Here I am. One full week left of my summer, and practically nothing to show for it. At the beginning of May I was rededicating myself to my weight loss attempt, figuring a full fifteen weeks before school started up for the fall would give me ample time to lose 15, 20, maybe 30 or more pounds! What a great idea!
And then the wheels fell off. I did not get myself to the gym as I should have. I did not get up and go jogging as I should have. I did not go rollerblading as I should have. I did not go biking as I should have. I did not take the dog to the park as I should have. I did not eat appropriately as I should have. I did not clean my house as I should have. I did not overhaul my lesson plans for the school year as I should have.
As a matter of fact, as I pointed out last time, the only thing I DID accomplish was to pick up a new sport (golf).
Pretty feeble. I did manage to make some money with my workout schedule, but there's no reason to spend it, because I haven't lost any weight so I don't need to buy new clothes.
So, here I am. I have one week left of summer. I need to do some work around the house, cleaning things up. I need to weed items out of my closet that don't fit (but hopefully will at some point before Christmas). I need to go over my school stuff to see what needs to be changed. I'm going out of town for a long weekend (early anniversary celebration), and then it's back to the grind. Hopefully I can make a start on the weight loss again. I'd hate to be stuck like this forever. I'm running out of rededications.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
While I am not surprised by how most of my summer has transpired (like, the fact that I haven't gotten ANYTHING on my to-do list done, and I only have two weeks left), I am absolutely shocked by one occurrence, something I could never in my entire life have predicted:
I've taken up golf.
My entire adult life, I have subscribed to the opinion of the late George Carlin:
"Did you ever watch golf on TV? It's like watching flies fuck. I get more excited picking out socks. Think of the brains that it takes to play golf: hitting a ball with a crooked stick, and then...walking after it. And then, hitting it again! I say, 'Pick it up, asshole, you're lucky you found it. Put it in your pocket and go the fuck home, will ya?'"
I've had little contact with golf of the non-miniature variety during my life. My dad played occasionally when I was a kid. He owned his own clubs, but it wasn't a particularly frequent pasttime; I really can't remember any specific golf outings of his, or what caliber player he was. In fact, my only specific memory was when I was about seven or eight and my father decided to teach my brother and me to play.
Now, I suspect the plan was really to teach my brother the finer points of the game, as he is 3 1/2 years older than I am, but I tended to tag along when my brother wanted to do things, so I was probably included more to prevent hurt feelings and temper tantrums than for my edification.
Anyway, Dad was teaching us how to swing the clubs. The next event is shouded in mystery, and the truth may never be fully clear, but ultimately the result was my solid thwacking of my brother's head with an iron. Many questions have been asked about the intent of said thwacking: was my brother a victim of an accidental backswing or follow-through, or were there darker forces at work? I don't take well to criticism, so it's possible that assistance or critiques being offered were not taken in a positive light by me. In any case, my illustrious golfing career was over. The clubs were taken away, and suggestions were made that perhaps golf was not in my future.
And golf never entered my mind again, at least not for about 20 years. Meanwhile, my dad continued to play occasionally (probably not more than once or twice per year), and somewhere along the line my brother picked up enough of the game to get his own set of clubs and hit the driving range at lunchtimes or the links on a Saturday with some of his buddies. As for me, I did not play, I did not consider playing, and except for the sports highlights on the nightly news I did not see golf at all.
Then, in 2005, my brother-in-law graduated from high school. A member of his high school's golf team, he expressed an interest in hitting the local golf course with his siblings as a graduation gift. My husband agreed, having golfed a few times growing up and having enjoyed it, and so my husband, his brother, their sister, and her husband set off for the course. I tagged along out of curiosity, having never watched anyone actually play the sport live. The first few holes I enjoyed watching everyone else (my brother-in-law of course is quite good; everyone else had a few good shots but more unpredictable than not), but then once we were out of sight of the clubhouse, my sister-in-law offered me the use of her clubs and let me play along on a few holes. I thought perhaps this might be the moment where I discovered my true talent, my natural ability. I've never felt naturally gifted at anything, really, so I thought maybe I was a hidden gem, a Tigress just waiting to be discovered.
