Radio talk show host Don Imus has offended black Americans again—but says he was misinterpreted. Law-abiding people should be even angrier.
Radio talk host Don Imus is in trouble again (surprise, surprise!).
You'll remember that he was fired last fall for referring to a women's college basketball team in a highly insulting way. He was rehired a few months later, promising to be more sensitive to the offended groups.
The most recent fracas concerns his comment on a report on suspended NFL Dallas Cowboys defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones, which noted the player's long string of arrests during his off hours.
"What color is he?" Imus asked.
Sports announcer Warner Wolf replied, "African-American."
"There you go. Now we know," Imus replied.
African American organizations immediately jumped to criticize Imus, claiming he was saying that black people in the United States are more likely to commit crimes than whites. That is actually a factually true statement, but saying so is not permitted, so a firestorm arose.
Imus apologized profusely for what he said was a lack of clarity, not a slur. The next day he explained further, claiming he was trying to point out that blacks are frequently arrested unfairly:
What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason. I mean, there's no reason to arrest this kid [Jones] six times. Maybe he did something once, but everyone does something once.
It is indeed a scandal whenever people are arrested for no reason at all, and I'm sure it does indeed happen to black Americans much more than to whites. But such arrests happen most often to people who frequent places where crimes are known to happen. That has been the case with Pacman Jones. For Imus to say that Jones's problems are caused by police harassment and not his own asininity is outrageous. His multiple arrests are no mistake; they're the result of his own bad judgment.
The NFL has dozens of African American players who have never been in the slightest trouble with the law. For Imus to suggest that Jones is merely unlucky denigrates their good and law-abiding behavior by suggesting they're just lucky not to have been arrested and are no better as citizens and men than Pacman Jones, who is rightly notorious for getting himself into trouble.
In apologizing for uttering a politically incorrect truth, Imus spoke an outrageous lie.
Of course, nobody but us has criticized him for that.
Arguments over censorship tend to concentrate on it as a national issue, when there's really little to argue about there: according to the Constitution, the national government can't regulate anything but obscenity and should be very limited in its activities in doing so.
Where the real action is and should be is on the state and local level. Political columnist Mona Charen makes the case for one state's effort to curb child pornography.
Writing in National Review Online and her syndicated column, Mona Charen makes the important point that state-level efforts to halt what the overwhelming majority of the citizenry see as toxic and unjustifiable public activities are valid and do not encumber First Amendment rights. She is most certainly correct in this assessment: the Founders of our nation were clear in stating that the idea of the First Amendment was to protect political speech, not obscenity or all "forms of expression," as a full half-century of Supreme Court decisions has falsely held.
The Constitution left it to the states to regulate what is acceptable public speech and expression beyond political speech, the latter being fully protected. And there was no nonsense about thinking of all speech and other forms of expression as political. No, the idea was to make sure that particular government administrations could not suppress political ideas they found threatening to their continuation in office or the implementation of their ideas. The intent was to avert political tyranny, not to give free rein to pornographers and bearbaiters.
The Court and Congress have turned that on its head in the past seventy-five years, protecting obscenity while undermining political speech at every turn, most notably in recent years in the odious McCain-Feingold campaign law that explicitly placed outrageous restrictions on political activity.
Charen notes how a (modern) liberal, leftish, New York Democrat, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, has cracked down on child pornography in the state. Charen writes:
On June 11, Cuomo announced an agreement with three of the nation’s largest Internet service providers—Sprint, Time Warner, and Verizon—to block access to child pornography and eliminate such content from their networks wherever possible. Negotiations are ongoing with two other, as yet unnamed, service providers.
You might think that these companies would have cracked down on child porn purveyors without the assist of New York’s attorney general. But apparently not. Undercover agents from the attorney general’s office first posed as subscribers and complained to Internet providers about the availability of child pornography. The companies ignored them. Only then did the attorney general drop the mask and switch to intimidation mode, threatening the companies with charges of fraud and deceptive business practices.
Charen acknowledes that some leftist groups have come out against Cuomo, as was to be predicted. They may worry all they like about slippery slopes, and should, but this is certainly an appropriate matter for state governments to consider, and Charen is right to praise Cuomo for his action in this case:
We censor because we find certain things reprehensible and corrupting. Note the gerund. It isn’t just that bad or corrupt individuals choose to trade pictures of children being sexually abused. It’s that we fear that many people who would otherwise not have indulged such sick appetites are moved to do so by the availability of the filth (Cuomo actually used that word!) online.
Culture has consequences. Kristol was right when he argued that “Bearbaiting and cockfighting are prohibited only in part out of compassion for the animals; the main reason is that such spectacles were felt to debase and brutalize the citizenry who flocked to witness them.” We do, as Kristol held, have a proper concern with the way people entertain themselves in public. I would go further and suggest that viewing child porn—even in private—should be as difficult as we can make it. Censor away Mr. Attorney General—and broaden your net.
We can't have it both ways: either culture has important consequences, or it hasn't. If it does, it's our responsibility to apply the classical liberal Harm Principle to culture as in any other realm of society. If someone does something that harms others, the government has not just the authority but a positive responsibility to stop it.
If child pornography does not fit that description, nothing does.
Robert Downey Jr., star of the megahit movie Iron Man, has signed on for a new film that crosses genres and may have some interesting and salutary ideas.
Robert Downey Jr. will star in the planned 2009 theatrical film release Cowboys and Aliens, which is reportedly just what it sounds like—a mix of two staple genres of early twentieth century pulp fiction: the Western and science fiction.
Coming off the huge success of Marvel Studios' Iron Man, Downey has signed up for the film, the story of which will be based on a graphic novel. The script has been in development for several years, and the previous involvement of Jeffrey Boam (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and Steve Odenkerk (Evan Almighty) is good news, should any of their ideas be retained.
The story centers on an Old West battle between the Apache and Western settlers, including a former Union Army gunslinger named Zeke Jackson (Downey), that is interrupted by a spaceship crashing into the prairie near Silver City, Arizona.
The story draws a parallel between the American imperialist drive to use advanced technology to conquer the "savage" Indians and the aliens' assault on earthlings, who must join together to survive the invaders' attack.
