Someone please explain how this is acceptable.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 6:14 pm

One of my favorite books is Cheaper By The Dozen and it's companion, Bells On Their Toes.

So, naturally, when I heard they were making it into a movie, I was thrilled.

Because it was the kind of movie that's just as good in the living room as it is in the theater, I waited until they put it on DVD to watch it.

[rant]
So. Was it the idea of a family that size being MANAGABLE that scared Hollywood? Or the idea that a woman can have both a career and a large family started at an early age? Or the idea of a father being the head of the house, and being able to disipline the family well?

The Gilbreth family made a real accomplishment. Not only did one woman have twelve seperate pregnancies (there were no twins in the REAL "Dozen" family) but the father installed a system of management into his family that made the chaos of any number of children managable. His children were disaplined, bilingual (tri, if you count Moarse Code as a language) neat, intelligant, well educated and HAPPY that way. He had some methods that America nowadays would probably squeel at...but that were NESSARY. Role call (which was used successfully when a section of the home caught on fire) Chore Charts, items the father wished his family to learn painted on the walls.

And what aggrivates me even more, after watching that nausating chaos of the "Cheaper" Movie, is that after Frank B. Gilbreth died of a heartattack not long after the birth of the twelvth and final child, the disapline and the charts and systems he taught his children enabled his wife to carry on with both the family AND the family business in an age when women were supposed to stay in the kitchen or the nursary. Lillian Gilbreth is probably my female role-model. She WAS the career woman, but she was the mother too.

I am MAD that the most self-sufficiant family I have ever heard of...one that was functional, safe and in every way ideal for any child...was portrayed as a mess. THAT movie could only have been made with Birth Control in mind (something that the Gilbreths were not afraid to poke fun at when the time came) because it would CERTAINLY frighten any woman away from having even one child, lest he or she become on of those terrors.

[/rant]

So...anyone else have problems with the mainstream dumbing-down favorites?

CW

Brockway · Post by **Brockway** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 6:52 pm

Actually, I found the very idea of a family that size disgusting and irresponsible, considering it was portrayed as the present, and especially in light of future overpopulation issues. I didn't watch it.

SamSim · Post by **SamSim** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:02 pm

Welcome to Hollywood. Up next: Asimov's I, Robot, starring Will Smith as the wise-cracking homicide detective and lots of robots who run amok, but turn red when they do so, just so you know.

Okie · Post by **Okie** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:03 pm

12 is not a large number, but having them all survive and organized is quite an achievement.

On July 22, 1971, Dr Gennaro Montanino of Rome, Italy, announced he had removed the fetuses of ten girls and five boys from the womb of a 35-year-old...

Born in 1707, a Russian peasant was reported to have had 27 multiple births, for a total of 69 children.

I have not seen the film, or read the book.

Okie · Post by **Okie** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:04 pm

Oh yeah, and DISNEY (Horror of Horrors) is making the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Movie........... ... .. . . . . . . .. . . . .

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:17 pm

Uh, I'm all for families with lots of kids, I'm always sorry I didn't have another brother or sister, but 12 is way too much. Noone should have a family with 12 children. It's irresponsible. Sure, you can hope to be able to manage that family well, it's a risk, and a risk that could permanently disable children.

On the matter of film, well, in short, some producer probably said: "Functional family is boring!" and voala! It reminds me of that late producer who, as the anecdote says, once said: "Only 12 apostols? This is a high budget movie, dammit, I want at least 50 apostols!"

My favourite that was ruined by Hollywood:
"Solaris" by Andrey Tarkovsky. Such deep, moving, inteligent movie that probably only one person could ever make. When I heard Sodeberg making a new vertion, I thought: "What possesed him to do it?" Besides being surprised that he ever heard of Tarkovsky, I didn't understand that he tried to accomplish? Why doesn't he stick to reworking Billie Wilder or John Ford, or someone who he'd maybe actually have a chance to reach if he wasn't totally talentless hack. Of course, movie came out as a confused story with romance in first place. All the time leaning toward either "srt" as Sodeberg sees is, or pleasing the audience with chiep emotions, it manages to do neither. I'm so glad in flopped in theatres.

RPin · Post by **RPin** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:21 pm

Okie wrote:On July 22, 1971, Dr Gennaro Montanino of Rome, Italy, announced he had removed the fetuses of ten girls and five boys from the womb of a 35-year-old...

Damn!

