The blog combining two passions most people could give a rat's ass about.
Showing posts with label adoption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adoption. Show all posts

Friday, April 8, 2011

Despicable Movie

Despicable Me really pissed me off. Let me back up. I have a bit that I do about reality shows.
"There are all these reality shows based on elimination. They start with fourteen or so contestants, and every week one of them drops off. So I, have come up with the next great reality show- adoption. Fourteen kids one family!" 
This is the point in the bit where people roll their eyes and express how horrible I am. I continue
"Not only would this be great television drama, but you know those thirteen eliminated kids would get adopted by families watching the program in no time!"
And that is my horribly exploitative- yet backdoor altruistic-TV show idea. Every time I've done this bit someone will tell me how horrible I am for coming up with it (until they hear the last bit). But what is much worse to me is what Hollywood currently does with adoption.
I'll give a pass to Meet The Robinsons and Paulie Shore's Mocumentary Adopted, because they highlight the reality of adoption (and I couldn't make it through Adopted). But overall film makes it look as if all these kids are getting adopted and they have paid very little attention to what happens to the kids that don't get adopted. Oh and all the orphans are white.
Despicable Me is sort of a new low. Mostly because it was completely unnecessary. I was excited about the movie until I saw in the ads that the main character adopts three girls. I wasn't even going to rent it, but I have kids. Two evil geniuses having a gadget off would have been entertaining. A movie about an evil genius with a hundred minions adopting the only three kids in the orphanage is infuriating.
I understand that no one wants to see a downer movie (or finance one), but adoption was completely avoidable in this story. As a culture we don't talk a lot about adoption. And I think we should.
Why don't more of these "quiverful" families like the Duggars start adopting to pad their numbers? Does it specify in the bible where the "arrows" come from?
I know that part of the problem is the adoption process. It must be when we have scores of parents going to china to adopt because they don't want to deal with American agencies. Some of you might be trying to write it off as a racial issue, because white families might be more willing to adopt an Asian than a Black kid. This may play some part but I know it took my aunt and uncle quite a while before they could get my cousin Jacob. Though that was almost eighteen years ago.
It just strikes me as weird that my reality show idea is so obviously cruel to most people but no thought goes to how cruel it is to the kids not being adopted to watch these kids movies where everyone gets their mom and dad eventually,,,