Holding Out for a Better Movie

[mrissa]

I hate it when childhood fondness gets besmirched by actual fact.

Tonight I flipped the TV on to see if anything was on for the five minutes I was consuming ice cream (because it is hard to read a trade paperback and eat a bowl of ice cream at the same time, if one insists on sitting on the couch), and "Footloose" was playing on VH1. The soundtrack to "Footloose" was one of the tapes my cousins and I wore clean through when we were small, but I had not previously seen any part of this movie. So I thought, well, maybe they'll play one of the songs I remember fondly.*

They did. Specifically, they played Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero," which was my favorite song from the whole soundtrack, because she just sounded like she was going to go out ass-kicking and wanted to make sure her boyfriend was going to be useful in the pursuit of thoroughly kicked ass, and I loved it when I was 6 years old, and the part of the movie they were showing was the part that had it playing in the background.

While Kevin Bacon played tractor chicken with some other guy. Tractor. Chicken. Like, driving your tractor straight at the other dude in his tractor and trying not to be the one to pull aside first or, y'know, die in a tragic tractor chicken accident.

She was holding out for a hero in the challenging field of championship tractor chicken.

Aaaaauughhhhhhh.

I can never see the rest of this movie. I have already seen too much. My brain, my brain! My mom was on long-distance (I can tell because the answering machine picks up if she's not just ignoring her call-waiting), so I have not gotten to berate her about this yet. But it's only a matter of time.

Now I have to go write the scene where Ansa Nikkanen has to escape from the skalds naked and stripped of charms** in the middle of the winter in the Saamemaa, known to folks who are still willing to use the term "Lapp" as Lappland. Just to make it right with my childhood self and her notions of the proprieties of ass-kicking.

I was thinking of something else, but then I saw this and it went flying right out of my head. That'll teach me to watch broadcast TV for anything but baseball and hockey. DVD is our friend. DVD would have indicated the tractor chicken nature of this problem long before it got to this point.

Tractor. Chicken. And not one but several people endorsed this idea, and it appeared on big screens across the country. Aieeeee. Tractor chicken.

So sad.

*Originally typed "one of the snogs I remember." Uh, no.
**In the "charms, spells, and hexes" sense, not the "her baggy sweatshirt did nothing to conceal her considerable charms" sense.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

HORRIBLE movie.

Good music.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

How they could listen to that woman singing, "It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet," and film a scene of tractor chicken, I will never know.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, the song also appears at the end of Shrek 2, which is a much better movie.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In two versions, according to the soundtrack's track listing. But I'm not much for the Shrek movies -- they're all right (way better than tractor chicken!), but too much toilet humor for my taste. (I realize that it'd be pretty silly to have movies about ogres that were always genteel and polite. Once they had the premise, I agree with the execution. Still.)

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. But it still beats Footloose. :-)

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

have movies about ogres that were always genteel and polite

Would that be Dense and Sensibility? ;-) (Please forgive me - I've had Jane Austen on the brain today.)

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

Jason read your post and started laughing. I glanced over and he said, "oh, you've got to read Mrissa's post." I asked what it was about that was so funny, and he briefly explained the disappointment with finally seeing the scene from Footloose that matched your favorite song on the soundtrack from long ago. I have never seen Footloose either. I asked what was taking place in the movie that was so upsetting and he described it as "playing chicken while on tractors." Now, in MY mind, I instantly envisioned the only "chicken" *I've* ever played, which was when I'd sit on my neighbor's shoulders in her pool and her little brother would sit on her friend's shoulders and we'd push each until SOMEONE fell off SOMEONE's shoulders. It was silly but a great lot of fun when we were kids. I asked Jason, "You mean someone got on a tractor in a pool, and got on someone else's shoulders, and tried to push them off the other tractor?" and was very confused at how that worked. He laughed at me for suggesting it, but thought that it would probably have been a better idea than the actual version of what happened in the movie. I was greatly let down when I heard the real version, and thought it sounded stupid too.

I'm sorry your childhood kick-ass song was ruined and I'm really glad I never saw the movie now. Try not to scrub your eyeballs out. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm going to say "around here" with the understanding that other people from around here can correct me if this isn't, in fact, a regionalism. But I think around here you'll hear that referred to as "chicken fighting" rather than just "chicken," which is generally people driving vehicles at each other until one of them turns aside or they smash into each other.

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

rather than just "chicken," which is generally people driving vehicles at each other until one of them turns aside or they smash into each other.

Which is supposed to accomplish what, exactly? I'm not getting it. This proves how stupid someone is? How little regard they have for safety? How unbreakable they think they are? Or do people just like the idea of purposely causing crashes? What an idiotic pastime. Do people REALLY DO THIS? Please tell me it's only in very bad movies, and normal people don't actually consider things like "playing chicken" a fun way to spend a Saturday night.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Normal people don't do this. Teenage boys do this, and not even mostly the ones who grow up to be men we would hang out with. It is to prove their Bold, Manly Courage. Which the teenage boys I was friends with would have laughed at, so obviously, it's just a small set of people. Still, it really exists, mostly with cars.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Right up there with the line of true love and profound romance...


"Nobody puts Baby in a corner."


Gah!!!! The hurting!!!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, that's pretty awful.

That was a grade school slumber party favorite in my neighborhood, and I couldn't believe it when I watched it again as an adult: did any of the parents who showed it know what the plot was? This was Reagan-era Nebraska! Oof!