One could easily see the film more broadly as representing a classical liberal premise as well, with the aliens representing the megastate and the earthlings demonstrating the need for the citizenry to drop their differences and fight back to regain their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as the American colonies had to do by breaking away from Britain.
Pulp fiction with principles—what could be more American than that?
Recent improvements to the USA Network TV series In Plain Sight show the value of character depth and likeability, both commercially and aesthetically.
In our critique of the new USA Network crime drama In Plain Sight, I pointed out that the show, although entertaining and interesting in its consderation of the various characters' choices, had a signficant aesthetic and commercial weakness in the unattractive nature of its central character, federal marshall Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack). Although she continuously tries to do the right thing in both her job and her personal life—a very attractive quality—Mary spent most of her screen time in the first couple of episodes complaining about things. That, of course, is a rather unappealing trait.
As I noted in my critique, however, USA Network's fiction series have a good history of correcting mistakes such as this. Fortunately, In Plain Sight is living up to that reputation, as the most recent episodes have improved things in several ways.
One, although she still frowns far too often to be attractive to most people, McCormack and the filmmakers have softened her personality a little, showing the emotional vulnerabilty behind the spiky surface, thus both explaining her irritability and helping us to understand it and thus accept it.
Two, the continued emphasis on Mary's strong impulse toward moral goodness is laudable and deepens our understanding of her personality and the weight that her personal and professional responsibilities lay on her.
Three, Mary's personal integrity is beginning to affect some of the people in her personal life in a very positive way, as her irresponsible mother, Jinx, and sister, Brandi, are starting to show some stirrings of conscience in regard to their cavalier mistreatment of others, especially of Mary herself. This is something for which Mary is greatly to be appreciated.
Four, her partner, Marshall Mann (Fred Weller), is such a good person and effective officer and so openly goodnatured that viewers can enjoy being in his company when Mary is being her morose self.
Five, Mary has increasingly made gestuers of affection toward characters whose problems overshadow her own, showing a good perspective on her situation and a sympathetic nature. In addition, she is starting to be a little less relentless in her complaining and irritability.
The greater depth of the character makes the program both more enjoyable and more insightful. The show still has a way to go if it is to establish an appeal similar to other USA Network programs such as Monk, Psych, and Burn Notice, but it has made much progress in its first few weeks and stands a much better chance of succeeding than initially seemed likely.
Would You Believe . . . Steve Carell, Box-Office Champ?
Get Smart, the spy spoof starring Steve Carell, led the weekend U.S. box office by a good measure.
Despite lukewarm reviews, the new spy spoof Get Smart, based on the 1960s comedy TV series, brouight in an impressive $39.2 million in U.S box office receipts during its first weekend. That's nearly $5-$10 million more than its studio, Warner Bros, had dared to hope for. This must be seen as a thorough triumph for the film's star, Steve Carell.
Another comedy film opening last Friday, The Love Guru, received bad reviews and took in only $14 million, coming in fourth in U.S. weekend receipts. That's $6 million less than the studio expected, and suggests that writer-performer Mike Meyers' relentlessly cheeky comedy style emphasizing adolescent vulgarity and sexual content has worn out its welcome with movie audiences. (Good riddance, I say.)
Carell's warmer, more likeable persona almost certainly drove much of the appeal of Get Smart, which, as noted, critics found rather ordinary (garnering a decidedy lukewarm 53 percent approval rating on the Rotten Tomatoes critical survey). Clearly, however, audiences were eager to spend a couple of hours with the appealingly ordinary Mr. Carell as he played another good-hearted character bumbling his way through difficult situations.
In second place for the weekend was another comedy about a bumbling but well-meaning hero, Kung Fu Panda, with a take of $21.7 million for the three-day period.
Right behind and coming in third was last weekend's box office champ, The Incredible Hulk, holding strong with a solid $21.6 million, not too bad a dropoff from the previous weekend's performance. That bodes well for the film's ultimate success.
The comedian George Carlin should be remembered for his silly humor, not his politics.
The comedian George Carlin died yesteday at the age of 71. To the general public, he was known more for controversies over obscenity in his act than for his comedy—his "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" monologue led to a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming that the FCC could regulate obscenity and punish broadcasters for presenting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.
Influenced strongly by the intellectually and socially ambitious comedian Lenny Bruce, who fancied himself a brilliant satirist, Carlin decided early on to make himself into a similarly aggressive social commentator, with a particular emphasis on ridiculing all things bourgeois, as Bruce had done. As AP notes:
Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with [Jack] Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, ‘‘George was fairly conservative when I met him,’’ said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early ’60s.
‘‘We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away,’’ Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. ‘‘It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction.’’
That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.
Carlin's social commentary came from a left-wing atheist perspective perfectly attuned to the cynical spirit of the 1960s and all but guaranteed to appeal to the nation's critics, who were monolithically leftist themselves. Carlin's greatest bugaboo was religion, in particular an ignorant and absurd caricature of Christianity. The AP story quotes Carlin on his point of view, in a statement he made in 2004:
‘‘The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things—bad language and whatever—it’s all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition,’’ Carlin said in a 2004 interview. ‘‘There’s an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body.... It’s reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have.’’
When he downplayed his pretensions toward being a philosopher, satirist, and political thinker, Carlin was quite funny. His humor started out simply silly, pointing out odd contradictions in modern life, and that was always his best vein of humor.
It is for that legacy, not his political activism and ignorant antireligious prejudice, that Carlin should be remembered—for his humor will last after the political issues are long dead.
TAC correspondent Mike Gray discovers a very unusual, interesting, and enlightening book.
A Book with Answers to Everything
By Mike Gray
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, how to replace a blown fuse in the dark without a flashlight, a thought suddenly struck me. After briefly contemplating legal action against the thought, I decided to become more familiar with it.
Why, I wondered, do I have to endure problems like this? After all, what did I do to deserve it? I collect books of various sorts; surely, I said to myself, there's an answer for this somewhere among their pages. Making a mental note not to call myself Shirley any more, I stood there in the dark—in more ways than one.
