Women and Philosophy: Miss Piggy

“Forgive me for being so forward, but I'm a liberated pig.”—Frank Oz as Miss Piggy on The Muppet Show Season 1

Starting today, I will be doing a blog entry on everything that pops into my mind relevant to the course each day unless I think of nothing. This will mean shorter blogs but more frequent entries. Today’s theme is Jim Henson, the Muppets, and Miss Piggy.

As most people know the Muppets are quite on the liberal side of the fence (though their intention and function is to be enjoyed by all) and this can be said about sexism and feminism.

Now several of the male characters for most the original show made sexist jokes to her but this was a parody on how stupid sexism is. The Muppets are all about parodies and satire. However, the thing that is interesting is the character of Miss Piggy. Several of the main Muppet characters have fully fleshed out personalities just like any good character in a story and like a story there is growth and character development. What is so wonderful about Piggy is that she is the bridge the bridge between stereotypes, eras, and extremes. She is overly feminine in most of her actions—she loves make-up, fashion, acting sophisticated, and being helplessly in love with the frog of her dreams. However, the other side of her is strong, willful, independent, and determined. She knows how to defend herself and she knows how to get what she wants—and rather than use her looks and her body to get what she wants which is the typical way females in television series manipulate male characters (with sex and sex appeal), she uses her strength and her attitude. This was one of the gender stereotypes we used to hear about: men are more assertive and are more likely to get a job and a higher paying salary because they are driven and want to haggle and negotiate.

This is a wonderful message to send to young girls who watched the show and later the movies: that it is ok to be “girly” and feminine but that there are more traits other than those. People are more complex then stereotypes we all know that. Like one of the message of Citizen Kane, people are defined by their contradiction. Simply put, Miss Piggy taught the young audience, both boys and girls that it is ok for a girl to be strong and smart as well as liking glitz and glamour.

Film Reviews: Christmas Edition 10: Jim Henson Specials

In Memory of:

Jim Henson

September 24^th, 1936 – May 16^th, 1990

I just got done watching all the various Jim Henson Christmas specials including A Muppet Family Christmas, It’s a Very Muppet Christmas Movie, A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, Jim Henson’s The Christmas Toy, and Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas. I already did a review of the other Henson Christmas movie, A Muppet Christmas Carol.

I love the Muppets, the only reason I gave A Muppet Christmas Carol a bad review was because it did not really work as a good Christmas Carol variation in my opinion.

I’ll start with the Muppet specials (thought they all are muppets) with the oldest one first.

A Muppet Family Christmas

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpumOp9XOe4

I am in love with this special. Like most Muppet films, this one is a musical. The music is of course Christmas music. However, there is also a plot. Fozzie decided to take the gang to his mother’s farmhouse for Christmas. His mother was planning to take off for CA and she rented out her house to Doc and Sprocket from Fraggle Rock. However, her plans change when the gang shows and her house is full of muppets along with Doc and Sprocket who decided to stay. Kermit is worried about Miss Piggy because she is running late and there is a terrible blizzard heading their way. This special is has all the muppet characters in it—I mean practically all of them except for Yoda. The Sesame Street gang come for carols and stays the night and there is a visit from the fraggles. If you grew up with Henson, you will love this special. It has all of your childhood characters and even makes jokes about their nature. With the Sesame Street group for the 1-6 year olds, the fraggles, for the 7-10 year olds, and the Muppets for the 11+ group. It is wonderful. In addition, there is something else that may make you cry, an appearance from Jim Henson himself.

5 out of 5 stars.



It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1Uf_oqCdDw

Unlike A Muppet Family Christmas, this is a full-length movie. The movie came out in 2002, which is the last time we see the muppets at their studio. This means since The Muppets came out in 2011 which is about them coming out of retirement, they have only been retired for nine years.

