Instead, Watch ‘Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse’

So, the hotly anticipated Barbie movie has been released, and it is, from what I hear, a giant rug-pull on par with Puella Magi Madoka Magica, except less pleasing. This thing had a massive ad campaign, so enormous that everyone has been buzzing about it (though I am pleased to say that, Luddite that I am, I never so much as saw a single trailer). Its ad campaign promised that it would be a fun, simple, sugary film full of pink. Instead, it is apparently an over-long feminist lecture that actually uses the word “patriarchy” and expects you to take it seriously. And Ken, instead of being Barbie’s love interest, is the villain.

What most annoys me about this is that so many are shocked by it. Everyone should have learned by now that Hollywood is currently incapable of treating a long-running, much-loved franchise with any kind of respect. Smearing their feces on other people’s creations is part of their religion: They can’t not do it. How many fool-me-once-fool-me-twice situations do we have to go through before all of you finally wise up? Stop watching this crap. The people who make these movies and TV shows hate you, and they also hate the titles they’re adapting. How could a new Barbie adaptation from Hollywood possibly be anything but a hamfisted feminist screed? Barbie, after all, is a perennial boogeyman for feminists.

But if you really need some sugary entertainment featuring airheaded dress-up dolls, the best possible adaptation of Barbie has already been made: A series of short, CGI-animated videos called Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse was produced by Mattel in 2012. It now lives on Netflix, where it has been rearranged into twelve half-hour episodes. (I know that link is crossed out because WordPress is screwy, but the link works.)

Life in the Dreamhouse does what the current movie should have done: Drawing probably on the depiction of Barbie in the Toy Story movies, it gently pokes fun at the Barbie franchise while also respecting it, its history, and its lore. Appropriately set in a fantasy version of Malibu, it depicts Barbie, along with her family and friends, living in a shockingly pink “Dreamhouse” filled with bewildering and sometimes dangerous gadgets. In a nod to the many different Barbie outfits released over the years, it portrays Barbie as owning a clothes closet so large it threatens to collapse into a black hole, and it also portrays Barbie as a self-styled expert on most every subject because she’s had thousands of different jobs. Barbie is a Mary Sue but without the features that make Mary Sues annoying: She is not a self-insert character, and her perfectness is always played for laughs.

In the new movie, Barbie lives in a world where every woman in named Barbie and evey man is named Ken, but Life in the Dreamhouse remembers that there are other dolls in the franchise, so sisters Skipper and Chelsea are regular characters (Chelsea, in particular, is a series highlight), as are several of Barbie’s friends, all of whom are given distinct and appropriate personality quirks. Most ingenious is the show’s treatment of boyfriend Ken: Although always remembering that Ken is essentially an accessory to Barbie and sometimes poking fun at the fact, Life in the Dreamhouse makes him a kind of idiot savant, a himbo who despite his airheadedness is a gadgeteer genius who inexplicably makes over-complicated Rube Goldberg machines whenever he tries to put together simple devices. Unlike in the movie, in which Ken is Barbie’s underling and ultimately her enemy, the affection between Ken and Barbie in Life in the Dreamhouse is sappy but genuine, exactly as it should be.

Life in the Dreamhouse is silly and saccharine. Its only source of real conflict comes from the twins Raquelle and Ryan, who are constantly trying and failing to separate Ken and Barbie out of jealousy. When Barbie isn’t accidentally foiling Raquelle’s plots, crises come from such things as gadget malfunctions or Malibu suddenly running out of glitter.

It’s genuinely funny, but more importantly, it’s short: Originally, the episodes were five minutes. The last few episodes run nearly a half hour, and they drag a bit as Barbie and her friends overstay their welcome. It’s also, unlike the new movie–which makes raunchy jokes and references to Proust–appropriate for kids. We could perhaps have a serious discussion of whether the airheaded bimbos and superficial lifestyle of Life in the Dreamhouse are really quality children’s entertainment, but at least the humor is child-appropriate, with no references to drugs or genitalia, and no resentment of one sex for the other.

In any case, Life in the Dreamhouse is probably the best version of Barbie-themed entertainment we can hope for. As the new movie suggests, it’s increasingly unlikely that such an innocent and sincere take on a franchise like Barbie can be made anymore. If you were looking forward to Barbie because of the trailers and are disappointed to learn that it’s exactly what you should have already guessed it was, then watch Life in the Dreamhouse instead. It’s probably the best version of Barbie that will ever get made.

Smack My Witch Up

Unfortunately, I’m still so busy with work that I have had little time for anything else, which is why there hasn’t been much content here.

However, Rawle Nyanzi, who often plugs my stuff and whose stuff I often plug, has begun toying around with animation and has created an animated short entitled “Time to Smack a Witch!

This short video looks like a cut scene from a side-scrolling beat-em-up video game from the mid-Eighties, complete with the beepy music. It has no dialogue, but it’s amusing and easy to follow. It’s only flaw, were I to offer criticism, is that is opening credits are way too long for something that looks like 8-bit Theater.

And Now for Something Completely Different: ‘Flowering Heart!’

I have some important things to discuss, but I spent this evening writing Jake and the Dynamo and listening to Rammstein instead, so I regret nothing.

But I am also at present making my way through the Korean magical girl series Flowering Heart, a simple and sweet show for kids that makes for a good palate cleanser after Magical Girl Site.

I’m watching Flowering Heart on Amazon Prime, but the entire show is also available on the official YouTube channel, so you can join me in watching it if you like.

