"Home Alone 2: Lost in New York"
                              and
                           "Aladdin"

                Reviewed by Linda Lopez McAlister
                  On "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM
                       November 28, 1992

It's the time of year for the "holiday movie releases" and
since lots of feminists have kids I thought I would check out a
couple of these pictures that take aim at the kiddies and their
parents' pocketbooks around the holidays.  I went to two such
kiddie movies, "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" and the new Disney
animated feature "Aladdin."

I'm one of the few people who never saw the first "Home Alone"
film (the highest money-making film of all time I heard recently)
so I'm only surmising that this sequel is simply patterned
formulaicly on the original and given a Christmastime theme.  Just
call me Scrooge, but I was horrified by this film and the messages
it seems to be conveying to the children who see it.  First, there
is the violence. In this film live action human beings (the bad
guys) are treated in just the same way animated cartoon villians
are. That is to say, they suffer incredible mayhem at the hands of
the kid hero and continue to bounce back just like Daffy Duck would
after being run over by a steam roller. But here you have human
beings being hit repeatedly on the head by bricks dropped off the
roof of a four story building, to give just one instance out of
many, and jumping right up and continuing to take abuse that should
have killed them long since.  It seems to me that carrying this
kind of cartoon violence into live action films for kids is a
dangerous practice.  Even little kids can tell the difference
between cartoon characters and real people, but they may not be
able as easily to tell the difference between how the real people
on the screen behave and real people in life life behave. If Kevin
can bean someone with bricks in the movie and everyone laughs and
no one gets hurt, why not do it in real life?   The kids in the
theater were laughing delightedly at all of this and I was saying
to myself, "Oh my, what are they learning from this?"  Bah humbug.

Our hero is a ten-year-old boy with engineering skills that
would rival an MIT grad and a warm generous heart.  But the little
girls in the picture are ciphers and the adult women limited to a
mother who'e either being a disciplinarian or sappy, a officious
hotel clerk, or a homeless bird-woman in the park.  To add insult
to injury there is a little thread of homophobia running throughout 
the picture.  If you have any choice in the matter at all (which
I realize you may not) keep your kids away from this one.  They
might love it, but what it teaches you don't want them learning.

A bit better on all counts is "Aladdin," which is Disney's
updated version of the Aladdin and the magic lamp tale, made by
some of the same folks who brought us "Beauty and the Beast" last
year.  It's a noisy affair, a kind of animated "Raiders of the Lost
Ark" in feeling.  The best thing about it, from an adult viewpoint,
is that the genie is played by Robin Williams and among his bag of
tricks is turning his form and his voice into those of almost
anybody and anything (including Jack Nicholson, William F. Buckley,
Groucho Marx, and dozens more) so there's the fun of seeing who
he's doing next and the sophisticated humor of his repartee.
Aladdin here is a street kid who falls in love with the Sultan's
daughter, Jasmine, when she escapes her confinement in the palace
and wanders in the Bazaar.  Jasmine is another Disney character,
like Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" who knows her own mind and
is willing to resist doing what's expected and demanded of her--
such things as marrying her princely suitors.  Of course she ends
up with Aladdin in the end but at least he's her choice and there
seems to be a kind of equality and mutuality between them.  And
while I wasn't wild about this film either, it wasn't as offensive
as "Home Alone 2" and contains a few things for the adults to laugh
at along with the kids.

   The best thing of all was the preview for another holiday flick
about to descend upon us--one that I, even with my Scroogely
nature, might willingly go to see--a Muppet version of Dickens' "A
Christmas Carol" with Kermit as Bob Cratchit.

   For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.