IN THE
LAND OF THE BLIND, THE ONE-EYED SPOKESMODEL
IS KING
If the
newspapers are to be believed--and let's see
a show of hands for all you nasty malcontents
who don't believe what you read--blind people
everywhere are up in arms over a cartoon.
While it is true that the papers by nature
are forced to traffic in situations that
demonstrate spectacular leaps of illogic (the
O.J. Simpson trials, the application of the
Uniform Code of Military Justice), this
tidbit of advocacy-group protest really makes
you wonder if some AP copy writer forced to
beat a 3 am deadline didn't just let his
imagination go ballistic on him.
Seems that the
National Federation for the Blind is upset
over the fact that Disney is going to produce
a full-length motion picture version of the
old TV cartoon "Mr. Magoo". While
there has not yet been talk of a boycott
(probably since the movie is still on the
drawing board, literally), it's safe to say
that sight-impaired Southern Baptists across
the country are probably going to go
elsewhere with their disposable income than
the Magic Kingdom.
Can you spot
Mr. Flaw in this kiddie placemat? Actually,
there's two Mr. Flaws. First, granted that
the original Mr. Magoo was well-known to the
blind by hearsay as a goofy bulb-nosed guy
wearing Coke bottle specs who kept walking
into things, how would they know whether or
not the producers aren't planning to spruce
up Magoo's silver screen image by making him
into an animated Brad Pitt? For that matter,
Disney could recruit Pitt to do Magoo's
voice, since the voice of the original Magoo,
Jim Backus, is now forever silent ("Mr.
Magoo" being Backus's rather dull
prologue to donning the pancake for his role
in the crowning achievement of American
civilization, "Gilligan's Island").
The only surefire method the blind will have
for ascertaining Magoo's appearance is the
inevitable avalanche of McDonald's tie-in
toys when Disney releases the movie. Picture
the sightless person standing at the counter
howling in protest as he runs his hands over
the Magoo action figure's uncomely face while
the teenager behind the counter protests,
"Sir, you have to buy a Happy Meal to
get one of those!"
Second, the
NFB's seeing-eye dog is barking up the wrong
tree. Mr. Magoo was not and will not be
blind; he was and will be near-sighted. Since
the Captain is one of millions afflicted with
myopia, I now have a double beef: First,
Disney is reviving a character that portrays
us corrective-lens types in a bad light;
second, the blind are stealing our
near-sighted hobby horse.
Since we live
in the Age of Grievance, where all umpires
cry "Foul!" and you can't tell the
victims apart without a scorecard, it seems
only fair that we take back the gripe that is
rightfully ours.
Surely the
blind would not begrudge us a cartoon
celebrity. There have been so many cool blind
people throughout history--Homer, John
Milton, Helen Keller, Ray Charles. Whom are
we myopiates stuck with? Woodrow Wilson and
George Will. For every Buddy Holly or Elvis
Costello who busts out of nearsighted
nerddom, there are five Wally Coxes forever
consigned to the four-eyed hell of the
uncool.
Ultimately, a
blind boycott of the movie would be pointless
anyway, unless there are enough ancillary
protesting do-gooders with children to have
an impact. When's the last time you sat next
to a sightless person in a theater? And
"Pandemonium" legal experts assure
me that the other obvious course of action--a
class-action defamation lawsuit against
Disney--would be snagged on that pesky
problem of the First Amendment to the
Constitution.
The crack
"Pando" legal team also insists
that hounding Disney over this movie would be
the wrong initial tort track. First, they
say, you target in court real-life comic
portrayals of the blind; Dick Martin and the
estate of Dan Rowan for the old
"Laugh-In" sketch of the blind guy
stepping into an open manhole, and Eddie
Murphy for his egregious "Saturday Night
Live" portrayal of the grinning,
head-tossing Stevie Wonder. Only then do you
send the processor into Toontown to serve Mr.
Magoo his writ.
I keep going
back to the Brad Pitt idea as the obvious
solution to Hollywood's perpetual problem of
pissing off special-interest groups. If you
need a nefarious villain or a bungling hero
and you don't want to tick off any watchdog
organizations, why not tart up said nefarious
villain or bungling hero in as pretty a face
as possible? You might head off the potential
protests of Arab-American groups by casting
Salma Hayek as the Islamic terrorist in your
movie. You'd silence the would-be ire of
postal workers everywhere by making Leonardo
DiCaprio your mass murderer in mail-carrier
blue. And what Hispanic mother wouldn't want
Antonio-Banderas as a comically-incompetent
South-American-dictator for a son-in-law? The
tradition of the ugly heavy or clown in
movies just doesn't make sense anymore. Bring
that hunky slice of beefcake in from Central
Casting, or that hot new Revlon babe, and
your protest problems are solved.
Something
tells me that your average blind person in
the street is not all that worked up over Mr.
Magoo. But the basic principle of Hollywood
prettifying potential public relations
disasters remains a sound one. Besides, who
wouldn't want to see Brad Pitt step into an
open manhole--animated or not?
Captain
Spaulding
Previous Mountaintop
Experiences with Captain
Spaulding:
Hooray
For Me, #1-- One
Margarita Too Many?
Hooray
For Me #2-- Spitting at the Generations, and
Other Cusp Words
