The Ambassador Is Not Amused

Pass me those Ferrero Rocher, Monsieur Attache. It's time for me to take up my role as an Ambassador again...

However, this time I'm not wearing my Oscars style floor-length gown with the perilously high heels. Nor indeed am I all decked out in the latest sharp business suit with my 'I mean business' Laboutins. No, today this Ambassador is wearing fatigues, soldier, because she's mad and has decided that this is no time for Mrs Nice Guy. Mrs Nice Guy has, in fact, temporarily left the building, and been replaced by Mrs 'WTF! Drop down and give me 20! And whilst you're at it, clean the heads with a toothbrush and DON'T LET ME SEE YOU USING THAT WUSSY ELECTRIC ONE!!!'

Hmm. What's brought this on? I mean, I've sat through a number of films in my role as a Disney Blu-Ray Ambassador, including Beverly Hills Chihauha and High School Musical 3, so you would have thought that any scruples I had would have long since bitten the dust. But no. It turns out that all it takes to press my buttons is what may well be one of the best-loved movies of all time.

Snow White.

Now, before it was sent to me to review, I had never watched Snow White all the way through. Sure, I had seen excerpts from it on countless tv show 'best-of's, the dwarves merrily whistling as they worked in the mine, the dastardly queen talking to her mirror and such-like, but I had never sat down and watched the movie from beginning to end. So when it arrived last week in all it's Blu-Ray glory, I happily sat down with my sons and did so.

Let me start by saying that the High Definition delivery on this version is just about as faultless as it could be with the source material they were working with. Short of starting from scratch and making the whole movie again, I don't think they could have done a better job (or at least, not until the next new technology, whatever that may be, is out of the labs and in common usage).

But actually, I think that that is exactly what Disney should do; make the whole movie again, preferably with a completely different plot. Because, for a modern mother trying to teach equality between the sexes to her two young sons, the storyline stinks. I know that a lot of older animated moves can't be held up as being models of virtue, Sleeping Beauty definitely being one of them, but I can't remember the last time I found myself feeling as uncomfortable about a property created for children as I was when watching Snow White with my boys.

Where to start? Maybe with the sound-track. Not only does it jar with the crisp and colourful animation, reminding you at every turn that whilst the pictures have been updated, there is only so much that can be done with pre-digitally recorded sound, but Snow White's voice has got to be one of the most annoying I have ever heard. She's supposed to be at least 16 years old, for pete's sake (or at least, one would hope so bearing in mind that the mirror deems her old enough to be more beautiful than the icily gorgeous queen and suitable to be of interest to the Handsome Prince), and yet she has a 7 year old's voice, and that's with my being generous to a 7 year old's vocal skills. A child's voice in a young woman's body. What's right with that?

Or perhaps it's the way that the so-called heroine of this movie is so passive, and frankly, a bit of a wimp. Oh, she sighs at the tasks she's set by her cruel stepmother, but she doesn't do anything about changing her lot. No, she meekly finishes washing the steps and sings a charming little song about a wishing well. And when given a reprieve from certain death by the Huntsman and told to run for her life, she finds everything in the forest so terrifying that she swoons... I mean, swoons? Please. Give me a break.

I think though that what I found most irritating about this movie is the blind assumption that Snow White had no control over her own fate. It was down to the Queen to persecute her, try to murder her, and cast the spell of Sleeping Death over her, and down to the prince to kiss her, wake her, and sweep her away to Happy Ever After Land; she just had to stand (or sit, or sleep) and look beautiful. All the good - and bad - stuff would come to her simply because of that.

Now, I'm not for a moment saying that we've moved so far from 1937 - when this movie was made, which goes a long way to explaining it's sexism - that there aren't plenty of women around today who fit this stereotype. And I'm not even saying that this approach - of waiting for life to come to you instead of going out there and making it happen - isn't lauded in certain magazines and in other forms of mass-media. Or indeed that it isn't aspired to by a whole tranche of young girls and women who should know better.

I'm just saying that in this current day and age Snow White's example of womanhood is - to me at least - outdated and dangerous, and that it's not one that I feel comfortable showing to my children. Never mind that all this subtext went right over the Boy's heads, it's the start of a slippery slope and there are enough opportunities for them to see sexism in action in real life without having it sugar-coated and fed to them as a fairy tale. So I'll be sending our copy back to the agency who forwarded it to me.

Thanks, Disney, but you can keep this one.


And for those of you who haven't watched it in a while, who think I'm making a fuss over nothing, I suggest you sit down and watch it again - and then read my post...

Doin' it for the kids

Here's a riddle for you. Which movie will be demanded when you offer two tired post-school boys the rare chance to watch a dvd after school (in an attempt to get the younger and more exhausted one to drop off on the sofa for a while - as if...) and:

a) one of them is obsessed by dogs
b) the other is obsessed by trains

You won't get it. I know you won't get it. And the reason why I know you won't get it? Because unless you are a Disney Blu-Ray Ambassador (pass me those foil-wrapped Ferrero Rocher, somebody?), there is absolutely no chance you will have 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua' in your dvd collection.

But I am. And we do. And guess what my sons wanted to watch for the second time this afternoon?

To be fair, it's actually quite a sweet film, and completely suitable for the 3 -5 year old age-group. I even - whisper it softly - sat down on the sofa for part of it and watched it with them for the second time. Never mind that this gave me the rare opportunity of having my younger son - normally 'he who eschews cuddles in favour of striding around being manly and playing with trains' - snuggled in on one side, and my older son - normally 'he who rarely stands still long enough for a hug as he's usually too busy pretending to be a dog - wedged in on the other... (Hmmm. Maybe I should have seen the writing on the wall regarding which way their choice of movie might go?)