There is both a Korean version and an English version available, but, alas, there appears to be no Korean version with English subtitles, so I’m watching the dub.

The story features a trio of fifth-grade girls who form an after-school club to help people with their problems. They get a magical boost from a flying, talking hamster who grants them magic rings that can turn them into adults. They have to do good deeds to gather “hopeful energy” to replenish the Heart Tree in the Flowering Kingdom, but nefarious forces are working to gather “hopeless energy” to make the tree wither.

It is reminiscent of LoliRock, probably because Flowering Heart and LoliRock both take their influence primarily from Minky Momo, though Flowering Heart appeared in 2016, so it may take influence from LoliRock as well. For reasons I can’t quite explain, however, I found LoliRock to be a slog, whereas Flowering Heart is quite pleasant.

I’ll deliver a full review when I finish the first season. For now, I’ll simply recommend it as entertaining yet undemanding—though keep in mind that it is very much a show aimed at little girls.

 

Crunchyroll Decides to Suck Hard

Good gravy, this looks awful.

 

Just watch this video. Watch it and pay close attention to what the creators of Crunchyroll’s upcoming original magical girl show, High Guardian Spice, have to say about it.

At first, it doesn’t look too bad, if we can overlook the mediocre artwork and ignore that the title logo looks as if it came off a bottle of nutmeg. The show’s creators start out by telling us that their new series is about some girls who live in a city and go to school to learn magic. Sounds pretty formulaic. But, obviously, other franchises have seen success with the same premise, so this is not in itself necessarily a problem, even if it’s not breathtakingly original.

But then notice what else they tell us about the show: it has a “modern reflection of the world”—even though the art suggests a historic or fantasy setting. And then they tell us the characters and cast are “diverse” and that half the people involved in the show’s creation are women. And, ironically, they tell us that the “writers’ room” is all women—because, you know, they’re “inclusive.”

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Was Cleaning Out Some Old Stuff, and Look What I Found!

“First my Striker terminal, then this, this little slap at my industrial complex. You’re a flea, Jonathan Power, and I’m going to swat you!”

I played this in a VCR, and I have no equipment to capture images from it except by photographing the screen, so please excuse the picture quality.

Anyway, I absolutely love Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, an ill-fated children’s television series that ran for one season in 1987. It was the first—and last—attempt at interactive television, something that many at the time mistakenly assumed was the future of TV. Costing a million dollars an episode, sparking controversy for its violent content, and plagued by continuous fights between the writers (led by J. Michael Straczynski) and sponsor Mattel, the show was destined for early cancellation. Continue reading “Was Cleaning Out Some Old Stuff, and Look What I Found!”

Movie Review: ‘My Little Pony: The Movie’

Possibly the best thing ever to come out of the My Little Pony franchise.

My Little Pony: The Movie. Directed by Jayson Thiessen. Written by Joe Ballarini, Meghan McCarthy, Rita Hsiao, and Michael Vogel. Lionsgate and Allspark Pictures, 2017. 99 minutes. Rated PG. CNS Rating is A-I, General Patronage.

As I expected, critics are panning it, and it might turn out that My Little Pony: The Movie will prove to be a financial mistake for Hasbro and Lionsgate.

That being said, I honestly don’t know what the complaints are about. I thought this was a great movie. My only (mild) criticisms are that none of the musical numbers are among the franchise’s catchiest, and some of the animation could be better, but aside from that, this is a fine, if not exactly stunning, children’s film. Looking at a few of the negative reviews, I get the distinct impression that the critics are turning up their noses not because it’s a bad movie per se, but simply because it’s My Little Pony.

However, in my humble opinion, this may be the best thing ever to come out of the franchise. I daresay this is the first time My Little Pony has come close to living up to its potential.

G4’s central cast, from left to right: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Spike, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack.

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Drawn Like My French Girls: ‘Miraculous Ladybug’

Les filles magiques de la France sont les meilleures filles magiques, non?

Miraculous Ladybug (a.k.a. Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir). Directed by Thomas Astruc. Written by Fred Lenoir, Matthieu Choquet, et al. Zagtoon and Method Animation, France. Toei Animation, Japan. 2015-2016. French (English dub). 26 episodes of 22 minutes (approx. ). Rated TV-Y7.

Available on .

For over a decade, probably the most successful magical girl title from outside Japan has been the Italian cartoon Winx Club, a dungeon-punkish hot mess that’s like a cross between Harry Potter, Tinkerbell, and Sailor Moon. But within the last few years, France has gotten into the act with at least two strong contenders, LoliRock and Miraculous Ladybug. We’ll discuss the former some other time, but we’ll discuss the latter right now. A French magical girl cartoon rendered in CGIMiraculous Ladybug is known in some countries (including the U.S.) under the more cumbersome title of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir.

Le City of ze Lights et les girls de majeeks, oh ho ho ho!

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Anime Review: Nurse Witch Komugi R

They should have called it “Magical Girl Tsukasa-kun.”

Nurse Witch Komugi R, directed by Keiichiro Kawaguchi. Written by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu and Momoko Murakami. 2016. 12 episodes. Approx. . Not rated.

Available on .

There is a character in Nurse Witch Komugi R who, as I’ll explain shortly, should have been the central protagonist. She is (I kid you not) a crossdresser/pop idol/magical girl/cat girl/nun. And that right there tells you all you need to know about this show. To sum it up in a word: unfocused.

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