Somebody finally came up with a flashlight so, after dealing with the fuse, I shambled into our minuscule library/study searching for the answers to life, the universe, and—you know.
Oddly enough, Douglas Adams, brilliantly funny though he was, didn't have the answers—although the Babel fish is such a great idea that the United Nations really ought to get on it posthaste. Maybe, I mused, Ted Turner could come up with the scratch for it; I'm sure he can afford it.
I scanned the bookshelves. Aristotle? Smart guy, if a little dull. Shakespeare? Also a smart guy, not too dull, but limited in wisdom. Jeff Foxworthy? That night, Jeff notwithstanding, I needed something more comprehensive and positive.
So I grabbed this brown-backed book down from the shelf. Oddly enough, the author's name wasn't on either the cover or the title page: a curiosity in this day and age. This thing was thick and heavy, and some of the text would require an electron microscope to read; but with the aid of my Mr. Wizard Science Kit I managed well enough.
Ignoring the thunderstorm outside and the dimly flickering lights over my shoulder, I launched into it—so it came as a mild shock when I finished to see the bleak light of dawn filtering through the slats of the Venetian blind. It was an engrossing read, and I give it two thumbs up—no, wait, that's copyrighted, I think. Four stars? Five bowties? Anyway, I liked it.
The book has wit and wisdom, a realistic view of human nature, the rather downbeat theme of how screwed-up people can get when they stray away from what they know is right, but a boffo, upbeat finale: the good guys win!
For the characters (and there's a huge cast of them), things begin beautifully but rapidly go downhill; like any good author would do, the storyline introduces more and yet more complications for them—until about two thirds of the way through when the hero appears. But this hero isn't like most; he doesn't shoot anybody or even throw any punches, yet he behaves in the most heroic way imaginable (to say more would be a spoiler).
This book succeeded well in changing my morose attitude; it's unusual for a book—especially one with all this violent content—to make me feel better, but it did.
However, if I read it right, conditions worldwide will greatly deteriorate before they improve. Many carefully laid plans of princes, paupers, and potentates are definitely going to gang agley.
In my chair on that dark and stormy night, I squirmed uneasily at the prospect. "Ah, c'mon," I told myself, "this is just made-up stuff! Do they seriously expect me to believe this?" But I finally had to concede that yes, they do. Here are some text snippets on just a few of the topics covered in this book. If you find any of these ideas objectionable, don't look at me; take it up with the author:
THE ORIGIN OF MANKIND
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
RACISM
"And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth ..."
HOMOSEXUALITY
"Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate ... shall inherit the kingdom of God."
GLOBAL WARMING AND THE END OF THE WORLD
"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever."
ANTI-SEMITISM
"I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee : and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
THE FUTURE OF ISRAEL
"I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
THE FINAL OUTCOME OF THE CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ROADMAP TO PEACE
"I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
THE FINAL POLITICAL CONFIGURATION OF THE NATIONS
"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever."
OVERALL . . . This is a book to which I will return frequently. Lots of great stuff here, and so far I've only managed to understand a very small part of what it holds. Fascinating!
Pacific Ocean Blue, the great solo album by the former Beach Boy the late Dennis Wilson, is finally available again, in an impressive CD release with numerous bonus tracks. This is an album you must hear.
It's pretty common knowledge that Brian Wilson was the musical genius behind the Beach Boys, that brother Carl had an angelic voice and was the glue that held the band's diverse personalities together, and that brother Dennis, the band's drummer, was the surfer and all-round party boy.
What relatively few people are aware of, however, is that Dennis was a highly accomplished singer and songwriter, and that his songs weren't at all what one would expect from a superficial party animal but on the contrary were impressively sophisticated and sensitive. In fact, in his music Dennis was the most emotionally open of the Beach Boys.
During the band's interesting and underappreciated late-'60s and early '70s period, Dennis contributed some of the group's best songs, and he continued to write and produce solid songs right up until his death by a diving accident at the age of 39 in 1983.
The combination of toughness and vulnerability that characterized Dennis's songs fit in well with the greater seriousness of the group's music after the mid-'60s and helped make up for Brian's absences due to mental illness and other personal problems.
Interestingly, Dennis was the first of the Beach Boys to release a solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, in 1977, and it is an impressive piece of work, significantly better than the albums the rest of the band was making at the time. The music consists of sophisticated 1970s rock-based arrangements, incorporating horns, orchestral strings, and synthesizers. The album evokes a variety of moods and is absolutely stuffed with great musical ideas and successful experimentation in the arrangements. The use of gospel intonations is especially refreshing and eovcative.
American Girl Empire Teaches Better Values Than Schools
The first theatrical film based on the American Girl doll series is about to hit U.S. theaters. Could it shame our public schools into doing better?
Critics used to consider movies based on toys to be the lowest of the low, as they were often designed all too obviously to sell the line of toys featured in the narrative. Roger Ebert, for one, habitually complained about this, and most other mainstream critics likewise dismissed such film simply on that basis.
Of course, the source material for a film shouldn't matter a hoot if the movie is good, but typically movies designed to sell toys weren't all that good. The lines began to blur with the release of the Star Wars films, however, and in the past decade commercial tie-ins with Hollywood movies are the norm.
Nonetheless, I can certainly imagine Ebert and others cringing a bit at the forthcoming release of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, opening in limited release this Friday and nationwide on July 2. The American Girl franchise is a huge goldmine, as young girls across the nation obsessively collect these expensive dolls and their countless high-priced accoutrements.
Yet there is much to like in the American Girl phenomenon. At a time when U.S. public schools have ceased teaching real U.S. history, substituting instead blatant indoctrination in ethnic and sexual victim thinking, the American Girl dolls teach girls what it really was like in America in the past. The dolls represent a varieyt of ethnic heritages, and each is from a different, important period of American history.
Each doll, moreover, is sold with a book (!!!) that tells the story of that particular girl, placing her life in historical context and not papering over the less attractive aspects of our history as she deals with problems characteristic of that particular time. The narratives and other items are designed to appeal to girls aged approximately seven through twelve.
The American Girl company (now owned by Mattel) also produces other books, magazines, and the like, dealing with the same themes.
