage, her principal and friends who were covering for her forget all her transgressions because she is "cool." Her parents do tell her they are very proud of her (for what?), but she is grounded for the rest of the summer. The moral is, if you have a dream go after it. That is what the words to the title track Why Not performed by Hilary Duff tell us. Even though she hurts her friends, lies etc. she gets to perform onstage in cool clothes with dancers, so it all evens out in the end.
Now, why this long boring post about a silly movie? There has been outspoken objection from the Christian parenting forefront about movies like Harry Potter because of the occult suggestions. While I am sure that has it's place, I think movies like this that turn morals upside down do more harm. I honestly cannot see many children, especially with strong Christian backgrounds turning to witchcraft after seeing Harry Potter. I do see this idea of "if you have a dream, go after at all costs no matter how immoral, and make sure you look cool while you are doing it" more insidious. I had the same problem with The Little Mermaid, rewarding immoral behaviour. The whole "it's not if you win or lose, it's how you play the game" theme seems to be lost these days.
My daughter and I had a little chat about what I found objectionable and she agreed.
Afterwards we saw Holes which redeemed the evening. Decentfilms.com gives it a much better review than I could.
