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Rob Edelman: Finding Controversy

FINDING DORY, the latest Disney-Pixar animated feature to come to movie theaters, has been causing quite a bit of pre-release controversy. In the film’s trailer, there is an ever-so-brief shot of a little girl, a baby carriage, and two women who apparently are her lesbian parents.

Is there some sort of political agenda here? Is Disney-Pixar attempting to somehow pervert the minds of young people? Is it a matter of coincidence that the actor who voices the Dory character is Ellen DeGeneres-- and Ellen DeGeneres is an entertainment industry powerhouse who can add her own brand of sexual politics to the content of her projects?

Or is it that, in our era of here-today-gone-tomorrow media hype, are Disney-Pixar and Ellen DeGeneres attempting to win oodles of free publicity? And will this publicity, and controversy, result in bigger box office bucks, not to mention grown-ups who usually pass on animated children’s films lining up at their local mall cinemas to judge the film for themselves?

A homophobe might say “yes” to all of the above. But the fleeting image seen in the FINDING DORY trailer offers up a portrait of an American family in 2016 that, like it or not, is a part of the American mainstream. This image puts forth a number of issues that are well-worth pondering-- and they only begin with the definition of the American family. What is a “family”? Does a “family” have to be traditionally nuclear? Must it only consist of two parents, one male and the other female?

Back in the 1950s and 60s, families on television sitcoms only were traditionally nuclear. On such shows as OZZIE AND HARRIET, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, THE DONNA REED SHOW, and FATHER KNOWS BEST, the dad was the breadwinner, even if we rarely saw him in a working environment. The mom was a fashionably-garbed stay-at-home parent who always was there to dispense milk and cookies to her offspring. She never would be shown unglamorously washing her floors or doing her dishes or, in this pre-feminist age, complaining about her lack of choices in a culture that strictly defined the roles of men and women.

Back then, a woman might go to college not to learn anything or prepare for a career. She would enroll in a university only to meet and marry a college man, whose economic prospects would transcend those of a mere high school grad. 

Also, on these sitcoms, the “problems” dealt with by the children always would be conveniently solved right before the closing credit roll. Only in the movies were young people shown to be complex characters with serious issues, and only in the movies were their parents presented as inept and clueless. A case in point here is James Dean’s REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, from 1955.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the definition of “family” transcended the stereotype. At that time, sitcoms began to feature black families, single-parent families, two divorced women living together and raising their children, and so on.

Now of course, in the real world, parents need to be loving and supportive and, well, good parents, good role models. So one might ask: Who would you rather have as parents: a “traditional” mother and father who are abusive, insensitive, uncaring, or worse; or, same-sex parents who are genuinely loving, who set good examples, who are sensitive to the dilemmas facing their kids? All of these questions come to the fore in those very brief images in the FINDING DORY trailer.

Rob Edelman has authored or edited several dozen books on film, television, and baseball. He has taught film history courses at several universities and his writing has appeared in many newspapers, magazines, and journals. His frequent collaborator is his wife, fellow WAMC film commentator Audrey Kupferberg.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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