There are now nine American Girl dolls, and although owning them all would be a huge investment—easily over $1,000—girls can of course play together and learn more about American history as they do so. This seems to me to be a very good thing, especially given the lack of knowledge and respect for history characteristic of contemporary America largely as a result of the hijacking of our public schools by left-wing America-haters.
I think that these dolls and their accessories fill a real, perceived need in American families: a view of America and American history that respects our great accomplishments while not denying our shortcomings. The courage and fortitude the girls show in the stories must also appeal to both parents and girls.
I think that the toys and narratives are also salutary in showing today's wealthy, overfed children just how difficult things were in the past, how well they have it today, and what people have had to overcome to make thing so good. OF course, the odds are that the sweet little things will still be largely spoiled modern American kids, but at least they'll have some recognition that things could be otherwise. They might just learn to count themselves greatly blessed.
In addition to all the dolls and accessories, three American Girl movies for television have been produced and shown on American TV: Samantha: An American Girl Holiday (2003); Felicity: An American Girl Adventure (2005); and Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front (2006).
Now the first theatrical film based on the American Girl series is about to be released, as noted above, starring Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin and directed by Patricia Rozema (Mansfield Park). Kit Kittredge: An American Girl tells the story of the title character, who is growing up during the Great Depression and is plunged into poverty when her father loses his job.
"The producers were drawn to the incredible drama and immediacy of Kit's story—a girl who goes from rich to poor overnight, during the scariest economic times our country has ever seen," says Jodi Goldberg, editorial director for American Girl's historical fiction line.
Kit exemplifies the pluck and optimistic spirit that characterized the United States during its first two centuries, as the Sun-Times story notes:
In her American Girl books, and now in her own movie, Kit deploys optimism and elbow grease as a full partner in her family's fight to hang on to their middle-class lives after her father loses his car dealership during the Great Depression.
The emphasis on good character is intentional in both the stories and the films, as the story notes:
Most young girls today have no personal link to the grim days of the Great Depression, and indeed the original intent of Pleasant Rowland, who began the American Girl franchise in 1986, was to personalize American history for girls.
Each of the characters embodies some admirable trait associated with her historical time, which is explored throughout the series of books built around that girl.
Kit exemplifies "grit and determination"—useful characteristics during the Great Depression, Tripp says. The paradox of Kit's experience is that every catastrophe that befalls her and her family carries the seeds of exciting new possibilities.
"When everything you have been depending on crashes, all bets are off. You have the freedom to reinvent yourself," Tripp says.
Given those values and valuable lessons, one hopes that the film will carry them over effectively. According to the review in Variety, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl does just that:
Plucky, likable and determined to succeed, much like its heroine, "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" is a throwback to the kinds of movies they don't make anymore. Anchored by a fine performance from Abigail Breslin, this wholesome, engaging entertainment offers something for viewers ages 7 to 107 and, given the popularity of the "American Girl" brand, should be an especially hot-ticket item for elementary- and middle-school girls. A platform release should benefit from positive word of mouth among "Kit's" target demo and, just as importantly, the target demo's moms, yielding strong returns.
After the strong performance of last year's Nancy Drew, perhaps a successful box-office performance by Kit Kittredge: An American Girl will teach Hollywood producers and the book publishing industry that American children (and their parents) really do want high-quality, mature stories that teach positive values.
It's possible. Since the kids aren't allowed to learn this stuff in school, the visual media and book-publishing industry should step in to fill the breach.
They could make a fortune, after all, just like the people behind the American Girl empire—and do well by doing good.
Last week, a package arrived at the Brand family home in Oshkosh, Wis., addressed to the Brands' 12-year-old son Jack Taylor. It contained a used vintage tan and gray fedora hat and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" paraphernalia for the rest of the family, along with a note that read: "Here is a hat for you. Hope you like this and assorted fun bits." It was signed by Depp, the star of the film.
The actor promised the boy his hat back in April when the two met while Depp was in Taylor's hometown filming scenes for his upcoming movie, "Public Enemies." But it was a promise the family did not expect him to keep.
How poignant: people's morals have become so bad, and we've become so cynical as a result, that we expect others not to keep their promises. It's a surprise when somebody exceeds our low expectations today.
USA Network Series 'In Plain Sight' Works Best When Not 'Transcending Genre'
USA Network's In Plain Sight is a formula show that's intended to be more than a formula show.
Just as genre movies work best when they don't try to be superior to the genre, formula TV programs are best when they bring something new to the formula but don't try to pretend they're better than their neighbors.
'Transcending the genre' is something snooty critics like, but it doesn't make for either entertainment or art.
The USA Network has had great success with this, well, formula, in recent years. Ever since Monk hit it big six years ago, USA has introduced new programs finding new angles on a consistent formula:
unusual central character + interesting occupation + pleasant setting + crime + action and adventure + comedy = socko TV entertainment.
That has brought a series of very solid programs including Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, and the revived Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Unfortunately, after a while, programmers and producers get bored with the formula and try to geek it up a notch or two. Typically, it doesn't work.
Case in point: the new USA show In Plain Sight (Sundays at 10 p.m. EDT). It's got a quirky lead character with an unusual occupation—federal marshall Mary Shannon, who works in the government's Witness Protection Program. It's got an appealing, unusual setting—Albuquerque, New Mexico. It's got crimes. It's got action and adventure. It's got comedy, especially from Leslie Ann Warren (hilarious as Mary's mother, Jinx Shannon) and Nichole Hiltz (also funny as Mary's black-ewe sister, Brandi). It even has a highly likeable and respectable sidekick character, Mary's partner, Marshall Marshall Mann (Fred Weller).
Unfortunately, the producers figured that all this good stuff just wasn't enough, and decided that the central character should be thorouglhy dissatisfied with ordinary, bourgeois life and values and thus have a horrible chip on her shoulder and be angry nearly all the time.
Mary's biggest irritatant is the irresponsibility of her mother and sister, both of whom live with her. In terms of the values the show presents, this is a very good angle indeed. Her mother's and sister's selfishness make Mary's life much more difficult than it should be, and showing the consequences of their narcissism is a highly laudable choice on the producers' part.
