give it a pass as it’s a remake for basic cable
There’s going to be an “Adventures in Babysitting” remake. Because… why not?
The movie stars Disney Channel favorites Sabrina Carpenter and Sofia Carson as a pair of rival babysitters who are forced to work together when one of the children they’re charged with watching goes missing. It’s a modern take on the 1980s film of the same name that starred Elisabeth Shue and Anthony Rapp. In the Shue version, her babysitter met with car thieves, gangs, and had one of her charges stuck on the outside of a skyscraper, so expect plenty of comparable shenanigans.
With all due respect to the director of Adventures in Babysitting, Chris Colombus, he helped create one of the most racist films in American cinematic history.
Seen this formulation before…
Seen this formulation before…
But please consider the plot:
A white girl (Elizabeth Shue, lightyears from her work in Leaving Las Vegas) is baby-sitting several white kids, when she gets a desperate phone call from her white girl friend. Why is her white girl friend desperate? Because she is stuck in a downtown bus station, surrounded by (gasp) African Americans!
Okay…
A white girl (Elizabeth Shue, lightyears from her work in Leaving Las Vegas) is baby-sitting several white kids, when she gets a desperate phone call from her white girl friend. Why is her white girl friend desperate? Because she is stuck in a downtown bus station, surrounded by (gasp) African Americans!
Okay…
When Shue gets downtown, various amusing adventures ensue. But how can it be ignored that each of the adventures involves meeting someone who lives in the inner city who is African American. And every single African American she meets is a criminal. There is only one exception: (are you ready? ‘spoiler’ ahead!): the African Americans who sing and dance!
Colombus must have been very disappointed that Steppin Fetchit (who adopted that stage name as a joke) was not alive and could not appear in his film.
There is one African American who helps Shue and who does not sing and dance. (Spoiler ahead) I kept hoping he would turn out to be an undercover cop. But, no, he was a car thief.
Colombus must have been very disappointed that Steppin Fetchit (who adopted that stage name as a joke) was not alive and could not appear in his film.
There is one African American who helps Shue and who does not sing and dance. (Spoiler ahead) I kept hoping he would turn out to be an undercover cop. But, no, he was a car thief.
Actually it’s along the lines of safe, secure Suburbanites struck in the the big scary city, (the car gets a bunch of flat tires right when it enters the city, right?) but that is arguably the same matter. Somewhere in the denoument we have the characters forced — something at gun point? — to sing the blues about babysitting. Don’t know how the remake would handle this one — best guess is that the 1980s not being the 2010s, there’s someone in the back double and triple and quadruple checking for whiffs of “micro-aggression”.