Last Month in Kids' Media: April 2023
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Movies/Streaming
The Super Mario Bros Movie
The creators of The Super Mario Movie searched all their Kingdoms and found the exact line where the audience's expectations would be met. And they stayed there the entire film. I don’t mean that in a bad way. But don’t go looking for depth; it’s structured like a video game, shockingly enough.
Reviewers are rightfully ripping it from an artistic point of view, but that doesn’t take away from how much fun I had watching it with my kids.
The thin character arcs of Mario and Luigi stress being courageous even when you’re scared, working together, and never quitting. This is the heart of teaching children how to play video games, so it felt right at home.
Bowser and Toad are standouts in what is otherwise an excellent example of filmmakers setting expectations and easter eggs and fulfilling them.
But I have to admit; I yelped with joy at the reveal of the Rainbow Road.
PS Stay until the end credits. The *very* end. Did Marvel teach us nothing?
Morning Brew reports that it passed the $ 1 billion mark, only “the 5th movie since the Covid pandemic began to hit the threshold and the 10th animated movie ever to gross $1 billion.”
Peter Pan & Wendy on Disney+
I might be in the minority here, but I liked it. They took some welcome liberties with the backstories and built up Wendy as a real character. It honestly should have been called “Wendy & this catalyst character who doesn’t have much to do besides bring the kids to Neverland,” though, because poor Peter didn’t do much. It was really Wendy’s story.
I also wish Tinkerbell had been given more to do. She and Wendy didn’t have as much of a conflict as they normally do, which is a great change to not pit the two women against one another.
Same with Tiger Lily. The actress, Alysssa Wapanatâhk, has rightfully stood by their new interpretation, telling Native News Online that the filmmakers wanted her to bring her Cree heritage into the story. And even though Tiger Lily isn’t cringey and perpetuating harmful stereotypes…..what does she do here? Her people seem to allow the Lost Boys (or Lost Kids, since they are not only boys) to take up their spot on the island, even saying, “It’s their home, not mine” when Wendy asks why TL won’t go inside. Beyond proving they can have a respectful Indigenous character, I don’t think she serves much purpose in the story besides giving them some advice and walking the line toward being a “Magical Native American” trope.
TV Tropes.com explains: “Works often use this trope to promote a "positive" image of indigenous peoples rather than accurately portraying their culture or developing them as characters. Like Noble Savage, this trope can have obvious Unfortunate Implications. While this trope does render indigenous peoples badass in their own right, it also furthers stereotypes of them as exotic outsiders, and often trivialises deep spiritual traditions as mere fantastical magic in a manner that many real indigenous people view as disrespectful.”
A+ for effort, C for doing anything with her character.
I have to admit that it felt a little jarring to realize that Mr. Darling was played by Alan Tudyk, even though he was pretty great. Jude Law also made for a slimy but sympathetic Hook.
Barbie Drops a New Trailer
Here are words I never thought I’d say in a public forum: I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE THE NEW BARBIE MOVIE!!!
The Barbie Movie’s marketing rollout has done an amazing job of building suspense while giving us a taste of what to expect. Once they dropped their new trailer last week, a wave of friends and celebrities making their own Barbie poster flooded my feed.
It’s too early to know what to really expect in the story, but based on that trailer, I imagine that Barbie is looking for a little more and Ken is holding her back? But honestly, who knows? I’m just here to see Simu Liu and Ncuti Gatwa (Shootee GAHT-WA) gang up on Ryan Gosling.
They’re opening the doors to Barbie’s Dream House on July 21st.
Part of That #MeToo World
Some people are up in arms because they prefer their princesses have no bodily autonomy.
We know that the new version of The Little Mermaid just can’t win, and not because the live-action/CGI updates that came before it were yawn-worthy to downright embarrassing.
No, the initial uproar was that they dared to cast a Black Ariel. I won’t rehash that uproar here because, Honestly, people. Don’t you have better things to do?
No, the latest is because the original lyricist, Alan Menken, dared to tweak some lyrics to speak to an audience in 2023 vs. 1989.
As someone who once purposely used the song “Kiss the Girl” to get a guy to kiss me, maybe the change in that song was unnecessary. We know Ariel wants and needs him to kiss her for a happy ending. But you can’t blame Disney for trying to amend their history of stories where princes kiss sleeping or otherwise innocent girls. I’m glad they’re reconsidering some well-known themes and making the changes that might speak to today and future generations.
Quick Looks: TikTok, Apple Barks Back, Link Learns to Cook, & YouTube Shorts Come up Short
TikTok went before Congress and basically told them they don’t do anything more with customers’ data than US-based companies do. Everyone ignored it, and the hearing went on. To understand more about who really owns TikTok and the possible ramifications — or not — listen to Adam Conover’s podcast. Expert Abbie Richards explains it all clearly.
If you use the parental controls Bark to monitor your children’s devices, you probably got a notice that after an ios update, Bark can’t analyze a device without inputting the password every single time. This is on Apple, not Bark, and there are workarounds. Many parents either keep an older phone to mirror their children’s activities or tell their kids to input the password or lose their phone. They’re adding updates to this page.
Did you pre-order the new Legend of Zelda game yet? We did! And I am not the Zelda expert in our house by far but I did enjoy learning how Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom improves the cooking aspect of the game, thanks to Brian Altano on IGN.
YouTube Shorts is in high gear, and it’s kind of a nightmare to monitor with your kids. It has all the appeal of TikTok — good and bad —, but it’s worse because it sneaks into kids’ algorithms before adults might even know about it. Luckily most channels created their own Shorts channels which stay on brand, so it should be easy to hide the generally harmful ones. I’m still researching it, so follow @cmjcomms on Instagram to see what I learn.
Images: Canva, Cindy Marie Jenkins
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