I am surprised that Fox did not call the Muppets communists when this movie came out, or at least call NBC communists, seeing how they produced this movie. Like in the Muppet Movie and The Muppets, the villain is an evil capitalist. This time however, it is not a fast-food restaurant chain owner or an oil-baron, but a bank manager\real-estate agent played by Joan Cusack.

The movie is pretty fun and heartfelt, keeping with classic Muppets traditions such as adult jokes the kids won’t get, zany ‘shenantics’, cameos, and breaking the fourth wall (breaking the fourth wall is a term in film used to describe scenes where the characters suggest that they are in a film). In addition, all the Muppets are true to their characters.

The film opens up with a talking snowman voiced by Mel Brooks who also played the evil Nazi scientist in The Muppet Movie. However, he is kicked off set and thus makes fun of the Rankin\Bass Christmas films.

Like always, the Muppets are behind on their rent but this time, because of the evil capitalist, they may lose their theatre for real.

The plot of the movie is modeled on It’s a Wonderful Life and Kermit has the experience of seeing a world in which he has never been born. This world is a bit funny but mostly scary and sad. It also refers to The Muppet Movie, thus adding a great deal of continuity. I said that in A Muppet Family Christmas, the only well-known Muppet not to appear was Yoda, however, he makes up for this by having a brief cameo in this movie.

God is played by Whoopi Goldberg who also has a cameo as a taxi-driver in A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa.

The film also makes fun of The Grinch with very scary looking Whos.

The movie is fun, entertaining, great for grown up first and second-generation fans, and true to the Muppets.

4.25 out of 5 stars.



A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRizth6K0zA

There is not much to say about this one. The plot is lacking and it is very straightforward. The film starts out with a few of the main muppets waiting in line outside the post office for it to open. It is the day before Christmas and they are delivering their last minute Christmas cards and a letter to Santa from a girl in their apartment building. However, due to some crazy stuff, three letters to Santa end up in Gonzo’s backpack and since it is too late to mail them they have to go to the North Pole to hand deliver them to Santa.

It has some really funny and clever moments in it. It is fun and entertaining—well, of course it is, it is the Muppets.

4 out of 5 stars.



Jim Henson’s The Christmas Toy

I absolutely loved this and by the end, I was literally crying! I remember watching this when I was a kid and I must have watched it all the time because I remember it like it was a regular series or show or something.  It certainly inspired Toy Story as Pixar clearly ripped off most of their ideas from Henson. I am okay with this though since Henson and the person who created Pixar were good friends and in fact, if anyone reading remembers this, Henson gave Pixar its start on Sesame Street with the whole desk lamp and rubber ball skits.

The Christmas Toy is a special about how toys come to life when people leave the room. However, if a toy is ever caught by a living person (or cat), they will essentially be dead, frozen forever, never able to come to life again. Rugby, the stuffed tiger does not fully understand what Christmas is and does not know that it is every year. He was the special Christmas gift from last Christmas. The toy from the Christmas before is Apple, the doll. Rugby thinks that he is meant to be wrapped in the box downstairs and does not understand that there is a new toy waiting to unwrapped, a space toy to be precise, Meteora, queen of the asteroids, an action figure.

The special is so heartwarming and brilliant. It is a must-see. 5 out of 5 stars.



Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGGgxMmWkI8

This is another short Christmas special from the wonderful Jim Henson. Originally, a children’s storybook by Russell Hoban, Henson adapted it for television six years later. It is sort of part new twist of the Gift of the Magi part fun, and part life lessons.

The Otters are a poor family, just mom and Emmet, Emmet’s father died a few years back. They both want the other to have a great Christmas this year even though they have no money. Fortunately there is a talent show going on in which the winner receives $50.00. I am not sure when this is taking place, it is at least the 70’s but it looks like it could be much earlier. In addition, I do not know how animal currency works but it appears that $50.00 is a whole lot of money.

The ending is great and though there is not much to the story, it is still good. 3.9 out of 5 stars.