Moreover, Mary's perturbed reactions are both plausible and realistic. That's the way most of us react when confronted with such behavior, and it reinforces the show's criticism of her family's actions.
Unfortunately, that perturbation is also Mary's reaction to much of what happens while she's on the job. As played by the well-respected actress Mary McCormack (ER, The West Wing), the character is too much of a one-note Mary. Yes, she does get to show some nice, tender moments, as when she reaches out to a troubled young boy in episode two, "Hoosier Daddy," but mostly she appears to have a very bad case of chronic acid reflux.
In addition, Mary is involved in a sex-only relationship with boytoyfriend Rafael Ramirez (Cristian de la Fuente), whichis imitative of Saving Grace but without the deeper meanings of that excellent program. It also means we get to see Mary being dissatisfied about this as well.
So what we get is a central character who's nearly always annoyed by (1) her family, (2) her job, and (3) her love life. Not exactly fun for us.
In fact, Mary's entire character seems like a less pathological and spiritually aware version of Holly Hunter's Grace Hanadarko in Saving Grace. McCormack's performance doesn't fit well in this program, and if her grouchiness were toned down, she might not be in the running for an Emmy Award (which will probably elude her anyway), but her character wouldn't be such a misery for the audience.
It's a pity, because, as noted, In Plain Sight has much going for it. Fortunately, USA Network has a solid record of making adjustments to improve its programs, as when it made the mysteries in Psych stronger and more prominent and slightly reduced the zany hijinks of the two lead characters.
Let's hope they do the same kind of good work with In Plain Sight, removing the Saving Grace stuff and hewing closer to the network's highly successful formula. It could prove to be a very appealing show.
'Hulk,' 'Happening' Drive Strong Weekend Movie Box Office
New action-adventure and horror releases lead unexpectedly big weekend for movies, proving once again the power of genre fiction.
People like their genre films to be genre films, not arty-smarty "interpretations" and "deconstructions" of pop culture myths and styles.
That lesson was vividly confirmed once again at U.S. movie theaters this past weekend.
The more hulk-like version of The Incredible Hulk hit US. movie theaters good and hard over the weekend, bringing in an estimated $54.5 million. Taking a surprisingly strong third place was M. Night Shyamalan's poorly reviewed The Happening, with a healthy $30.5 million, the third-highest opening weekend gross for one of his films.
The strong performance of The Happening is a bit of a surprise given the poor critical and audience response to Shyamalan's 2006 film, Lady in the Water, but is perhaps explained by the new film's R rating and promotional campaign emphasizing a greater emphasis on frights and thrills as opposed to plain weirdness and failed attempts to create an overly intellectualized creepy atmosphere, the bane of his less successful films.
If the audience reactions follow the critics' opinions, the audience for The Happening can be expected to drop off precipitously in ensuing weeks. It will be interesting to see whether the audiences are finding it more enjoyable than the critics have.
The numbers for The Incredible Hulk are a very good sign for Marvel Studios, which released this new version a half-decade after the audience reaction to Ang Lee's over-intellectualized and condescending 2003 Hulk threatened to doom the franchise. Instead of punting, Marvel and its distribution partner for the series, Universal Studios, forged ahead with a more action-oriented version starring Edward Norton. This version actually brought in a few million dollars less in its first three days than the Lee predecessor, which grabbed an impressive $62 million during its opening weekend and then plummeted in ticket sales, grossing only $137 in the United States. That may have suppressed the opening weekend for the new version somewhat, and the strong competition for audiences in a weekend with several iconic genre films in the multiplexes probably did so as well.
Thus The Incredible Hulk seems likely to have a much better carryover in coming weeks and should prove to be a success for Marvel, reviving the franchise.
Coming in second with another good week of U.S. ticket sales was Kung Fu Panda, last week's number one movie. The animated action comedy snagged another $34.3 million during its second weekend and is on the way to being a big hit.
In fifth place was another straightforward genre film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with a steady $13.5 million, for a total of $275.3 million in U.S. ticket sales so far.
This marks three straight weeks in which movie ticket sales have come in ahead of last year's numbers for the same week.
Possible Hollywood Performers Strike Could Hurt Industry, Coworkers
The Screen Actors Guild is preparing to go on strike after its current contract with Hollywood studios expires at the end of this month. Expect their coworkers to suffer the most.
Already reeling from the effects of a prolonged writers strike this past winter, the U.S. film and TV industry is facing a possibly worse disaster as the Screen Actors Guild prepares to go on strike after the current contract between actors and studios expires on June 30.
Production has already slowed to a near-standstill as the date approaches. Studios are rushing to finish principal photography on nearly all films by June 30, and new projects are on hold awaiting action on a new contract with the performers' union.
Some in the industry think the failure to reach an agreement will be more damaging than the writers' strike was, especially for the actors's and actresses' fellow workers, Reuters reports:
Anxiety can be felt throughout the post-production community, still hurting from the disruptions of the three-month writers' strike that ended in mid-February.
"We believe this will be worse than the WGA strike," said Stephen Buchsbaum, CEO of the Post Group. "During the WGA strike, we were doing projects that didn't involve the WGA -- some independent films, game shows and reality shows. Those all have SAG hosts, and unless there is a side deal struck, we believe this impact will be catastrophic.
"The post industry still has not recovered from the writers' strike," he continued. "The industry has not come back, partly because TV season as we know it is still in limbo."
Unease also is growing in the visual effects community.
"I'm hearing about and seeing people being laid off or told, 'Hurry up and wait,"' Visual Effects Society executive director Eric Roth said. "It seems like there is already a strike."
This situation is further aggravated by the lurching global economy, weak dollar and increasing amount of visual effects work heading to less expensive destinations.
"It's a recipe for the perfect storm at the worst possible time," Roth said.
As with the writers strike, once again some of Hollywood's most powerful and prosperous players are pressing for a bigger share of the pie, and their coworkers will have to suffer while the process plays out.
Hollywood's Treatment of Communism—We Must Not Forget the Past
Hollywood's treatment of communism has historically been performed with kid gloves—which shouldn't surprise us given the number of communists in the industry in the 1950s and '60s.
