When it was just the Adoption Community protesting the marketing of Orphan, a hackneyed horror flick about yet another evil adoptee, it was merely another minor controversy incited by a select interest group. But now members of the U.S. House and Senate have gotten involved with a letter campaign to Warner Bros. condemning the studio’s seemingly anti-adoption advertisements for and message in the film.
Is this really necessary after so many years and so many stories containing fucked-up orphans? Sure, Hollywood has given us too few Annie types in cinema over the past few decades, but certainly ‘80s television made up for this history with the likes of Diff’rent Strokes, Webster, Small Wonder, My Two Dads, Punky Brewster, et al. And adoptions were on the rise for most of that time, only dropping slightly in recent years, possibly due to the dwindling economy.
That isn’t to say we agree with cinema’s consistent misrepresentation of orphans or adoptees, so to expose the unfair reputation of parentless kids, we take a look at ten types of screwed-up orphans, which potentially keep more people from adopting them. Check out our list of characters and films after the jump:
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Need help cutting down your Christmas tree? Jason Vorhees can help. Want someone to cook holiday dinner? Hannibal Lecter’s got you. Even the Mummy is here to bandage your kid’s leg after a see-saw accident involving Chucky. It’s a horror villain family Christmas, featuring Darth Vader looking beautiful walking through the snow, Freddie Krueger snipping a bouquet of flowers with his glove, and Samara popping out of the television to deliver presents.
Yes, that present is a DirecTV dish, and this is a commercial. But it’s old, it’s foreign and it’s one of the more enjoyable DirecTV ads ever made. My only criticism: shouldn’t Leatherface have been in charge of the tree cutting? Jason could have just wandered around with no significant duty, like Dracula. Also, I would have loved an appearance from Tony Todd, preferably holding some candy canes. Otherwise, this clip is perfect. I’d love to see it become an actual video e-card for the holidays, along with the old SNL Season’s Greetings skits (for those wondering where Frankenstein’s monster is, he’s over with Tonto and Tarzan singing “Away in a Manger”).
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When you gather with your loved ones this week, be sure to give extra thanks for that turkey or soy-based equivalent on which you’re about to dine. Times are hard, but for most of us, we’re still able to eat. Nevertheless, we need to prepare for the even tougher times that inevitably lay ahead. As countless movies attest, desperate times call for desperate measures at the dinner table. Like cannibalism.
The circumstances under which “eat or be eaten” becomes the rule vary widely. Plenty of films have taken on this ancient taboo; in fact, a search for the tag “cannibal” on Spout.com yields eleven pages of results. For your holiday viewing pleasure, I’ve narrowed the list down to ten.
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