Except that I always read Baby as a send-up of that kind of character. I mean, "I'm the baby, gotta love me?" No one can love that.

"it’s hard to suss out here where gesture ends and the actual good begins"

Where's the proper place for pedantry if not pedophilia?

How do you like that happy crappy?

Not sure what counts as "meeting" nowadays, but I like to think of myself as a libertarian with a nuanced view on the PC subject. Or at least, I think it's a complicated topic. Just as a data point for your reference (and of course further conversation, if you'd like).

Super disappointed not to see the team of Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd here; they would have killed it.

I think if you're named Brodie, pro frisbee player is one of a handful of professions you're allowed to pursue. Has there ever been a bank clerk named Brodie?

I think there's an argument to be made that "Sorcerer's Stone" is more evocative/compelling (in the American culture, at least) than "Philosopher's Stone."

I know I'm late here, but I just wanted to say that this was a brilliant f-ing review. One of the best I've read on this site. Intelligent (yet readable), researched, insightful and nuanced. Congratulations, Mr. Teti.

Probably not as well as Soderbergh did, no.

In my experience, people need varying levels of genre descriptors depending on their familiarity with the material. To a lot of people, "science fiction" is a perfectly suitable label for a wide variety of books, movies, etc. Other folks—primarily fans of science fiction—sometimes have far narrower and more exacting…

It's possible that reducing people to their politics isn't the best way to understand individuals, who might have varying tastes in things like movies, etc.

All right, who squealed?

LOL, when it comes to parenting, I think we're all unqualified… except maybe the Duggars, and look how *that* turned out.

What escapes me initially is how Dumbo would inform her attitudes towards race going forward, if no connection is drawn between the crows and African Americans in the first place. Unless someone were to draw that connection *for* her, why should she watch the movie and think "oh, that's meant to be African…

I agree with your first paragraph. In the second, the thing I wonder about is: if I showed Dumbo to my daughter (in a couple of years, when she's old enough to watch/follow a movie), I doubt she would draw any kind of connection between the crows and African Americans… because that cultural context is (largely) dead…

This was a great article. One of my "problems with feminism" has been what I've perceived to be a kind of "all-or-nothing" mentality, dividing the world into camps of Good and Bad, which reminds me of a lot of my experiences in the Objectivist community, and not in a good way.

Losing out on the Transformer movies, but picking up some exclusive Adam Sandler flicks…? I can't tell if this is an upgrade or punishment.

Nightmare on Elm Street, and pt. 3 (Dream Warriors!) were some of my favorite movies when I was young — leading to a lifelong love of horror films. But few ever stand up to those in my mind, whether that's nostalgia talking, or whether it's the powerful vision of kids standing up to the darkness. Fighting back.

While it may be a literal "ignorance" to not know certain geographical features or countries on a map, is it a meaningful ignorance?