Hi everyone – I’m Germain Lussier and I’m the editor here at KidGlue.com. I don’t usually write like this, or start an article with an awful sentence like that, but I think if you are a reader to this site you will find this story both enlightening and helpful, especially with the proper context.
Being an editor means each day a bunch of writers come up with articles, send them to me and I put them up on this site. I’m also supposed to give the site an overall tone, feel and purpose. The purpose I’d like the site to have, but so rarely achieve, is giving parents information about things their kids are interested in so that they can use that knowledge to engage them in a healthy and meaningful dialogue. And, let’s face it, most kids are into music, movies, television – in short, pop culture. So we try to be on top of what all the kids are talking about for you, the parent.
When I’m not editing this site I’m a huge movie junkie and freelance entertainment journalist. You might even be able to discern that from some of the articles I write on this site. Anyway, in my infinite search for movie knowledge, I ran across an article today that not only enraged me; it made me realize that what I want to do here on KidGlue.com is extremely viable.
The story is as follows. One of the most well-respected movie news Web sites out there today is www.latinoreview.com. They break news stories on their own, they have around the clock updates and they have some of the best and funniest film writers out there. One of those writers, George Roush, recently reviewed the film “The Wolfman.” (I discussed the film briefly here but, since it’s rated R, it wasn’t delved into.) At some point after writing that review the author got an e-mail from a fan who thought she was writing to the people behind the film “The Wolfman.”
The basic gist of it, though, is that this girl was mad at the people who made “The Wolfman” because this Wolfman was nothing like the original. You know, the one released last November in a film called “The Twilight Saga: New Moon.” Yes. This Twi-hard believed that werewolves were basically INVENTED for that movie. Here’s a short excerpt.
This movie was a complete waste and I feel that it offends ALL Twilight Fans around the world, that including myself. For one, it was a COMPLETE remaking of the Wolf Pack from the Twilight Saga: New Moon.
If you don’t get it by now, the 2010 Universal Picture “The Wolfman” is a remake of a 1941 film called “The Wolf Man” that spawned so many rip offs, spin offs and other offs that I can’t even begin to count. But this girl, who is obviously young and probably shouldn’t see an R rated movie anyway, has zero cultural context. Wouldn’t one hope her parents would explain to her that “Twilight” is actually ripping off “The Wolfman,” that a werewolf isn’t limited to being a brooding teenager with his shirt off or, better yet, that culture begets culture and everything has its own influences from the past?
Of course that’s too much to hope for. Just let her keep going on thinking that movie that came out 3 months ago invented everything and keep letting her see movies where wolves disembowel women and children.
So – that’s why I’m glad we are here. I hope that on occasion the things you read here on KidGlue give you pause and some talking points to help you engage your kids about pop culture, or the news or any other number of issues. They might even learn something. If that happens, you can probably avoid having your child’s words plastered all over the Internet in a complete act of justified mockery. And if we played any point in helping you avoid that? Then we’ve both done our jobs, haven’t we?
