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“The Muppets” A PeaceBang Review

Of course I loved it. I was raised on the Muppets, and remember the very first ever episode of “Sesame Street,” which replaced my favorite show at the time, “Kimba the White Lion.”

“The Muppets” (2011) is a charming movie about the Muppets. You don’t need to know the plot – it’s the same thing you’ve seen many times. The Muppets are in danger of losing their theatre, so they have to reunite for a big fundraising show.

The two main characters are Gary (Jason Segal) and Walter (a muppet) who is Gary’s brother who doesn’t quite know if he’s a muppet or a man. Gary has a girlfriend named Mary, played by the always-charming Amy Adams.

I get that the movie is a bit retro in its attitudes, as it’s trying to keep things innocent and fresh. I appreciate that. What I did not appreciate, however, is that the screenplay makes a strong point that women are nothing without their men (or frog, as the case may be). Really, Muppets? In 2012? In 2012, the female character can’t go out for the day by herself or eat lunch by herself without falling into despair about it (and singing a big musical number about it)? Her big first number has to voice her ultimate (and apparently only) desire that her boyfriend marry her?

Male characters in this movie have dreams. They make things happen. They save the theatre, and find their talent. The ladies just go along for the ride and complain about not getting the guy. After the muppets save the theatre and treat us to a big, happy ensemble number, the movie comes to a satisfying conclusion. However, just to emphasize the point that all happiness comes from gettin’ yer man, the film adds a penultimate scene with Gary getting down on one knee and proposing to Mary. Blergh.

Worse than “The Muppets'” inability to envision a self-respecting 21st century human female character (Rashida Jones gets to play the other female role of the stereotypical cold-hearted Career Gal, all business suits and Blackberry) is its treatment of the glorious Miss Piggy, porcine diva extraordinaire.

When the muppets go to find Miss Piggy to bring her back to the theater for the show, we find out that she is living in Paris and has the dream job of all time: plus-size fashion editor at Vogue!!  The funniest scene in the movie features the fabulous Emily Blunt (in a wink to her role as the assistant to Miranda Priestley in “The Devil Wears Prada”) imperiously blocking entrance to Miss Piggy’s ultra-glam office. When we see Piggy, she is a vision in Chanel (although stuffing her face with donuts):

Miss Piggy is living the dream! She’s not wasting her life away at a dive bar in Reno like Fozzy or wiling away her days in a gated mansion like her old paramour, Kermit. Piggy is important, successful and happy.

However, in what I’m sure most people thought was a throwaway moment, Kermit confesses to Miss Piggy that he misses her and needs her, and asks her to stay in Hollywood “for him.” Without hesitation, Piggy squeals, “Of course, Kermie.”

Are you kidding!? Piggy!! Who let that dialogue happen? She should have said, “Oh, Kermie, come with me to PARIS!” Then, voila, set-up for a Muppet movie in France!

I don’t care if these are puppets with plastic eyes, when you hear parents say things like, “I plan to raise my kids on this movie,” it’s worth paying attention to the messages that the movie communicates. And this movie clearly communicates that girls have no desires apart from being with their guys, and that no matter how amazing a gal’s life ever gets, she’ll be willing to drop it all in a heartbeat (and leave Paris! Paris!!) the second her guy asks her to.

I love my Muppets and I loved all the references to 1986. I just wish that they could have written a screenplay that didn’t have such a throwback treatment of female characters. Our little girls deserve better.

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The Demanding Tree

Today, the Rev. Thomas Schade of Worcester gave a shout-out to two of his parishioners for creating a re-telling of Shel Silverstein’s classic tale of a masochistic co-dependent relationship, The Giving Tree. I once loved The Giving Tree myself, until I came into a feminist awareness that revealed to me that this was the ultimate sentimental re-imagining of how patriarchy really works to dominate and amputate female power and presence (including Mother Nature’s power).

In 2000, I re-wrote The Giving Tree and my version has subsequently been used by Unitarian Universalist congregations all over the country: at least 34 by my count, as that was the last time I counted the requests by colleagues to use it in their worship services. And so my friends, I give you, “The Demanding Tree,” by Victoria Weinstein.Please share with attribution.*

*Amazing illustrations for “The Demanding Tree” were created by Jessica Alexander at the time, and I hope to be able to find and scan them soon.

 

The Demanding Tree , by the Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein, April 2000

(revised January 2003)

With apologies to Shel Silverstein…

Once there was a tree.  And she loved a little boy.

And every day the boy would come, and he would gather her leaves

and make them into crowns and play king of the forest.

And the tree loved the little boy, but the tree was a bit irritated.  “King of the forest, my trunk,” she thought. “Wherever did those human beings get such an attitude problem?”

Time went by, and the boy grew older, and the tree was often alone, which was nice and quiet, but she missed the boy.

Then one day the boy came to the tree and the tree called out to him, “Come, Boy, come and climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat my apples and play in my shade and be happy.”

“I am too big to climb and play,” said the boy.  I want to buy things and have fun.  I want some money.  Can you give me some money?”

“No chance,” said the tree.  “I have only leaves and apples.  Why don’t you go get a job if money’s so important to you? I hear that the Nature Conservancy is looking for clerical staff.  Why don’t you apply?”

Continue reading “The Demanding Tree”

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Welcome Back, Pigeons!!

The HILLS are alive, with the sound of PeaceBang!!

Well, WHAT FUN.
I abandoned this blog about two years ago so that I could focus on finishing my Doctor of Ministry degree. That mission is accomplished and I graduated on May 21 in a funny hat and with many beloved friends and parishioners present. Thank you for your expressions of support and congratulations throughout the process. I am now the proud owner of a big whomping dissertation called “Covenanting: Ancient Promise and New Life For the Contemporary Church” which I think deserves to be published but you know, I just don’t feel like doing the work to get it to publishers. Maybe later, after I’ve had a few beers and thrown some books down a flight of stairs to release the tension.

The Facebook and Twitter phenomena took off right after I stopped blogging here, so I have been carrying on a lively discussion over at Facebook (as PeaceBang), which I will continue to do. I love the discipline of having to condense my blatherings to a few pithy phrases, which means that I will be blogging here on a less frequent basis than I used to. As I remarked to a crowd of Unitarian Universalists earlier this week at our General Assembly workshop on ministry and social media, I am verbally manic, so this is a health practice for me. No, it really is. If not for all of you I might be in a rubber room somewhere pontificating to the walls.

So this blog will be for the lengthier blatherings. It will be for podcasts and for a nice long coffee or cocktail break, as opposed to the shots of espresso we’re all tossing back as we stand at the Facebook bar. The PeaceBang blog may occasionally even be as long as a dinner party or a retreat as we converse at luxurious lengths about issues facing the Church, the soul, the world, and “RuPaul’s Drag Race, Season 4,” or whatever tickles our fancy. I have such a ticklish fancy, as you know!

My dear friend and partner in crime, the Rev. Scott Wells, has continued to advise me and to construct this blog. I really couldn’t do this without him.