The Witching Hour

Customers do make me wonder sometimes.  Last evening I had two women, one in her mid-fifties and the other was obviously her mother.  they ordered 2 gallons of Sagey, semi-gloss, not a particular favorite sheen for me, and went about shopping for other things.  When they returned to pick up their paint the daughter commented on our Halloween product placement, particularly the witch.  She stands right across from the paint desk and we've had a number of positive comments about her.  Our witch is a life sized replica of the one and only Wicked Witch of the West, from the Wizard of Oz.  When she's plugged in she says dialogue from the movie.  Kids and adults love her.  Last evening's mother and daughter didn't.  They hated her.  "Witches are a terrible thing," the daughter said with a frown.  "There are witches in Dillsburg."  Dillsburg is a small community about 12 miles away.  My brother is a part-time Methodist minister in one of the churches there.  It's a really nice, little town.  Of course this mother and daughter hated it.  "They've chosen to go to the dark side," the mother added, looking as though she'd just spit out a mouthful of poison.  "Really," I said, choosing the higher road, "here's your paint."

After the mother and daughter had checked out, I mentioned the incident to several people.  Every one I talked to was surprised.  None of them were upset that there might be witches in Dillsburg,  Two of the people I talked to had asked if they fly around on brooms.  In fact, not one person took it seriously.  I think this is a shame, not because I believe in wicked witches, but because this kind of crazy mentality was partially to blame for the Salem Witch Trials.  The fact that they may actually be spreading a lie didn't even occur to them.  In their minds they were justified in telling a perfect stranger what they believed.  They will ruin reputations if they can.  If these women really want to point out evil, they should look in the mirror.    

Oz should scare the crap out of your kids

Well, I went to see "Oz, the Great and Powerful," and... I liked it.  My friend Betsy, however, was not so keen.  With all the press swirling around about it's inappropriateness for younger children, she expected something more akin to the original. Walking out of the theater she actually said, "I should have realized it was going to be a prequel."  And, true to form, there were dumb shit parents who chose to ignore all of the press and take little kids.  They sat several rows behind us and I can tell you, the children were not at all happy.  Don't people pay attention to news, or are they just plain stupid?  Wait, why am I even asking the question when the answer is so obvious?  Could the answer be yes to both queries?  That don't pay attention and they are stupid? I think yes.  Still, one has to ponder if this is the true intention of the film's director:  make a film which stupid, inattentive adults will take their children to see so the children will be traumatized for life.  Or maybe the thought was something might be learned.  While that may have been true of the original, I don't know if that's true here.  Dorothy learned through her trials and tribulations and scares that "there's no place like home."  I mean, what do we learn from the new Oz film?

Take the kiddies, the scares are worth it

Let's see... Well, siblings can't be trusted, (there's nothing new there).    In times of need different people work together for a single purpose, (we've all seen this before).  You can overcome your adversaries without resorting to violence (remember 'make love not war?).  Life is scary sometimes, so just deal with it.  Wait a minute, what was that last one? The idea that life is scary?  Is this something we've actually been teaching our children?  How many times have you heard a parent say, "let them enjoy their childhood, they'll be adults soon enough?"  I think this is a big problem in today's United States.  We want our children sensitized.  Define this as our not training our children to deal with heartache and hardship. You should prepare you children for everything.  Disney knew this.  He made kids cry on purpose.  He taught us lessons our parents didn't want us to learn.  Maybe the parents I wrote about earlier weren't such dumb shits after all... Nah, they were, but by being so maybe the scares of "Oz, the Great and Powerful" taught their frightened kids a lesson or two. 

    

The adult truth about the Wizard of Oz

"Oz, the Great and Powerful" opened in theaters last weekend and, to be perfectly honest, I had to laugh at all of the hub-bub about whether it was to frightening for children.  Why was I laughing?  Because so many reviewers and critics were looking at the original film with 21st century eyes.  Today we have film ratings, back in 1939 we didn't.  That was in the heart of the depression and going to movies was a great escape from reality, more so with adults then children.  In other words, the original film was geared for a wide audience of both adults and children.  Margaret Hamilton's wicked witch of the west scare them all.  The special effects are easily equivalent to the CGI of today; too many people forget that.  It was one of two films released in color, the other being Gone With The Wind, which guaranteed it would bring in everybody.  And, amazingly, it was one of two films to use a curse word.  Again, the other was Gone With The Wind, with Rhett Butler's famous "I don't give a damn" line.  So, where was this same word used in The Wizard of Oz?  When the infamous Almra Gulch tells the Gale family "I will bring a damn lawsuit that will take your farm."  Now tell me, in 1939, was that the kind of language geared for the kiddies?

I would bet my left nut that when Louis B. Mayer green lighted the original he did not do so because he wanted to make a children's movie.  No, he wanted to make a movie that would satisfy all audiences, both young and old, because that's where the money was.  Remember, Hollywood has always been about money, and making entertainment pay.  In the 21st century movies for children have become big business, 75 years ago that would have been a losing proposition.  Financially, the studios needed to bring as big an audience into the theater as possible, which is why the scares in the most important of Oz films had scares to make everybody cringe, not just the little ones.

I suspect that Oz, the Great and Powerful, like the classic film, was designed to please everybody.  That's what makes a film last forever.  The more people it satisfies, the longer it will hang around, which is what so many people want: film immortality .