Social+Political Issue of the Week: Holidays and the Muppets

I know I have not been doing these entries lately, it is all about the inspiration and I now have some for another entry on two subjects, both somewhat short, both political:

The De-religioning of Holidays:

When you are young, you don’t notice the strife between family members around the holidays that the comedians are always talking about because you are young, innocent, and ignorant of all this and have yet to form your own world views, even if you are one of the oldest and do have world opinions, your cousins may still be young enough so you don’t have conflicts with them.

My point is that certain things happened at my families Thanksgiving party. This is with my mom’s side of the family who are mostly conservative. What I wanted to talk about was something one of my aunts said during dinner. She said that she felt that the liberals were taking all of the religious meaning out of the holidays mostly with all their political correct attitudes I guess because you are supposed to say happy holidays so as not to offend people.

I really, really disagree with this. First off, as a liberal, I was insulted by this remark.

One thing, I know a majority of atheists are liberal which I guess makes sense but that does not mean we all are, like me for example.

Secondly, as a liberal, I feel like most of the “PC” stories are conservative propaganda and I disagree with them. Now I do agree that hateful terms such as “nigger” “fag” “dyke” “spick” etc have no real need to be used by people who are not members of these groups, even if the person doesn’t intend it to be hateful it can still be perceived as hateful. Celebrating one’s own holiday is not hateful and therefore I see nothing wrong with having a Christmas tree and wishing people a happy Christmas. I have two approaches to this: 1) since it is my holiday, my celebrating it does not lessen or cheapen other religions, and I do not see them as inferior so I will wish you happy my holiday and you can wish me yours and that is fine. 2) With friends that I know celebrate, something different then I will wish them a happy that instead.

Furthermore, even with all the PC bullcrap that does not take the religion out of it. I think of Scrooge saying “Keep Christmas in your way and let me keep it in mine” now this was before his change but it is not a mean, unreasonable, or rude thing to ask of someone. He is saying practice what you want and celebrates how you please and do not try to force me to do it the way you do.

Besides, I would argue that the real group that is taking the true meanings out of the holidays are the capitalistic conglomerate corporations who are commercializing the holidays, blending them together, and selling images rather than key concepts of the holidays and rarely selling religious images or ideas at all. In addition, these businesses are typically supported in Republican platforms and Republicans are typically conservatives. Logically, it is the conservatives who are taking the religion out of the holidays, which I find hilariously hypocritical as Conservatives are also more focused on religion in their platforms.

Next, I want to talk about the new Muppet movie and no, this is not a review. Fox news the other day called the Muppets Communists. It rather saddens me that hundred years have gone by and people still do not understand communism. The reason Fox gave for making this assessment was that the movie makes a wealthy capitalist oil baron the villain. Now as a liberal, I would say that in real life, 9 times out of 10, these people are villains. However, in the context of the movie, he is a villain—he even breaks the law—of course, that is what being a wealthy conservative capitalist is all about, right? It is not breaking the law it is playing the system.

I think the real reason Fox did this was that they were mad at the movie for making fun of them. I did not even think the joke was that obvious or insulting to Fox per se. Kermit is going around recruiting all the Muppets from their new jobs since they have been split up for so long and one of these Muppets is Sam the Eagle. Sam is supposed to be the stereotypical conservative patriot. In the movie, we see that he got a job on Fox news doing a segment called “Everything Stinks”

Fox is got to be stupid (well I actually think this) to call the Muppets communists. First off all, the Muppets have been liberals since they were created, hell; Jim Henson was a huge liberal. The Muppets in all their various forms and various shows for years have been expressing liberal ideas. Off the top of my head I can think off: vegetarianism, veganism, the whole band are a bunch of hippies that everyone loves, equal rights, poverty as an American issue, that it is okay to be yourself, special, and a little weird, etc Regardless, the Muppets may have been created by an amazing liberal but the Muppets themselves have never really ever been about being political, their primary focus is on entertainment.

