Swiss Family Disaster

So I have been putting some older movies onto our Netflix queue just for fun. You know, those movies that you loved as a kid and look back on with fondness. Well, over the weekend we got Swiss Family Robinson in the mail. I had only seen this movie once or twice as a kid and didn't remember it super well but Ricky used to love it. Anyways, it turns out that that is a completely awful movie. The scenes that weren't completely overwhelmed with sexism and animal cruelty were riddled with racism and some pretty graphic violence.

The women in the movie are portrayed as completely helpless ninnies that couldn't possibly do anything for themselves and that are occupied solely by vanity. The two women in the film are completely emotional and get weepy in every other scene. The men on the other hand are able to build a giant treehouse in what appears to be less than a week, capture wild animals, create all sorts of gadgets that the average person would not know how to make, and express all emotions by fighting.

The pirates in the movie are dark-skinned asians, don't speak English, and can't write. They are apparently so dumb that they walk uphill toward huge traps of falling logs that are completely obvious. The Robinson family has absolutely no qualms about stabbing, slicing, shooting, and maiming the pirates at all.

The animal cruelty was the worst part of the movie. The actors are constantly wrangling and riding osteriches, zebras, elephants, etc. As far as horrifying goes, the scene where two big great danes are released on a full-grown tiger and they have a nasty fight takes the cake--way to go Disney. Not.

I guess we won't be watching that one again.