In light of our recent recognition of a more realistic view of communism and the open threat against America it represented for a solid four decades (see, for example, articles here, here, and here), it's valuable to know some of the history of the matter, to see exactly how important and impressive this change really is, and what it's fighting against.
Ever since the early 1950s the common Hollywood attitude toward communism was essentially one of acceptance, with Tinseltown denizens commonly assuming that the alleged values behind communism were sincere and good and that any criticism of American society—regardless of whether it was actually true or fair—was good because it would speed the transition to the better, communal way that was working so superbly in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and other wonderful bastions of human self-fulfillment.
As disciples of Stalin’s party line, American communists obediently endorsed the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939, which precipitated the Second World War with the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1st (in which Soviet Russia joined weeks later). This led eventually to the Holocaust that was centered in Poland. These people also supported the Soviet invasion of neutral Finland in 1940, defended Stalin’s purge show trials of the late 1930s, and dismissed revelations about his growing Gulag concentration camps that imprisoned millions. Further parroting the party line, they joined with isolationists and German-American Bund fifth columnists in loudly protesting President Roosevelt’s crucial assistance to Churchill’s Britain, including Lend-Lease, when it held the torch for Western civilization, fighting Hitler alone after the fall of France, in 1940-41. American communists thus were aligned with Hitler at Stalin’s order, until the Nazi invasion of Russia in June 1941, when they leaped through the hoop and took a diametrically opposite position.
In short, the Hollywood Ten, especially Stalinist CPUSA members like John Howard Lawson (their Stalinist leader) and Dalton Trumbo, who are such a cause celebre for Turner and left-wing Hollywood, did not have clean hands. (Trumbo joined the party during the period of the Nazi-Soviet pact.) And the blacklist, in Tom Wolfe’s words, has become a “poignant myth.” Appearing before HUAC, these people ostentatiously invoked their First Amendment rights under the Constitution they were pledged in secret to destroy.
In this environment, Warren notes, open opposition to communism could be not only career suicide but real suicide. Hence the actions of Ronald Reagan and other Hollywood liberal anticommunists should be seen as heroic:
The Ten’s Communist brethren meanwhile were attempting to take over Hollywood craft unions, including the Screen Actors Guild. During a violent strike they fomented at Reagan’s studio, Warner Brothers, studio employees avoided the picket lines by entering in shuttle buses. Reagan was the only one who, rejecting the warnings of security personnel, sat upright inside his bus rather than hiding under a seat. When Reagan, with Gene Kelly, Katharine Hepburn and others in the guild tried to mediate an end to the strike (the last thing the Communist union wanted), Reagan received a telephone call in which an unidentified voice “threatened to see to it that he never made films again,” as recounted in Schweizer’s book (page 11). Schweizer continues: “If he continued to oppose the . . . strike, the caller, said, ‘a squad’ would disfigure his face with acid.” Reagan received many other threats, and felt compelled to hire guards to watch his children; he obtained a gun permit and slept with a revolver at his bedside. His wife, Jane Wyman, “would awaken and find him sitting up in bed at two in the morning, holding the gun because he had heard an unusual sound.” Reagan’s stand against the Communist union earned him verbal abuse from a subsequently blacklisted actress, Karen Morley, whom Osborne loves to portray only as a victim. Later, repentant former Communist actor Sterling Hayden described Reagan as “a one-man battalion” who stopped the Communist union’s attempted takeover. (Schweizer, pages 12-13.)
Anticommunists such as Reagan, Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor, and John Wayne came under increasing fire from the far left, which in Hollywood was the middle of the road, during the 1950s and '60s. As I noted in an earlier article on the subject, Hollywood's attitude was that even if communism might have some flaws in practice, it was well-intended and a good thing overall, and thus Americans' opposition to it was much worse.
Warren uses an intensive analysis of comments on the Turner Classic Movies channel, especially those of movie host Robert Osborne, to document pro-communist attitudes in Hollywood during the Cold War and its hangover even during the years since the self-inflicted fall of communism:
Sadly, Turner and Osborne demonstrate, in their instrumental view of truth in the name of their “Cause” (however vaguely defined) just how much they have in common with their Hollywood Ten heroes. This is a very important issue because, as Orwell writes in 1984, he who has the past has the future. It is amazing that Time Warner, the owner of Turner Classic Movies, permits such politicization, which must be costing the channel viewership.
Although Hollywood movies and television shows tend to show American fathers as irresponsible dullards, in real life there are some pretty good celebrity fathers in Tinseltown.
An interesting article in the Chicago Sun-Times shows that there are some Hollywood celebrities who are very good fathers, at least by the standards of our time, which give a good deal of credit just for being around one's children.
The story also lists some notoriously bad celebrity fathers, and most of them seem pretty awful indeed. However, the author's choice to include Will Smith among the bad dads seems unfounded to me. The author admits that Smith "seems devoted to wife Jada Pinkett Smith and their children," but accuses him of being a relentless stage dad. However, the writer gives no evidence for this claim, citing only an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, which hardly seems definitive, to say the least.
Other than that, it's an interesting story. One hopes that Hollywood writers and directors will look around themselves and discover some of the good fathers in their vicinity, and start depicting such characters more realistically in all their variety, showing more positive examples than they have seen fit to do in recent years.
As telephones steadily evolve into miniature computers, becoming mobile, personal entertainment and communication centers, advertisers are increasingly pursuing the much-desired youth demographic through their cell phones.
Advertisers are realizing that if they want to reach teens, they need their number -- literally.
"They're not watching TV, you're not reaching them in other places," said Andrew Miller, chief executive of Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising network. "Mobile is where they congregate."
It may all seem a little bothersome, but teens don't mind receiving messages about products on their phones, says Nic Covey, director of insights at research firm Nielsen Mobile. Nielsen said teens were nearly twice more likely than adults to trust and respond to advertising and pitches on mobile phones.
Yes, we know teens are even more gullible than adults, which is saying a lot. . . .
The story notes, however, that some teens aren't quite so open to persuasion:
Not all teens are so readily accessible, of course. Molly Nadeau, a senior at Fairfax High in Los Angeles, loves the trendy and inexpensive fashions of Forever 21 Inc., but that doesn't mean she wants to be inundated with blurbs about its latest blouses or jewelry on her mobile phone.
