It had been at least a months since I was at the Cinema Saver, but I recognized Danae, the young woman with glasses who worked the ticket concession, and who chatted with me after I saw
Megaminda couple months ago. We both liked that movie, and I had enjoyed discussing it with her.
This I reminded her of that when I saw her, and then confessed that today I was going in a different direction, towards the movie that was supposedly the latest "worst movie ever." Or at least I'd heard that it got bad reviews. Danae, however, said she hadn't seen it yet, but it was getting good reactions from the audiences coming out of it.
What an interesting film this was! I found myself towards the end drifting into thoughts regarding the various definitions of feminism. When a movie inspires such philosophic discussions, it can't be all bad.
Danae was gone from the lobby by the time I came out, but the next time I see her, I'll say that Mars Needs Moms was an extremely lucid commentary on the contemporary American family paradigm, perhaps uncomfortably so.
Why is it so lucid? Because it very boldy portrays the shadow scenario that we all know to which we are moving: the world post-men. It is a Martian place in which all the men are enfeebled. All the males in this movie are highly debilitated in some way. Among the humans, one is boy child searching for his lost mother, another is a grown man stuck in permanent adolescent at a computer screen, and the third and last is an absent dad (appearing only briefly in two scenes) making a lame-sounding stereotypical excuse for missing a flight. The Martian men are confined below the surface as a miseducated primitive beast-type, "as dumb as rocks," in the words of one of the human men.
All necessary functions of this world are taken over by the women, since women along possess the raw intelligence to run things. Men simply aren't capable of such worldly competence anymore, except for their sole remaining skill of playing video games and/or hacking computer networks.
Yet the movie is kind to the weaker sex (us males) in suggesting that we are capable of more, if only given the chance. It also suggests that women have been enslaved. This last part is the one that probably really pissed off the wrong people. The head villainness looks a bit like a shriveled Hillary Clinton in certain angles.
And we can't have that, can we? NO STRONG AND POWERFUL WOMAN MUST NEVER BE MOCKED LIKE THAT---EVER!!!!!!
If the central struggle of this story had been anything else than "boy-man quest to save his mother" (soooooooo boooring....) I would have liked it better.
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