Film Reviews: Christmas Edition 5: A Christmas Carol Musicals: Scrooge (1970) + The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Hello all. Today I am doing two movie reviews that are very related and will probably be relatively short—in fact I had planned to combined them into one blog post but I’m not sure yet I want to do that. The movies I am reviewing are the two musical versions of A Christmas Carol. The 1970 version called Scrooge, which is my dad’s favorite version, and The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Scrooge:

I just watched this, this morning on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fLB0vmCoPU)

I have fallen in love with this version. Why can’t life be like a musical where everyone just breaks out into song and dance any time anything happens or needs to be explained?

As I said, this is my dad’s favorite version and I can see why. This version does have a few minute differences such as little things happening in different orders, things like that. It is around two hours long but since it is a musical that is understandable. All the actors play their characters to the letter and are all convincing as well as highly accurate portrayals of those characters. I particularly love this version’s Ghost of Christmas Present, but then again he was always my favorite spirit. The actor who plays Marley seems to also have some background as a dancer—I am basing this off how he moves on screen. The movie took some creative liberties as well such as, while on the subjects of ghosts, the Ghost of Christmas Past is female in this version as if usually, however, she does not resemble the angel that she is usually depicted as. She is more dressed like someone’s wealthy great aunt. The movie even jokes about its own creative decisions by giving Scrooge the line “you don’t look like a ghost”

In addition, The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come has one of the greatest scenes. First off, the song “Thank You Very Much” is great. But also, the movie real plays with the idea of this spirit being the Grim Reaper. We never see what he looks like under the cloak except for the hands which several times are also wearing black gloves, but here we actually at one point see the skeletal face of Death. This is also the version in which Scrooge is sent to Hell as part of his possible future. This is the only version I have ever seen this in. There is a reference to this scene in the Disney Characters version of A Christmas Carol that my girlfriend saw a few weeks ago but other than that, this scene is rare. I really enjoyed this scene for its entire creativeness. Also, at first while watching this movie I had low expectations—i thought that turning this story into a musical would take a great deal of the seriousness away from it bur my skepticism quickly vanished and was replaced by giddiness—that is the best way I can describe the feeling. After watching this, I was humming and skipping my way thru the morning!

I really recommend this version—I cannot really compare it to the others since it is a different type of film but I love it and thus far, my least favorite version—but still good film, is the 1951 version. The musical version gets 5 out of 5 for a musical (there was not one song I didn’t enjoy), 4.9 for A Christmas Carol adaptation, 5 out of 5 for a Christmas movie, and 4.75 out of 5 for a film in general.



There is less to say about the Muppet version. It came out not to long after the unfortunate end to Jim Henson’s death at a relatively young age. Now I love the Muppets, I really do, in fact, I am going to see the newest movie tonight and I might do a blog post on it.

I like most of the songs in this but frankly, I feel that for once the Muppets kind of take away from the actual plot. Don’t get me wrong, I mean the message of A Christmas Carol is still delivered effectively, but for me it is slightly too silly—I like silly and I like the Muppets but I don’t think it worked as well as Muppet Treasure Island or The Great Muppet Caper. However, this version way better than the Muppet Wizard of Oz.

Scrooge is played by the great Michael Caine, which does give the movie points; however, it is not the greatest interpretation of Scrooge I have ever seen. I know this is meant to be a fun version and it is. I mean I still like the movie and think it is entertaining. There are some really funny moments in it such as Sam the Eagle playing young Scrooge’s headmaster and great puns abound.

Most of the Muppets performances in this however, do not live up to the characters they are portraying except of course for Kermit. Kermit plays Cratchit and does a wonderful version—I mean fantastic! He actually, in my opinion, steals the show even from Michael Caine.

There is really nothing more to say and I have to get ready to head out for dinner early so we can get to the movie. Here is my rating:

As a Muppet Movie: 3 out 5

As a Musical: 3.5 out of 5

As a Christmas Carol: 2 out of 5

As a Christmas film: 3.25 out of 5

As a Film in general: 3 out of 5