Alas, I really wasn't. I doubt that I hit the ball more than once correctly. My skills were more suited to the putt-putt courses than the full-sized game. Oh well. When we made the turn back towards the clubhouse, I relinquished the clubs to my sister-in-law and returned to my position as spectator. I had fun, but felt no real draw to the sport. I had tried it, I had failed, and I was moving on.
However, golf did not go away. My husband expressed several times how much fun he had playing with his little brother. The opportunity presented itself a few more times here and there, and he enjoyed himself. Several of his friends in town play golf, some pretty good actually, and he thought that it might be fun to learn to play so he could golf with them. And he suggested I might learn to play too--neither of us would be likely to take it seriously, but it would be something to do together, and a form of exercise that might be more interesting than cruising on an elliptical machine at the gym. His grandfather gave him an old set of clubs he had used when he retired (old enough that, as my husband laughs, "The woods are really wood"). The clubs sat in our house, unused, but occasionally the topic would be brought up again.
Nothing actually happened until June of this year. My husband's cousin was getting married at a golf resort, and the guests were offered the opportunity to play a round the day of the wedding. My brother-in-law of course expressed an interest, as did my sister-in-law and her husband, and my mother-in-law. My husband decided he would play too, and looked expectantly at me. What the heck, I thought, it would just be family, no one played regularly, my brother-in-law would surely smoke us all and we'd have a good time doing it.
But I had a problem: no clubs. My husband had his aged set, some family members had their own they would bring and others had sets they could borrow. I had neither my own clubs nor any friends who golf. I was uncomfortable asking my husband to borrow clubs from any of his coworkers' or friends' wives (and to be truthful it seems few of the women golfed--I don't know if we'd have found a set in time).
So a discussion with my husband ensued. Was it possible we might be interested in taking up the sport, not seriously of course, but as a fun option on weekends when rivers weren't running? Would we play enough to make a purchase of clubs worthwhile? Would this be a sport we might actually do more than once or twice a summer?
We answered "Yes", and purchased a set of woman's clubs (driver, two woods, two hybrids, four irons, two wedges, putter, bag, head covers) on sale at Sports Authority for $150. I was appalled at this outlay of money for a sport that I really, honestly, had not shown any promise at (I'm not even a par golfer on the putt-putt course), but after looking at the prices of the mid-range and upper quality clubs, I was pretty sure we'd just gotten the deal of a lifetime.
After only enough time to hit the driving range once and play a short nine holes on our little municipal course, we drove to the wedding. The morning of the wedding we showed up at the pro shop at a little after 7 a.m. It hadn't really occured to me that only four people could play golf at a time, so we were separated from my brother- and mother-in-law. Our foursome consisted of me, my husband, my sister-in-law and her husband. This suited us pretty well; while we would have liked to have the whole family together, who really wants to get shown up by a 21-year-old kid? I was fine with the group, since no one had significantly more experience than I did, in the grand scheme of things.
Two things became apparent on the first hole: 1) we were reasonably well matched as a foursome, skill-wise, and 2) this was not going to be a quick game before lunch. We were informed by a course ranger that a maximum score of 10 strokes was all that was permitted for each hole (what this meant was if you hit the ball ten times and still weren't in the hole, move on; what we interpreted this as was we might hit the ball thirteen times but we're only going to write down 10 on the scorecard). After being driven off the course after the first hole by a thunderstorm (generally holding a metal stick in a field when there's lightning is not on the recommended list of healthy activities) we resumed play. While I did not possess the golfing experience that my family members did, none of us possessed any consistency: one hole might find us on the green in two, only to six-putt; the next hole might require four tee-shots before we got one that was remotely playable; and a third hole might result in five lost balls before we ever got to the green. And yet, every few holes, each of us would hit a real golf shot, one that went where it was supposed to go. Those shots spurred us on (despite course rangers harassing us for being so slow), and we finished the eighteen holes (in 5 1/2 hours, a full hour beyond the course's maximum pace).
When the scores were totalled, I was shocked, stunned, and rather absurdly pleased with myself to find that I did not come in last in our foursome. My husband was equally pleased to learn that he had the best score of the four of us. This success, we decided, and the fun we had doing it, was just what we needed to verify that our decision had been correct. The Rubicon had been crossed, so to speak; we were taking up golfing.