Okie wrote:Born in 1707, a Russian peasant was reported to have had 27 multiple births, for a total of 69 children.

DAMN!

...

I plan to have just one child, though.

Brockway · Post by **Brockway** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:29 pm

Okie wrote:12 is not a large number, but having them all survive and organized is quite an achievement.

On July 22, 1971, Dr Gennaro Montanino of Rome, Italy, announced he had removed the fetuses of ten girls and five boys from the womb of a 35-year-old...

Born in 1707, a Russian peasant was reported to have had 27 multiple births, for a total of 69 children.

I have not seen the film, or read the book.

Thats 1707 though, people had to work against a low survival rate, and needed help on the family farm. That movie is set in present day, and even the book sounds like its set around the 50's. Nobody should have the right to bring that many children into the world in this day and age...

Toxic · Post by **Toxic** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:40 pm

Hollywood is evil. They will rape and mangle any good piece of literature they get their hands on. (except Fight Club, that movie kicked ass! But that was directed by David Fincher, he's is a genius.)

RPin · Post by **RPin** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:43 pm

brockway wrote:Thats 1707 though, people had to work against a low survival rate, and needed help on the family farm.

Also, they didn't have condom. Nor TV.

SuperSnob · Post by **SuperSnob** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 8:23 pm

Forgive me for saying so, but Fight Club the movie is SO much better than Fight Club the book.

K-Dawg · Post by **K-Dawg** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 8:27 pm

Both my parents come from families of 10 brothers and sisters. But in Jamaica that wasn't seen as such a bad thing back then. You needed more people around the house to do chores, and other farm type stuff.

Thingschange · Post by **Thingschange** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 8:52 pm

I'm with Brockway on this one. 12 children is wrong.

I respect that these people dealt with it well and were an organised family, I also realise that the movie probably failed to show this (I haven't actually seen the movie, the idea nauseats me). However having 12 children in modern times is selfish and irresponsible regardless of how well it is handled.

I have more respect for those families who adopt an equal number of children, especially the cases where they adopt this many handicapped children.

Toxic · Post by **Toxic** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 9:05 pm

SuperSnob wrote:Forgive me for saying so, but Fight Club the movie is SO much better than Fight Club the book.

I'd have to agree with that. The book wasn't too great.

Luprand · Post by **Luprand** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 9:26 pm

Interesting thought for you to chew on ...

The Earth right now holds what, 6 billion people?

Take these people and fit them into families of 4 or 5 people.

(6,000,000,000 / 4.5 = 1,333,333,334 families)

Give each family an acre to live on (more space than my family of 7 had in rural Ohio).

(1,333,333,334 acres)

Now, according to the nearest dictionary of weights and measures, there are 640 acres in a square mile.

(1,333,333,334 acres / 640 = 2,083,334 square miles)

Now, according to my roommate, or any Texas trivia site, Texas has 267,339 square miles of land in it, or 7.4% of the land area in the US.

(267,339 / .074 = 3612689 square miles)

In short, you could fit the world's population comfortably onto the American continent, with the rest of the world open for farming, etc.

Weird stuff to think about.

--Sij

BrownEyedCat · Post by **BrownEyedCat** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 9:37 pm

That assumes that the entire US is habitable. The entire world population might fit, but they probably wouldn't fit comfortably . . .

Luprand · Post by **Luprand** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 9:54 pm

That, of course, is why I said the American continent. That includes Canada, Mexico, all those little unstable countries beyond Mexico, and South America.

--Sij

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 10:13 pm

Sure, the rest of the world is for farming, but how do you get water to every house? What about a sewer system? How do these families receive goods and services? Who handles the roads? How is electricity generated? How do you you get Internet??

Life isn't just about humans living on a square section of land. Life takes a lot of support.

Superlance · Post by **Superlance** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 10:41 pm

mcDuffies wrote:Uh, I'm all for families with lots of kids, I'm always sorry I didn't have another brother or sister, but 12 is way too much. Noone should have a family with 12 children. It's irresponsible. Sure, you can hope to be able to manage that family well, it's a risk, and a risk that could permanently disable children.

My great grandfather was the oldest of 14 children.
But he was kicked out of the house by his father when he was 14 for hitting another boy in school when the other boy called Papa's little sister some bad names. (I think was in the 30's)

TheGoobla · Post by **TheGoobla** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 10:58 pm

Okie wrote:Oh yeah, and DISNEY (Horror of Horrors) is making the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Movie........... ... .. . . . . . . .. . . . .