So what's the film about? (You really want to know?). It's a live-action / CGI movie (also available in Blu-Ray format, obviously) that makes dogs talk and of which the blurb on the website says:

'It tells the story of Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore), a spoilt Chihuahua enjoying all the trappings of Hollywood from diamonds sparkling on her collar to the best grooming and gourmet food Tinsel Town can offer. However, she finds herself in a perilous situation when events conspire to take her to Mexico, lost, alone and abandoned.'

And it has trains and dogs in it.

And that is all I am saying on this matter.

The things I do for my children... and I don't even have chocolate in the house to reward myself with...

They're coming to take me away, haha!

So... who have I been today?

Early Riser Mummy - to negate the fact that the car was at the garage, Husband was away, the school run called, and some personal grooming was required as doing the drop-off in my gym kit just wasn't going to wash for the third time this week...

Stressed Mummy - when it took ages to find a taxi to take the boys and I to school (and don't say I should have taken a bus - it would have taken just as long as walking... And don't say I should have walked; arriving for a school day starting at 8.15am after a 30 minute walk was just never going to happen. Especially after the effort I put in on the grooming front.)

Yomping Mummy - walking the 30 minutes back from school through rush-hour traffic pushing an increasingly heavy Boy #2 in a buggy on it's last legs. Who needs upper arm exercises at the gym anyway? (And personal grooming? What personal grooming?)

Domesticated Mummy - washing, tidying, admining, ministering to an increasingly bored younger son...

Organised Mummy - heading off to buy supplies and a present for Boy #1's girlfriend's party this afternoon. I had been issued with strict instructions that my usual present of choice - a talking book - was not acceptable for the object of my son's affections, and that anything fairy (except a book) was quite the thing.

Relieved Mummy - when I found 'quite the thing' in the ELC.

Yomping Mummy - again - heading off - via the park to placate Boy #2 for all the to-ing and fro-ing - to pick the car up from the garage (I worked out that I walked around 5 miles today. And in the wrong shoes, of course).

Relieved Mummy - for the second time - that the car was ready to be picked up.

Frustrated Mummy - that despite the fact that the exhaust had been repaired (meaning our car no longer sounds like an Alfa Romeo - which secretly I quite liked), by the time I reached the end of the road it became clear that the sinister clanking noise the car makes when I apply the brakes is still occuring. Our mechanic had assured me that it would have been fixed, but also gave himself a let-out clause with the following non-pausing for breath sentence; "Is not serious, see, because PM, I check, you see, and everythin' is sol-id, I mean sol-id under there PM, and you drive it, right, you drive it an' if eet still there you come back in week or so PM, and you take me for test-drive and we work it out..." Fabulous.

Delighted Mummy - to take the boys to a birthday party this afternoon that was not in Gambado, downstairs in a pizza restaurant or similar but OUTSIDE, thank god!

Domesticated Mummy - again - clearing up wee on the floor of the bathroom when a post-party Boy #2 was too exhausted to make it to the loo, and simply delivered where he sat as I ran the bath (will 'my potty hell' never end?).

Scientific Mummy - when, after putting the Boys to bed, I decided that I needed to do some research before I could put on my Jimmy Choo's, satin slip dress and resume my occasional role as...

Disney Blu-Ray Ambassador Mummy.

'Research' I hear you say? What kind of research could I possibly do? I simply need to put the disc in the machine and switch on, surely? Well, I could have done that. But the disc I was going to review was Sleeping Beauty (Platinum Edition), and what's to review there?

Everyone knows the story of how poor old Maleficent, that outrider for female empancipation, expelled from Elysium for refusing to pander to male egos, decides to make her point about the emptiness of a life lived only for beauty and grace by - admittedly slightly excessively - cursing the only daughter of King Stefan and his wife to die before she reaches her sixteenth birthday. (His wife, by the way, who's name I'm not even sure we're ever told, but what the hey, she's only a woman, right?)

OK, OK, I don't really see this movie like that. It's beautiful, and a classic, and yes my sons have seen it already. But that's not what I was going to write about. Because I have no doubt that you do already know the story.

No, what I realised is that I have repeatedly said in my reviews of the Blu-Ray technology is that whilst it is fantastic for live action movies, I really wasn't sure it made that much of a difference to animated ones. And then I realised that I have both a normal dvd and a blu-ray version of Sleeping Beauty. And it was not such a large leap for me then to think; well, why don't I put my money where my mouth is and watch both? Not all the way through, you understand. Just for long enough to see if I could tell that one was high definition and the other was not.

(Initially I had an even better plan. We still have both our normal DVD player and the blu-ray player hooked up to the tv, you see. Nothing simpler, surely, to put them both on simultaneously and flick between the two.

Nothing simpler, that is, assuming you can find the remote control for your DVD player.)

After a fruitless search when it took me all of 10 minutes to ascertain that yes, the remote control for the DVD player was indeed lost, I gave up on that idea, and had to watch the first 15 minutes of each, one after the other... (Because, btw, you can do that on a Blu-Ray player.)

And the results?

Drumroll....

I was wrong. You can tell the difference. The Blu-Ray version is clearer, brighter, and oh, alright, higher definition.

Curses. (But in a good way, obviously...)