Crackal-ascar
Right now, I’m cramming for my Political Sciences final tomorrow and will probably be chatting while writing this, so if my writing appears kooky, I apologize ahead of time. This weekend, I spent my Friday night at my grandparents’ house and I had picked up a copy of “Madagascar” on the way home at the video store. I know what I’ve said these past few months about “Madagascar” and movies like it hasn’t exactly been positive, but I knew my mom probably wanted to see it much more than I did and I was still a bit skeptical, even though I did sorta want to see it.
So we watched it. The story is easy to stomach. A zebra wants to go live in the wild, he escapes from the zoo to go there, his friends break out to save him, they all FAIL miserably, they get boxed up and shipped out on a boat that will take them to the wild to get rid of them, they get knocked off the ship and wind up in Madagascar and they befriend the lemur population. Sounds easy enough. A few problems though, and it wasn’t just in the presentation.
First off, Marty the zebra, as voiced by Chris Rock, describes how the wild is so awesome and proclaims it as “Crackalackin.” For those of you who have never heard this word before, it’s one of those “gangsta” terms that seems to be becoming popular and is just another way of saying “cool.” Ever notice, though, how it sounds a bit like “cracker lackin’.” Yeah, you see where I’m going here. It’s a racist term which means, in so many words, “it’s cool because it’s lacking whiteness.” And if you think I’m making this up check out Urban Dictionary:
4. crackalackin
Usually means "What's up?" However, it can be interpreted as "cracker lacking," lacking in the presense or essense of white people.
"We keep it crackalackin up in here."
There are 15 definitions on that website and they all get dumber as they go. Hmm, it’s cool and white lacking. Why is a word like this allowed in a family film at all? Not only does it sounds stupid, but it’s racist against white people. Would it be appropriate for me to make up the term “Niggalackin” or “Spiccalackin” and see if I could get that into a family film? Didn’t think so. But hey, I’m white. You can walk all over me because of my skin color and you won’t see any public outrage over it.
Other problems the movie had: I thought that when the animals discovered the lemur colony, the movie would be almost over and that would be it. I was wrong. That doesn’t make it a good thing though. That gives us another 30-40 minutes of strangely modeled animals, including a hippo with a nasty buttcrack. Although, I was a bit worried that Gloria the Hippo would appear in more scenes that would place focus on her buttocks for the sake of weirdness in the same vein as “Cow and Chicken,” but fortunately, the movie’s not that bad in that respect. The most we have to worry about is watching her shake it for the audience during the movie’s credits. Add that to rather high level of cheap bathroom humor, and you have a taste problem. I could go on with the problems the movie had, but my memory is fading. All in all though, it was either watching this or “The Karategaurd” (A new Tom and Jerry short cartoon that debuted on TV that same night) and I can’t shake the feeling that I would have gotten more satisfaction from 7 minutes of cartoon comic violence than
Some good points about the movie: The penguins were cute and funny. The lemurs were cool (Even if King Julian’s rendition of “I Like to Move It” blows and says to me that they don’t mind putting songs that AREN’T family quality in a family movie.) However, cuteness doesn’t exactly outweigh the weakness of plot, the seemingly cliché actions and the bad taste it left in my mouth. And on a more personal note, there’s this:
Gross
$193,136,719 (USA) (9 October 2005)
It was a huge success. And yet, I’ve heard so many people talk about how lame a movie it either was or looked like. Is it just me, or is the rule of CGI meaning a movie will do good a reality? Oh boy, it’s gonna be a long time before we see another 2D animated movie on the screen.
Also, funny story about the night after. Saturday night, I babysat for the neighbor’s kids and watched “Bambi,” which I hadn’t seen in around 15 years. I don’t like it any better than the first time I saw it, I thought it was adorable…But I also found it to be rather sexist in the second act and I think Bambi might make a terrible father. But hey, compared to “Madagascar,” it was golden.
I’m a harsh fella, ain’t I?
So we watched it. The story is easy to stomach. A zebra wants to go live in the wild, he escapes from the zoo to go there, his friends break out to save him, they all FAIL miserably, they get boxed up and shipped out on a boat that will take them to the wild to get rid of them, they get knocked off the ship and wind up in Madagascar and they befriend the lemur population. Sounds easy enough. A few problems though, and it wasn’t just in the presentation.
First off, Marty the zebra, as voiced by Chris Rock, describes how the wild is so awesome and proclaims it as “Crackalackin.” For those of you who have never heard this word before, it’s one of those “gangsta” terms that seems to be becoming popular and is just another way of saying “cool.” Ever notice, though, how it sounds a bit like “cracker lackin’.” Yeah, you see where I’m going here. It’s a racist term which means, in so many words, “it’s cool because it’s lacking whiteness.” And if you think I’m making this up check out Urban Dictionary:
4. crackalackin
Usually means "What's up?" However, it can be interpreted as "cracker lacking," lacking in the presense or essense of white people.
"We keep it crackalackin up in here."
There are 15 definitions on that website and they all get dumber as they go. Hmm, it’s cool and white lacking. Why is a word like this allowed in a family film at all? Not only does it sounds stupid, but it’s racist against white people. Would it be appropriate for me to make up the term “Niggalackin” or “Spiccalackin” and see if I could get that into a family film? Didn’t think so. But hey, I’m white. You can walk all over me because of my skin color and you won’t see any public outrage over it.
Other problems the movie had: I thought that when the animals discovered the lemur colony, the movie would be almost over and that would be it. I was wrong. That doesn’t make it a good thing though. That gives us another 30-40 minutes of strangely modeled animals, including a hippo with a nasty buttcrack. Although, I was a bit worried that Gloria the Hippo would appear in more scenes that would place focus on her buttocks for the sake of weirdness in the same vein as “Cow and Chicken,” but fortunately, the movie’s not that bad in that respect. The most we have to worry about is watching her shake it for the audience during the movie’s credits. Add that to rather high level of cheap bathroom humor, and you have a taste problem. I could go on with the problems the movie had, but my memory is fading. All in all though, it was either watching this or “The Karategaurd” (A new Tom and Jerry short cartoon that debuted on TV that same night) and I can’t shake the feeling that I would have gotten more satisfaction from 7 minutes of cartoon comic violence than
Some good points about the movie: The penguins were cute and funny. The lemurs were cool (Even if King Julian’s rendition of “I Like to Move It” blows and says to me that they don’t mind putting songs that AREN’T family quality in a family movie.) However, cuteness doesn’t exactly outweigh the weakness of plot, the seemingly cliché actions and the bad taste it left in my mouth. And on a more personal note, there’s this:
Gross
$193,136,719 (USA) (9 October 2005)
It was a huge success. And yet, I’ve heard so many people talk about how lame a movie it either was or looked like. Is it just me, or is the rule of CGI meaning a movie will do good a reality? Oh boy, it’s gonna be a long time before we see another 2D animated movie on the screen.
Also, funny story about the night after. Saturday night, I babysat for the neighbor’s kids and watched “Bambi,” which I hadn’t seen in around 15 years. I don’t like it any better than the first time I saw it, I thought it was adorable…But I also found it to be rather sexist in the second act and I think Bambi might make a terrible father. But hey, compared to “Madagascar,” it was golden.
I’m a harsh fella, ain’t I?
posted by Jaimetud at 10:32 PM
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