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Prompted by Disney’s new line of Princess products, Barbara Ehrenreich at rails against the studio’s entire family of female animated characters The Nation. Her key arguments:

• “Today, there is no little girl in the wired, industrial world who does not seek to display her allegiance to the pink- and-purple clad Disney dynasty.” Read: your daughter understandably wants you to buy her shiny things, but she’s too young, impressionable and greedy to understand what consumption of those things mean. It’s up to you to decode the messages she’s unconsciously slurping through her Princess toys. This is of primary importance because…
• “Disney likes to think of the Princesses as role models, but what a sorry bunch of wusses they are.” Enhenreich is particularly concerned that these so called heroines generally “have no ambitions and no marketable skills,” and are prone to allowing themselves to become intoxicated at the hands of men and/or devious older woman. No work, free booze??????I guess your daughter’s supposed to wait until college before indulging in that dream.
• “No need for complicated witch-hunting techniques–pin-prickings and dunkings–in Princessland. All you have to look for is wrinkles.” The Princess films fail to give middle aged and elderly women the respect that they’re accorded in … um … real life?

My favorite takeaway, and my own conclusions, after the jump.

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Under discussion:

Hamlet  (1990)

Romeo and Juliet  (1968)

Back in 9th-grade English class, Franco Zeffirelli was considered a hero. For teachers, he was the guy who made Shakespeare more accessible for kids by including nudity in his film of Romeo and Juliet. For students, well, he included nudity in movie that was required in-class viewing. Now the kids have Luhrman’s version of R&J to fawn over (despite its lack of boobies), but Zeffirelli is still tops for lazy students of Shakespeare, as his Hamlet, which stars Mel Gibson, is still likely the most accessible alternative to actually reading the play that high schoolers have.

Will Zeffirelli have the same luck with Pope Benedict XVI? Reuters reports the Italian filmmaker and affirmed Christian has offered to help with His Holiness’ public image — and I stress this is only at the proposal stage. But it is a proposal Zeffirelli hopes the Vatican takes seriously. He said:

Coming after a media-savvy pope like John Paul II is a difficult task … Benedict XVI still communicates coldly, in a way that is not suited with what is happening around him … It’s an issue I have been discussing with people who have key roles in the Vatican.

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Bloody-Disgusting is passing along the rumor that Emily Blunt has signed on to star opposite Benicio DelToro in a remake of the 1930s Universal horror classic, The Wolfman. I guess I should be really upset about this. As I’ve said before, I’ve got a huge weakness for the monster movies of the 1930s, which, for me, hold up as well as they do primarily as star vehicles. I’m the biggest fangirl for Boris Karloff, but Lon Chaney Jr, who played the original Wolfman, is my second favorite. Karloff and Bela Lugosi could be inhumanly creepy, but Chaney had a regular-guy thing which is maybe more interesting in retrospect?????? his transformation into the monster is less campy and more legitimately scary, and as a whole, the film feels much more modern than many from the era. I think Benicio will probably bring something very different to the table, which may not be a good thing.

On the other hand…

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