Before I say anything more let me qualify myself a bit. I'm a pretty liberal guy. I'm open minded. I live in San Francisco for goodness sakes! My family is Catholic but I keep my views very low key. No one accuses me of being a prude - let alone of being Conservative! I'm a parent. I have an 8 year old boy who is Transformer crazy. He has all the toys from the first movie. He has both the DS Lite games. My 6 year old daughter likes the games too. They've both seen the original movie. They both love the old animated series. My son was incredibly anxious for the movie to come out and for me to see it. He knew it was PG13 so I had to screen it to see if I would let him see it.
Neither of them will see the new movie if I have anything to say about it.
Why? Because for reasons that have nothing to do with story, plot, or artistic values the director (Michael Bay) needed to express. The movie is laced with really stupid and immature sexual innuendo. It started with the opening scene of Mikaela who poses quite sexually while painting a motorcycle. That scene was obviously intended for all the guys who thought she was a babe. The humanoid 'babe' in the college dorm who practically sexually assaults Sam served no purpose in the story but clearly was out of someone's college fantasy. The little robot that Mikaela 'turns' to the Autobot side humps her leg while making sexually suggestive noises. Mikaela's character morphed from the tough street wise beauty in the first movie into a frightened sex object in the second. All of this was certainly too much for my kids to see.
Why? What purpose could any of this have served?
Oh, that's right. I forgot. They basically tailored the movie to the male 18-30 year old crowd. The guys who played with Transformer toys 10-15 years ago (we hope it was that long ago). I guess the idea was to aim for that demographic and pull in all that money.
But you see, there's a problem with that. Those guys are not going to buy more Transformer toys (we hope). They probably won't see the movie again. They might buy it on DVD someday, but the value to *Hasbro* is gone.
Had they toned it down sexually and made this a cleaner PG movie they'd have pulled in a whole new crowd: the kids. I can tell you that movies that my kids love they talk me into seeing again before it leaves the theatres. Ka ching. My son just had a birthday and would love the transformer toys. Ka ching. Christmas - more toys. Ka ching. DVD release and a certain buy. Ka ching. Repeat cycle. Ka ching. Cash for Hasbro as well as for the movie studio.
But that's not how they played it.
Back to my son. I had to him that he couldn't see the movie - that it wasn't appropriate for kids. And I had to hug him and hold him as he cried and cried with bitter disappointment. He asked a great question: "but Dad, why did they have to make it inappropriate for kids?"
So, Hasbro, I hope you are happy with your profits this year from royalties on this movie. You'll not get another dime from me. My kids won't get the toys... I'll go out of my way to get them other things, to say "well, you know you didn't see that movie... why don't we get this other toy?" And I won't get them the games from it either.
Sometimes companies can be stupid, pathetic and completely short-sighted. Hasbro clearly is. And the movie was even worse.
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( 2.9 / 384 )This is most certainly not my usual technical or leadership kind of blog entry. I've been thinking about something all week and I finally have the time to write my thoughts.
Last Sunday I heard about a project that is well worth supporting. At Saint Boniface Catholic Church in the Tenderloin of San Francisco the homeless can come in during the day and sleep on the pews. There's a lot of reasons that they cannot sleep at night, but primarily it's fear. Fear that their few belongings will be stolen, or that they will be beaten, or perhaps fears that exist only in their own mental illness. This church, run by Franciscans, opens the doors, provides security, feeds them breakfast, and provides them a safe place to sleep.
A safe place to sleep. So many of us take that for granted every night.
Once upon a time, I didn't. It's only luck, or the Grace of God, or Divine Intervention - pick your term - that I didn't end up permanently on the street. Once upon a time - way back in the dark ages when I was a teenager - my family life was pretty rocky. My Mom had a dual addiction: alcohol and bad men. My little brother and two little sisters and I coped the best we could. Life took us to a small cottage behind my Mom's boyfriend at the time brothers house - two rooms and a tiny bathroom for six people. At least that was until Mom came home at 3am and made us all leave. It seemed that Mr. Boyfriend had gotten a bit abusive and she'd decided we had to leave - immediately. So a late thirties woman with four kids - aged from 17 (me) to 8 - ended up sitting in a donut shop until dawn. No money, no home, afraid to go to the only sliver of shelter that we could call 'home.'
We most definitely did not have a safe place to sleep.
Life twisted, and my brother and sisters went to live with my Dad in the midwest. I stayed - ironically - with the brother of my Mom's boyfriend, who owned the cottage and the house we'd stayed in. He gave me a safe place to sleep. I was 17 and trying to stay in high school. Mike, if you ever read this, please know that I am eternally grateful for letting me crash on your sofa for a few months. It may not have been a big deal to you, but it was to me. It was a safe place to sleep. I think about you often. After a while, my Mom got sober (but not necessarily sane) and within months I moved back in with her an my life moved into the next phase of growth.
But last week I sat and listened to a Jesuit Priest (who works with a group of Franciscan's at St. Boniface) speak passionately about the importance of providing a safe place to sleep for those who don't have it at all. I remembered my own past, my own brush with the chaos of the streets, and I deeply, passionately understood what he meant.
In a few minutes I will go crawl into bed next to my wife and sleep comfortably until morning. Just before that I will check on my kids and make sure they are covered up and that they didn't knock their pillow onto the floor. My family has a safe place to sleep. I am counting my blessings.
I hope and pray that you never experienced a lack of a safe place to sleep. I hope that none of us ever will experience that. But tonight, and every night, many people do. My heart reaches out to them, and I plan to do what I can to help. Please look into your own heart and find your own 'safe places to sleep' and do what you can for those less fortunate.
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( 3 / 219 )Monday is a National Holiday, and all over America families have the day off and are probably planning on grilling and having some friends over.
Half a world away hundreds of thousands of soldiers are doing their jobs. All around the world thousands of sailors are underway and won't see their families for months. Five Naval Aviators off the Nimitz died this week when their helicopter crashed of Southern California. Marines and Soldiers are on patrol in Afganistan right now, seeking our enemies and protecting our allies. Kids are driving Humvees in Iraq tonight and might die from a roadside bomb.
Twenty years ago I was among those servicemen. I know what it's like to leave a wife at home and go underway, to risk my life to do what I thought was right and follow orders to defend my country. I served in submarines, and my stock answer to what I did is "we don't discuss submarine operations." I did not face hostile fire, nor did I face the horror of seeing my friends die from roadside bombs or sniper fire. I was lucky. But I understand the sacrifice. My boat - the USS Richard B. Russell SSN-687 - earned two Navy Unit Citations and a Presidential Unit Citation while I was onboard - and three Battle 'E' Awards as well. My four years onboard were more than intense and there is no civilian equivalent.
My heart bleeds inside with support for the kids in harms way today. My soul is ripped from the knowledge that we, as a country, have not done every last thing we could to ensure that those kids are in the right place, doing the right thing, with the right equipment and the right support and the right benefits when they come home... even my Conservative friends will agree that we could have done better, that we must do better. We can always do better - especially when it's our youth's blood being spilled. I'll avoid discussing if it's just or right or if we should be there. We are, and we're sending our future into harm's way. To do that without committing everything we have behind it is a sin, in my opinion.
This weekend - and especially Monday - may we all honor the lives lost, the limbs lost, the blood lost, the sanity lost, the marriages lost, the normality lost, by our Service Men and Women. They go into harm's way because they are ordered to, but also because they believe they are doing the right thing. May God bless them all, and hold them safe. And may we all honor, respect, and contribute to their well being. May we all find peace and respect, and hold each other and all cultures in respect in the months and years to come.
Happy Memorial Day.
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