However, we both agreed that our hack-and-slice approach probably wouldn't make us happy for long, so we decided to seek professional help. We arranged a lesson with a local golf pro, who took us one evening to the back end of the driving range at our municipal course. We were both disappointed to learn that we would be starting off with the short irons (part of the glee in golf, especially for my husband, is unleashing a wicked drive off the tee), basically because they are the easiest to control. The pro had us each hit a few balls while he evaluated our swings.
Then he started giving advice. He helped with the grip, the positioning of the shoulders and feet, where to put the head, and a number of other tips. Then he told me to swing again. Suddenly, it was like everything clicked into place, as my husband put it. Pow! I hit the ball with my pitching wedge, and it traveled easily just as far as the farthest I had ever managed to hit it with my driver (yes, sadly, that was only about 50-75 yards). I swung it again. Pow! And again. Pow! This was fantastic!
[On a side note, I actually hit the ball better than my husband did that day. His swing difficulties, however, were largely attributable to the fact that his clubs were old, battered, and far too short for his 6'4" frame. A new set of clubs, specially lengthened, have solved many of his problems. But I enjoyed the superiority while it lasted.]
Wanting to show off our new abilities, we scheduled a golf round with a kayaking friend of ours. He claimed to be a poor golfer (which he may be, but he still beat us). We had a great time, but there were still many inconsistencies in our game. My biggest problem seemed to be my longer clubs--our coach had taught us to swing the short irons, and I couldn't seem to translate that great-feeling swing to my driver or woods. Also, my putting, once the strongest (ha ha) part of my game (all that mini-golf), seemed to fall apart. We needed another lesson.
Our second lesson came, and despite our pro's plan to work on lower numbered irons (or, in my case, my hybrids), we asked him if he would teach us to hit the drivers. He acquiesced, and we started hitting. Again, with just a few tips here and there, my swing was back. Pow! Pow! Pow! (I've decided that the best course of action may be for me to record his advice and play it in headphones while I play the course.)
We played another round of golf with our friend this past weekend, and he was dismayed to see our improvement (I actually parred two holes, and my husband was only four strokes behind our friend at the end of 18). We're still wildly inconsistent, but so are the other people we've played with. Our friend has been playing since he was a kid; we've been playing for a month.
We have another lesson on Wednesday. I think we're going to ask if we can work on chipping and putting, as those have been weak spots for both of us.
So far I have resisted the urge to start replacing all my clubs with fancier ones (although I must admit, I have replaced the putter that came with my set with a novelty putter in the shape of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, and yes, I know that makes me a complete geek), but I'm sure the time will come. Already the shiny, high tech sticks are singing a siren call every time I enter a sporting goods store. I will only resist for so long. Perhaps instead of new clubs, we need a new house, with more storage space for all the expensive gear we seem to accumulate through our many hobbies (kayaking, skiing, hockey, mountain biking, Magic: the Gathering, reading, four video game consoles, five computers, and now golf). Anyone know a realtor? We can take them golfing and discuss our options...
I've taken up golf.
My entire adult life, I have subscribed to the opinion of the late George Carlin:
"Did you ever watch golf on TV? It's like watching flies fuck. I get more excited picking out socks. Think of the brains that it takes to play golf: hitting a ball with a crooked stick, and then...walking after it. And then, hitting it again! I say, 'Pick it up, asshole, you're lucky you found it. Put it in your pocket and go the fuck home, will ya?'"
I've had little contact with golf of the non-miniature variety during my life. My dad played occasionally when I was a kid. He owned his own clubs, but it wasn't a particularly frequent pasttime; I really can't remember any specific golf outings of his, or what caliber player he was. In fact, my only specific memory was when I was about seven or eight and my father decided to teach my brother and me to play.
Now, I suspect the plan was really to teach my brother the finer points of the game, as he is 3 1/2 years older than I am, but I tended to tag along when my brother wanted to do things, so I was probably included more to prevent hurt feelings and temper tantrums than for my edification.
