Angry Amy: I Am Not She

Because the real Amy is in Ireland, where nobody ever gets angry, I've taken over the task of having irrationally intense emotional reactions to pop culture events with minimal impact on my life. Of course, a quick study of my bio would reveal that I already perform admirably in that task (as do we all here), but this time I'm going to type it up, in the context of anger. GRRRRRR!

So I recently went to see Ponyo, which is Studio Ghibli's (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle) most recent film. The movie itself could only enrage the hardest of souls, although the shallow dialogue and underwhelming kiddiness of the ultimate resolution disappointed me. It's pretty, and I'm happy Disney decided to release this one wide enough to let me see the prettiness on the big screen.

Have no fear, however, for there is a fire smoldering beneath my content.

Question: Who comes into your head when you think of modern Disney?

Did you answer Hannah Montana? I'm sorry. Her voice isn't in this film. Her 9 year old sister Noah instead is the voice of Ponyo.

What's that? You actually thought of the Jonas Brothers? Oh I'm sorry. Those dreamboats are too busy crooning nasal ballads to lend their Arielian cords to this Little Mermaid redux. Their 8 year old brother Frankie gets the lead male role, though. That's right. There is another Jonas. And Disney owns his soul as well.

First of all, contracting entire families for entertainment reached its apex with Brotherly Love. Disney needs to stop trying to best the best.


Secondly, I will admit, as someone who generally hates English anime dubs, that the voicework succeeded in not distracting me. When I'm watching a distinctly Japanese film, I do not want to imagine Billy Crystal every time the animate fire talks, which happened with Disney's version of Howl's Moving Castle. In Ponyo, Betty White as a minor old lady character was the only voice consistently jumping out at me. Then again, I don't touch myself thinking about Tina Fey as often as most internet bloggers, so others may more strongly feel her presence as the protagonist's mother.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah! I'm angry! Even though the kids were fine enough, I want to know that Disney actually tried to get voice talent befitting the roles. When the two stars of the film are related to the company's two major musical franchises, I wonder whether a casting director was even hired. This sounds like a move from the marketing department, and we all know that marketing people are either cynical douches or naive sluts.

(Is Amy in marketing? Would causing her anger make this post more meta? Or would she just hate me more?)

Of course this killer Cyrus/Jonas combo has to explicitly involve music, because that's what their siblings do, so the two wunderkinds were also puppeteered into remixing the Ponyo theme song for the end credits. Here is a video of the result, complete with photos of Frankie and Noah at the premiere:



Now do you see the real reason I'm angry? Everything I tried to reason as legitimate anger above stems from one source, and that is the stupid outfit Frankie Jonas is wearing and the stupid, smug look on his 8-year old mug.

I have nothing against kids wearing shirts from classic franchises such as Ghostbusters that were before their time. Heck, I wear my Citizen Kane shirt all the time. But if you're a "celebrity," and you're wearing that shirt, I have to believe that you're actually a fan of the franchise. When you're 8, and you wear a blazer and a stupid hat, and you put your arm around Noah Cyrus like you're Spencer Pratt with an AXE model, I believe in nothing but the unholy darkness of the future cinescape, dotted by the lost minds of children suffocated under the over-beat vocoder tones of their youth.

Plus, if the person uploading these videos under the youtube username "everythingnoah" is not in some way affiliated with Noah Cyrus's management, I am going to throw up. IN ANGER!!!

This entry was posted by DoktorPeace, on Tuesday, September 01, 2009. You can leave your response.