"Once they have my number, I just think the ads would come 24/7," she said. "I wouldn't want that." That wouldn't make her father happy, Nadeau noted, since he pays the phone bill and her plan doesn't allow for unlimited text messages.
Marketers claim they are sensitive to such resistance, saying that's why they craft the ads more in terms of useful information teens would want to get on their phones.
Meaning: they disguise the ads to look like real information, and figure the dummies won't know the difference.
Also:
Some teens do mind, however, if advertisers bug them too overtly, said Alyson Hyder, media director for California at Avenue A/Razorfish, a digital marketing firm.
"They will be quick to turn on the backlash," Hyder said. That's why "brands that target the teen audience are looking at more authentic ways to insert themselves into the conversation, as opposed to advertising."
Meaning, they disguise the ads to look like real information, and figure the dummies won't know the difference. (repetition intended)
The advertisers are banking that P. T. Barnum was right when he said that there's a sucker born every minute. In fact, they're banking on the possibility that he underestimated it dramatically.
Kung Fu Panda won the box-office race in its opening weekend. Here's a clue why.
The animated movie Kung Fu Panda earned an estimated $60 million days during its opening weekend during the past three days, and You Don't Mess with the Zohan, with Adam Sandler as a martial arts expert and ace hairdresser, finished second, snagging $40 million.
Sandler's film brought in $10 million dollars more than industry experts had expected, and the performance of Kung Fu Panda was well over $10 million above expectations.
Experts were surprised that a full 71 percent of the Panda audience was over 17 years old, a high number for an animated film, and that women constituted 51 percent of the audience for Zohan.
Both films, that is, had much wider appeal than expected.
Overall, roughly 32 percent of [U.S.] children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese and 11 percent were extremely obese, in a study based on in-person measurements of height and weight in 2005 and 2006.
Those levels were roughly the same as in 2003-04 after a steady rise since 1980, according to the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the study.
Their parents are even fatter, the story noted:
CDC data reported last year showed obesity rates for men also held steady from 2003-04 to 2005-06 at about 33 percent after two decades of increases. The rate for women, 35 percent, remained at a plateau reached in 2003-04.
Although it is reasonable to doubt the accuracy of these measures comparing height and weight, a simple look around will confirm that Americans are indeed pretty darn fat. It should hardly surprise us, then, that a movie featuring a fat panda as a martial arts expert and action hero would be a bit hit with audiences. Or that a film featuring the by no means chiseled Adam Sandler as another martial arts expert and action hero would come in second with a very big audiences, with both films exceeding industry expectations.
After all, it's a comforting notion to think that one can eat cookies and chips all day while playing video games or watching reality TV, become flabby and weak, and yet at any point choose to practice for a while and become a superb athlete.
It's a very appealing fantasy, and one that ought to have natural appeal to Americans, with our wide girths and great reluctance to do anything more physical demanding than watching television, driving our cars, or breathing.
I can envision a coming culture of obesity if we continue to ignore our health and conditioning as we have done in the past couple of decades:
Miss America will weigh 200 pounds and win the honor after acing the muu muu competition.
NASCAR crews will have to use the jaws of life to remove drivers from their cars after races, even without collisions.
Basketball players will actually pass the ball to one another, having become too fat to conetmplate dribbling it all the way up the court.
Runways for fashion models will have to be reinforced with stronger metal foundations.
Oprah will get fat again.
Movie action heroes will wear Hawaiian shirts and baggy khaki shorts and defeat villains by sitting on them.
Rock musicians—well, they'll stay skinny because of all the illegal drugs they consume.
Potato chips will be considered a diet food.
Barack Obama will stop smoking and will start power-eating cake frosting and beer.
Full-length mirrors will be concave on a vertical axis, to create a more flattering self-image.
That's America today, after all: when given a choice between self-denial and self-delusion, we'll always choose the latter.
The new CBS drama series Swingtown,which premiered last night at 10 EDT, makes 1970s America look much freer than it really was. Certainly the premiere episode captures the astonishingly hideous clothing and home furnishing fashions of the time, but its real interest is in, you guessed it, what Preston Sturges referred to as Topic A.
Swingtown doesn't show us much of the real post-Watergate America, a place of stagflation, overbearing government, appallingly high crime rates, and soon, the ghastly Jimmy Carter years.
But there sure was plenty of sex, the show tells us.
Ah, those were the days!, the premiere episode seems to say, when everyday, ordinary people smoked and drank and did drugs and listened to groovy rock music and swapped spouses. Heady times indeed.
One would hardly imagine that those very same people would vote Ronald Reagan into office in a landslide. Nor would one imagine that the Sexual Revolution that the premiere episode of Swingtown seems to praise so uncritically would result in an avalanche of divorce, illegitimacy, sexually transmitted diseases, family breakdown, and all the rest of its awful consequences we've endured as a society over the past three decades.
But why worry about that when you can hope to lure TV audiences with sex and sensationalism?
Swingtown concentrates on a couple of upper-middle-class "swingers" (people who trade spouses sexually with other couples), a more humble couple with traditional values, and a social-climbing pair who decide to try the swinging lifestyle.
Naturally, the latter like it, the original swingers are perfectly happy, and the traditionalists are very unhappy.
The same dynamic applies to the young people in the story, mostly the children of the main couples: the more open-minded and honest they are about sex and the more open to experimentation, the better their lives appear to be in the series premiere episode.
Whether that remains the case in future episodes (I suspect it won't) will determine how interesting the show will be to contemporary audiences—and whether the producers have any grasp on reality.
The Culture Project is a much-needed endeavor intended to help set the groundwork for a true Liberty Culture in the United States.
As I've noted earlier, the premise behind The American Culture is twofold: One, that culture affects politics and society profoundly and is the necessary precursor for any real social change; and two, that it is possible and indeed important for contemporary cultural analysts and critics to lay the foundations for a culture that supports real liberty.
As a result, I'm pleased and honored to announce the formation of The Culture Project, a new organization, launched today, that will provide information, education, networking, mentorship, and other valuable resources for individuals interested in affecting the culture in positive ways or in developing careers in the culture professions.