Anyway, Dad was teaching us how to swing the clubs. The next event is shouded in mystery, and the truth may never be fully clear, but ultimately the result was my solid thwacking of my brother's head with an iron. Many questions have been asked about the intent of said thwacking: was my brother a victim of an accidental backswing or follow-through, or were there darker forces at work? I don't take well to criticism, so it's possible that assistance or critiques being offered were not taken in a positive light by me. In any case, my illustrious golfing career was over. The clubs were taken away, and suggestions were made that perhaps golf was not in my future.
And golf never entered my mind again, at least not for about 20 years. Meanwhile, my dad continued to play occasionally (probably not more than once or twice per year), and somewhere along the line my brother picked up enough of the game to get his own set of clubs and hit the driving range at lunchtimes or the links on a Saturday with some of his buddies. As for me, I did not play, I did not consider playing, and except for the sports highlights on the nightly news I did not see golf at all.
Then, in 2005, my brother-in-law graduated from high school. A member of his high school's golf team, he expressed an interest in hitting the local golf course with his siblings as a graduation gift. My husband agreed, having golfed a few times growing up and having enjoyed it, and so my husband, his brother, their sister, and her husband set off for the course. I tagged along out of curiosity, having never watched anyone actually play the sport live. The first few holes I enjoyed watching everyone else (my brother-in-law of course is quite good; everyone else had a few good shots but more unpredictable than not), but then once we were out of sight of the clubhouse, my sister-in-law offered me the use of her clubs and let me play along on a few holes. I thought perhaps this might be the moment where I discovered my true talent, my natural ability. I've never felt naturally gifted at anything, really, so I thought maybe I was a hidden gem, a Tigress just waiting to be discovered.
Alas, I really wasn't. I doubt that I hit the ball more than once correctly. My skills were more suited to the putt-putt courses than the full-sized game. Oh well. When we made the turn back towards the clubhouse, I relinquished the clubs to my sister-in-law and returned to my position as spectator. I had fun, but felt no real draw to the sport. I had tried it, I had failed, and I was moving on.
However, golf did not go away. My husband expressed several times how much fun he had playing with his little brother. The opportunity presented itself a few more times here and there, and he enjoyed himself. Several of his friends in town play golf, some pretty good actually, and he thought that it might be fun to learn to play so he could golf with them. And he suggested I might learn to play too--neither of us would be likely to take it seriously, but it would be something to do together, and a form of exercise that might be more interesting than cruising on an elliptical machine at the gym. His grandfather gave him an old set of clubs he had used when he retired (old enough that, as my husband laughs, "The woods are really wood"). The clubs sat in our house, unused, but occasionally the topic would be brought up again.
Nothing actually happened until June of this year. My husband's cousin was getting married at a golf resort, and the guests were offered the opportunity to play a round the day of the wedding. My brother-in-law of course expressed an interest, as did my sister-in-law and her husband, and my mother-in-law. My husband decided he would play too, and looked expectantly at me. What the heck, I thought, it would just be family, no one played regularly, my brother-in-law would surely smoke us all and we'd have a good time doing it.
But I had a problem: no clubs. My husband had his aged set, some family members had their own they would bring and others had sets they could borrow. I had neither my own clubs nor any friends who golf. I was uncomfortable asking my husband to borrow clubs from any of his coworkers' or friends' wives (and to be truthful it seems few of the women golfed--I don't know if we'd have found a set in time).
So a discussion with my husband ensued. Was it possible we might be interested in taking up the sport, not seriously of course, but as a fun option on weekends when rivers weren't running? Would we play enough to make a purchase of clubs worthwhile? Would this be a sport we might actually do more than once or twice a summer?
We answered "Yes", and purchased a set of woman's clubs (driver, two woods, two hybrids, four irons, two wedges, putter, bag, head covers) on sale at Sports Authority for $150. I was appalled at this outlay of money for a sport that I really, honestly, had not shown any promise at (I'm not even a par golfer on the putt-putt course), but after looking at the prices of the mid-range and upper quality clubs, I was pretty sure we'd just gotten the deal of a lifetime.
After only enough time to hit the driving range once and play a short nine holes on our little municipal course, we drove to the wedding. The morning of the wedding we showed up at the pro shop at a little after 7 a.m. It hadn't really occured to me that only four people could play golf at a time, so we were separated from my brother- and mother-in-law. Our foursome consisted of me, my husband, my sister-in-law and her husband. This suited us pretty well; while we would have liked to have the whole family together, who really wants to get shown up by a 21-year-old kid? I was fine with the group, since no one had significantly more experience than I did, in the grand scheme of things.
