You know: I find that, when you are hanging out at home, delighting in the invention of Netflix, sometimes there is nothing better than to watch a movie you really enjoyed as a kid. Like Short Circuit!
Cast and characters Main. Jace Chapman as Noah Ferris, an 11-year-old boy who struggles with social anxiety disorder is going to a public school for the first time with his emotional support dog named Dude after being homeschooled previously; Larisa Oleynik as Karen Ferris, Noah's mother, who works as a lawyer. See the full list of Dude, Where's My Car? Cast and crew including actors, directors, producers and more.
Which I watched tonight!They are remaking Short Circuit, did you know that? Some people are angry about it! Because the Paul Blart: Mall Cop director is attached to the project. And, of course, everyone is all, “nooooo! Paul Blart: Mall Cop!
That was the worst movie! How can a philistine such as Paul Blart: Mall Cop director Steve Carr possibly translate the high-brow quality entertainment film Short Circuit with all the depth, nuance, and artistry it requires???” Somewhere, somehow, some dude is really over-enthusiastically using the term “raping” to describe this. Possibly it’s his “childhood” Steve Carr is “raping.” I don’t know, I don’t have the energy to look it up. I just know it’s happening, because people do those things.But here is the thing: sooner or later, you are going to have to realize that these treasured memories of your childhood were of things that did, objectively, blow. You did not realize this, of course! You were but a child! But it is time to stop defending them.
Beginning with, let’s say, Short Circuit.First of all, I’d like you to meet Fisher Stevens, a White Person.And who’s this? Why, it’s beloved Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2 character Ben Last Name Undetermined!
Ben Last Name Undetermined, on whom I can vaguely recall having an elementary-school crush! (He seemed like a smart man, what with his job building advanced robot soldiers and all; furthermore, he was shy, and projected a certain vulnerability; also, he had glasses. My tastes, regarding these matters, were set at an early age.) Ben Last Name Undetermined, whom I have to thank for many deeply felt chuckles and guffaws, and who was perhaps my favorite character in the movies!
Ben, who was pretty definitively Not a White Person!But what’s this? Ben – who is Not a White Person – bears a remarkable resemblance to noted White Person Fisher Stevens! How can this be? You recall Ben as being definitively not-white, and here is this actor who is white, and oh. Oh, SERIOUSLY? In 1986, they were doing this?
But, I mean, you remember Ben as having some kind of accent, and at the time it was pretty convincing, soOH. Shil wrote:Excellent review as usual, Sady. Your use of capitalization is exemplary AS EVAH!This comment:“And this is when you realize: at one point, a point in your lifetime, this stuff was downright acceptable.
It wasn’t just bad people who put up with it; it was good people, too, who just didn’t get the problem because the thinking behind it was so ubiquitous as to be unquestionable. It was totally OK to hire a white dude to play an Indian man in a role that revolved mostly around making fun of him for being Indian and/or positing the existence of Indian people as fundamentally hilarious.”totally resonates for me, since I (being Indian) got to see Short Circuit as a kid in India and everyone found it damn entertaining and never commented on the fact that it was a really strange depiction of an Indian (esp.
For people who hadn’t seen US stereotypes of Indians). I can’t recall ever hearing an Indian comment critically on Ben Kingsley as Gandhi either. And the funny (though not in an amusing way) thing is that I know lots of Indians who would completely fail to see the issue here, even if I pointed it out to them. Wrote:It’s amazing to look back at contemporary reactions to movies, like the Siskel and Ebert review you mention here, and realize what was overlooked and considered okay–stuff that seems obviously not so from our perspective.One question: are you referring to Ben Kingsley when you talk about a “white non-Indian dude”? He’s not from India, and I don’t know how he identifies racially/ethnically, but I wouldn’t necessarily call someone of mixed Indian descent “white”. This is just my personal perspective, but I am mixed, and my mother’s family is European, and I certainly wouldn’t call myself white.
Sady wrote:@Lynn: I’m a long way from wanting to defend “Avatar,” because I’ve heard about the whole saga, and it’s depressing as hell. But I would argue that the whitewashed characters (a) probably will not be made up to “look” Tibetan or Inuit, and (b) probably will not be shown as fundamentally hilarious because they are (white people pretending to be) Asian or Inuit.
They’ll just be white people who miraculously manage to come from cultures that are remarkably similar to Tibetan and Inuit cultures. (Will all the background players and extras be white, too?
That’s something I’m kind of wondering about, actually; there are a lot of ways to go with that, none of which would mitigate the fuckedupness at hand). Whitewashing is still really, really, really offensive, but it doesn’t register for contemporary audiences as offensive in the same way that a brownface clown like Ben does. Alexander wrote:Great review. I remember watching this late childhood, thought it was pretty amusing and emotionally compelling at the time. I was called back to this fairly recently, the Nostalgia Critic brought up the blackface issue, as well as how horrible all the comedy shtick with him was. Yeah, that whole issue is pretty stunning.
And I was born in 1986, when I watched the movie (and sequel, and yes Johnny getting smashed up was disturbing) it has to have been mid nineties at the latest. I think I need to have a word with the relative that thought this was good viewing recommended viewingOh, and this comment: “Because, you know, shit was fucked up. It continues to be fucked-up now, in fact! With any luck, our descendants will look back on our movies and be like, “Jesus, people WATCHED that? And didn’t get how TERRIBLE it was?” Because things will be better for them than they are for us, and they will get to take more for granted, which means we will all seem stupid and somewhat loathsome, which is as it should be.”Yes. Great sentiment, very well expressed.
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