The Culture Project will work to strengthen respect for liberty and personal responsibilty in the American culture, and thereby help set the foundations for true political change toward greater freedom and personal choice in American society.
Articles from The American Culture will be available at the Culture Project website, along with a valuable Newswire providing news about cultural events and job opportunites, plus the Culture Career Network, which provides career resources for those interested in participating in cultural and cultural influence professions. The site also includes Think Tank articles conveying important thoughts about the culture; discussion sites for the various aspects of culture and cultural influence; career resources; Culture Project contact and participation information; and much more.
There is much useful information on the site already, and much more to come.
Please visit the Culture Project website regularly for the latest cultural news and valuable career resources, and invite your associates, especially young people, to join in.
Chopra posted an essay online in response to those in the Hindu community who say ‘‘The Love Guru’’ is offensive and mocks important tenets of their faith.
‘‘The premature outcry against the movie is itself religious propaganda,’’ Chopra writes, noting that the protesters based their views on the film’s 2 1/2-minute trailer. ‘‘As viewers will find out when the movie is released this summer, no one is more thoroughly skewered in it than I am — you could even say that I am made to seem preposterous.’’
Chopra, who makes a cameo appearance in the film, said he and Myers have been friends for 15 years. The two appeared together last year in an episode of ‘‘Iconoclasts,’’ a series of short documentaries on the Sundance Channel, and Myers wrote the foreword to Chopra’s latest book, Why is God Laughing? — which explores the relationship between comedy and spirituality.
A big reason that Chopra doesn't see any religious problems in the film is that he is not a religious believer himself, the AP story notes:
Chopra, who cites various spiritual influences but does not consider himself religious ‘‘in the traditional sense,’’ said the film is all in fun and could increase awareness of Hindu culture. He called [a prominent Hindu protester's] efforts ‘‘a cry for importance’’ and ‘‘a sign of deep insecurity.’’
Or perhaps it's just a sign that the protester takes his religion seriously.
Kathryn Lopez says you can find good messages in Sex and the City.
As we've noted repeatedly here and in other publications, cultural products that are quite antinomian on the surface very often turn out to have sound and sensible values behind them. In today's issue of National Review Online, Kathryn Lopez argues that this is true of Sex and the City.
Kathryn calls the HBO TV show a "series with a lot of flaws but also a lot of honesty about American culture." That sounds plausible. Regarding the claim of honesty, Kathryn writes as follows:
The movie, like the series, is an important cultural contribution. It’s a mirror. And you don’t have to be promiscuous or crass like Carrie and Samantha and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) tend to be to see a reflection. There is a real focus on men, and on what women do to men: Women don’t forgive men. Women don’t think about men and their feelings. For as sensitive as the modern man is supposed to be to a women’s feelings and as sensitive as a man is supposed to look, he’s not really supposed to register an opinion. Or slip up. Or be honest.
That is a very good observation. Kathryn gives a couple of examples from the film, including the following:
And then there’s Steve (David Eigenberg). He has sex, one night, with a woman who is not his wife. Contemptible. But Miranda, his wife, treats him badly in general, treats their child as an accessory, and doesn’t treat their nanny as a human being. She, of course, treats Steve especially horribly for his sin for which he is deeply sorry, this great father who loves his wife but needs help along the way. Steve, like John, is not perfect, but both are in love and want to make a life with Miranda and Carrie. But Miranda and Carrie are too hardened by a “me first” attitude to see that there are men — and in Miranda’s case a child — who love them.
As I've often noted, cultural products frequently (in fact, usually) send off messages quite unintended by their makers, and Kathryn argues that the creators of the Sex in the City TV series and film did not intend the good meanings she finds:
Sex isn’t self-conscious about the reflections it’s showing — Sex encourages lust for the designer labels and “booty calls.” The self-conscious lesson Carrie sends us off with is to feel free “to write your own rules.” (Who needs husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc.? Just do what feels right? She’s deeper than that, but you can walk away with that lesson, too.) But there’s hope: Even the girls I walked out of the theater with might think twice before they stomp all over the hearts of their Mr. Big or Steve, and they might realize that the deeper message of the film is that it’s not hooking up but true love and marriage and children they want. If they went back to Sex after the tastes of “happily ever after” that came by the end of the TV series, then they might already know, deep down, that that’s what they crave — and Sex might just make some love happen.
As this analysis suggests, what an audience member brings to a work of art (popular or otherwise) is often more important than what the creator puts into it. As Kathryn notes, corrupt people will see little but corruption in this film, whereas more sensible ones will be able to take away a much healthier message.
The problem, of course, is that sensible people do not need to consume corrupt fare in order to develop good values, and messed-up individuals won't benefit from the deeper insights available.
I've never seen either the TV program or the movie, but as a scientist of such things, I may have to do so. Perhaps, as Kathryn suggests, it wouldn't be as painful as I had thought.
'Sex and the City' Attracts Big Crowds on Opening Weekend
Sex and the City opened strong at the U.S. movie box office this past weekend.
Sex and the City, the new theatrical film based on the HBO TV series that appealed strongly to women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, opened strong at the U.S. box office this past weekend, doing almost twice as well as industry analysts had expected.
Predicted to bring in approximately $30 million in U.S. domestic box office receipts during its first weekend, the film brought in almost that much during its first day, Friday, hauling in $26.9 million. Women across the nation reportedly organized "girls' night out" parties for the Friday opening. As a result, the Saturday gross was much lower, at $17.7 million. Nonetheless, the film brought in an estimated $55.7 million, constituting the biggest opening ever for an R-rated comedy and fifth-best for any R-rated film.
The audience was reported to be 85 percent female, showing the film's successful appeal to the group it was trying to reach.
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull remained strong, finishing second with a take of $46 million.
Interestingly, Dennis was the first of the Beach Boys to release a solo album, 
In addition to all the dolls and accessories, three American Girl movies for television have been produced and shown on American TV: Samantha: An American Girl Holiday (2003); Felicity: An American Girl Adventure (2005); and Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front (2006).
who have come out in opposition to the film