Two things became apparent on the first hole: 1) we were reasonably well matched as a foursome, skill-wise, and 2) this was not going to be a quick game before lunch. We were informed by a course ranger that a maximum score of 10 strokes was all that was permitted for each hole (what this meant was if you hit the ball ten times and still weren't in the hole, move on; what we interpreted this as was we might hit the ball thirteen times but we're only going to write down 10 on the scorecard). After being driven off the course after the first hole by a thunderstorm (generally holding a metal stick in a field when there's lightning is not on the recommended list of healthy activities) we resumed play. While I did not possess the golfing experience that my family members did, none of us possessed any consistency: one hole might find us on the green in two, only to six-putt; the next hole might require four tee-shots before we got one that was remotely playable; and a third hole might result in five lost balls before we ever got to the green. And yet, every few holes, each of us would hit a real golf shot, one that went where it was supposed to go. Those shots spurred us on (despite course rangers harassing us for being so slow), and we finished the eighteen holes (in 5 1/2 hours, a full hour beyond the course's maximum pace).
When the scores were totalled, I was shocked, stunned, and rather absurdly pleased with myself to find that I did not come in last in our foursome. My husband was equally pleased to learn that he had the best score of the four of us. This success, we decided, and the fun we had doing it, was just what we needed to verify that our decision had been correct. The Rubicon had been crossed, so to speak; we were taking up golfing.
However, we both agreed that our hack-and-slice approach probably wouldn't make us happy for long, so we decided to seek professional help. We arranged a lesson with a local golf pro, who took us one evening to the back end of the driving range at our municipal course. We were both disappointed to learn that we would be starting off with the short irons (part of the glee in golf, especially for my husband, is unleashing a wicked drive off the tee), basically because they are the easiest to control. The pro had us each hit a few balls while he evaluated our swings.
Then he started giving advice. He helped with the grip, the positioning of the shoulders and feet, where to put the head, and a number of other tips. Then he told me to swing again. Suddenly, it was like everything clicked into place, as my husband put it. Pow! I hit the ball with my pitching wedge, and it traveled easily just as far as the farthest I had ever managed to hit it with my driver (yes, sadly, that was only about 50-75 yards). I swung it again. Pow! And again. Pow! This was fantastic!
[On a side note, I actually hit the ball better than my husband did that day. His swing difficulties, however, were largely attributable to the fact that his clubs were old, battered, and far too short for his 6'4" frame. A new set of clubs, specially lengthened, have solved many of his problems. But I enjoyed the superiority while it lasted.]
Wanting to show off our new abilities, we scheduled a golf round with a kayaking friend of ours. He claimed to be a poor golfer (which he may be, but he still beat us). We had a great time, but there were still many inconsistencies in our game. My biggest problem seemed to be my longer clubs--our coach had taught us to swing the short irons, and I couldn't seem to translate that great-feeling swing to my driver or woods. Also, my putting, once the strongest (ha ha) part of my game (all that mini-golf), seemed to fall apart. We needed another lesson.
Our second lesson came, and despite our pro's plan to work on lower numbered irons (or, in my case, my hybrids), we asked him if he would teach us to hit the drivers. He acquiesced, and we started hitting. Again, with just a few tips here and there, my swing was back. Pow! Pow! Pow! (I've decided that the best course of action may be for me to record his advice and play it in headphones while I play the course.)
We played another round of golf with our friend this past weekend, and he was dismayed to see our improvement (I actually parred two holes, and my husband was only four strokes behind our friend at the end of 18). We're still wildly inconsistent, but so are the other people we've played with. Our friend has been playing since he was a kid; we've been playing for a month.
We have another lesson on Wednesday. I think we're going to ask if we can work on chipping and putting, as those have been weak spots for both of us.
