Foster^s Home for Imaginary Friends
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rendered characters like Yoda. His constant bungling and curious dialect amused
few but perhaps the youngest of viewers. Today’s blockbuster movies enjoy
budgets large enough to include computer-rendered characters. However, the
results do not always resonate wit h audiences. When a character exists for no
other reason than to attempt to bedazzle the audience by its very existence,
without thought to how he or she fits into the larger frame of the story, the
movie suffers.
Bloo’s movie moves inexorably towards its ending, resulting in another
brutal Jab, not only at the blockbuster, but also children’s television. One of the
episode’s subplots pokes fun at children’s fare like Dora the Explorer with the
introduction of the show Lauren Is Explorin ’. The clips of Lauren Is Explorin'
which play during the episode feature a young girl talking to her audience as if
they were devoid of all intelligence. She speaks slowly, with long pauses in
between each of her sentences. As she slowly and painfiilly catalogs a list of
items which are red, one wonders how any but the smallest of toddlers could
stand to watch such a program. Children’s programming ought to challenge
viewers to expand their intellectual capabilities, rather than keep them stunted.
Since “One False Movie” deals with mindless movies, the inclusion of satire
featuring overly-simplistic children’s shows fits right in. This element collides
with Bloo’s filmmaking endeavor, obliterating the movie’s original conclusion.
Unbeknownst to Bloo until Mac presents the film as his contest entry, one of
Foster’s residents taped over the ending with a “special” episode of Lauren Is
Explorin', which provides proper social etiquette for dealing with public
flatulence. The audience expresses its displeasure with boos and hisses, crushing
Bloo’s hopes at critical acclaim. A great deal of ambiguity surrounds this scene.
Up until this point, the viewer sees only Bloo’s movie, without any sign of the
audience’s reactions to it. The audience may well react negatively due to the
obvious shift from incomprehensible action film, to advice about flatulence, or
they may have hated the movie all the way through, with the altered ending
playing little role in fomenting their disdain. A third, more disturbing possibility
exists. The audience loved the movie up until this altered ending, and would
have given it a standing ovation had Bloo’s vision played out to its conclusion.
Lee Drummond asserts that movies in general “contain and communicate large
doses of alienation” (3), and it could argued that glossy, but otherwise vacuous
big-budget movies, exemplify this statement. Bloo’s movie does not encourage
the audience to care about any of the characters they encounter, or about
anything but the next explosion or clever effect. “One False Movie” does not set
out to decry all blockbuster-style movies as the bane of American popular
culture. Indeed, movies which excel at the box office often exemplify fine
filmmaking, complete with intelligent plotting, decent acting, and layered
characters, no matter if the setting is the real world, or a fantasy realm. Bloo’s
movie, however, reminds the viewer that those films which focus only on
gratuitous violence, or special effects, or the strangeness of its setting, do
nothing to advance us as a culture. Instead, they separate us from one another.