So far I have resisted the urge to start replacing all my clubs with fancier ones (although I must admit, I have replaced the putter that came with my set with a novelty putter in the shape of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, and yes, I know that makes me a complete geek), but I'm sure the time will come. Already the shiny, high tech sticks are singing a siren call every time I enter a sporting goods store. I will only resist for so long. Perhaps instead of new clubs, we need a new house, with more storage space for all the expensive gear we seem to accumulate through our many hobbies (kayaking, skiing, hockey, mountain biking, Magic: the Gathering, reading, four video game consoles, five computers, and now golf). Anyone know a realtor? We can take them golfing and discuss our options...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Strange things happen at a school during the summer months. Teachers get hired and fired, or decide to retire, or move away. Floors get waxed, walls and handrails get painted, items get repaired or mysteriously broken. Whole classrooms full of furniture wander away and turn up in unlikely places. Bookshelves get rearranged. Supplies get ordered, delivered, and distributed, often to the wrong places. Students and teachers who cannot stay away roam the halls. New students are enrolled. Technology is upgraded. Major decisions are made.
In the midst of all this, I have to teach summer school to about twenty incoming freshmen. This is an English class designed to give a boost to students who didn't perform as well as our admissions office would have liked on the entrance exam. We spend most of our time on grammar, with a little discussion of reading techniques and study tips. It isn't anything drastic--just making the poor kids show up for fifteen hours in the middle of July is drastic enough.
But the chaos that surrounds such a simple class is remarkable. The students show up late and unprepared, and don't know where to go or what to do. Since there is little communication between groups of administrators, teachers, and support staff during the school year, let alone summer, no one knows anything about the class, not even me. I didn't get a roster. I showed up (early, thank goodness), to find that the classroom I've taught in for six years was utterly devoid of furniture. Partway through my copying of handouts for the students, someone (maintenance) came along and unplugged the copy machine, dragging it out of the faculty workroom and into the hallway. The second day of the class, today, I came in to find that someone (IT) had come in and taken the LCD projector I had been using off the rolling cart and mounted it to the ceiling. Great, except I can't find a remote for it so I have to stand on the furniture today to turn it off and on. Goodness knows if I will come in to find the furniture in this room gone as well.
Anyway, summer school is an adventure, and the only thing one can hope for, student or teacher, is survival. Four days left...
In the midst of all this, I have to teach summer school to about twenty incoming freshmen. This is an English class designed to give a boost to students who didn't perform as well as our admissions office would have liked on the entrance exam. We spend most of our time on grammar, with a little discussion of reading techniques and study tips. It isn't anything drastic--just making the poor kids show up for fifteen hours in the middle of July is drastic enough.
But the chaos that surrounds such a simple class is remarkable. The students show up late and unprepared, and don't know where to go or what to do. Since there is little communication between groups of administrators, teachers, and support staff during the school year, let alone summer, no one knows anything about the class, not even me. I didn't get a roster. I showed up (early, thank goodness), to find that the classroom I've taught in for six years was utterly devoid of furniture. Partway through my copying of handouts for the students, someone (maintenance) came along and unplugged the copy machine, dragging it out of the faculty workroom and into the hallway. The second day of the class, today, I came in to find that someone (IT) had come in and taken the LCD projector I had been using off the rolling cart and mounted it to the ceiling. Great, except I can't find a remote for it so I have to stand on the furniture today to turn it off and on. Goodness knows if I will come in to find the furniture in this room gone as well.
Anyway, summer school is an adventure, and the only thing one can hope for, student or teacher, is survival. Four days left...
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Went and saw Disney's WALL-E last night. I wanted to see it because I'm a huge Disney fan, and I love all the Disney/Pixar collaborations. But I was also curious because I had read about some controversy surrounding the movie.
What I had read on CNN.com were some comments by parents saying that their children were frightened and upset by some of the images in WALL-E, specifically images of the Earth that WALL-E lives on and of the people on the cruise-spaceship that left Earth over 700 years earlier.
This is an Earth of the future, and we haven't done very well, apparently. The opening shots of the movie pan mountains of garbage, taller than skyscrapers. Poking out of some of the garbage heaps are windmills, almost as if Pixar is mocking our 21st century attempts at cleaning and greening our planet. Right? Anyway, WALL-E is the last lonely garbage-crushing robot left on the planet, rolling around in the dust with just a little cockroach as a buddy, watching a videotape of Hello Dolly and wistfully wishing he could hold hands with someone (forget about the scores of other now-defunct WALL-E robots all over the place that he probably could have fixed since he had scavenged so many spare parts to keep his own bod running). The horror that these parents on this CNN blog claim their children feel comes from the destroyed Earth. Hmm.
The next images that are apparently stressful for kids are those of the humans on the giant space cruiser Axiom. The Axiom was built for a five-year cruise of the galaxy while the little WALL-Es cleaned up the Earth enough to make it hospitable again. Essentially a cruise ship similar to what you would find in the fleets of Norwegian or Carnival cruise lines, the Axiom made everything available to people--shopping, activities, TV and Internet, etc.--and went it one better: no one had to walk anywhere if they didn't want to, because specially designed lounge chairs could cart them anywhere on the ship they wanted to go. As the years passed on the ship, people chose to be less and less active, using the lounge chairs more and more, and gradually became self-absorbed, morbidly obese, stubby legged slugs floating around the ship not taking in the scenery because they were too plugged-in to their video screens. While these body changes are attributed to the "affects of microgravity" in the movie, it's pretty obvious that these people need to get off their fat butts and get some exercise, much like many of the people in the US today (myself included). I don't know why this would be upsetting to little kids, especially since many of them were probably sitting in the movie theatre eating out of their huge tub o'popcorn and sucking down a monster soda after sitting inside and playing video games all day.
Anyway, some people are bothered by the images, and feel that Disney/Pixar have taken the opportunity to get PREACHY about social issues, and they are bothered by this frightening depiction of the future Earth. "Let a kids' movie be a kids' movie, full of bright colors and harmless images," these parents say. "Let's not heap despair and social anxieties on them at this young age. It's too frightening."
Who ARE these people? And why are they complaining about these images, which seem pretty tame compared to some of the things kids' movies have dished out over the years. Anyone else upset by the nasty car accident that happened to The King in Cars? That was pretty realistic. And the villainous Syndrome getting sucked into a jet engine in The Incredibles? Pretty gruesome. Any little kids frightened by the great white shark in Finding Nemo when he snapped and tried to eat Dory and Marlin? Heck, I was a little disturbed. What about A Bug's Life when the grasshoppers show up to claim the ants' hard-earned food (with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss whispering "they come, they eat, they leave...they come, they eat, they leave..." over and over)? Eek. Heck, go back to the first Disney/Pixar film, Toy Story, and watch the scene where the toys scare Sid into treating his toys with more respect (come on: Woody's head turning a full 360 in a Linda Blaire-esque moment?). Terrifying. And those are just recent movies; look at the old Disney flicks--Bambi's mom being shot, Maleficent's transformation into the dragon in Sleeping Beauty, the wicked witch plunging over the cliff at the end of Snow White. After some of those, a brown, dusty Earth doesn't seem so bad. And some pudgy people? Gimme a break.
I think these PARENTS are more disturbed by the images in WALL-E because they hit a little too close to home. Yes, maybe Disney is trying to make a point or two about cleaning up the environment and reversing America's trend towards obesity. Does this mean Disney and Pixar are being PREACHY? So, what if they are? Is it a bad thing? Are these messages any different than a mother's basic two instructions to her children: 1) Clean up that mess you made; and 2) It's a nice day outside, why don't you go out and play instead of sitting in front of the TV?
I see nothing wrong with these messages. If WALL-E convinces a little kid that he or she needs to help encourage the family to recycle, good. If a little kid is so distressed by the images of fat people on lounge chairs that it makes him or her go outside and run around, hooray! All kids' movies have messages--be kind to others, be true to yourself, someday your prince will come--and I see nothing negative about these.
If your child is old enough and smart enough to pick up on Disney's "hidden agenda", good for you and them. If not, your kid will just be wowed by the robots and the cute story. Big deal.
Now, if your kid picks up on the more subtle messages (the huge "Buy N Large" corporation that apparently runs the Earth--can you say Walmart? The smarmy Buy N Large CEO who sends a message to the Axiom that they can never return to Earth and should "Stay the course"--picking on the Bush administration, are we?), we'll talk. Otherwise, clean up after yourselves, and go outside and play, because it's a beautiful day out there.
I thought it was a darn cute movie.
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