471

Backlog
Posted on June 25, 2015 by David M Willis

471 thoughts on “Backlog”

  1. Jen Aside

    Let it go, Becky

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      Beat me to it except I was going to say Ruth instead.

      1. LeslieBean4Shizzle

        Actually, yeah, I think Ruth is more in need of the Let it Go song. Becky has kinda been there done that.

        1. Jen Aside

          ((psst I actually don’t know SHIT about Frozen except dudebros hate it and girls of all ages cling to it as a rare example of feminist role models and my bf’s mum would keep her kids in line with the song b/c if they didn’t behave they couldn’t rehearse to it))

        2. Shaunock

          Dudebro checking in:

          I actually quite liked it.
          ‘Let it Go’ is a useful tool for annoying friends.

        3. TachyonCode

          It was… really not that bad? Although as movies go, it still contained a lot of false choices for the characters appearing, especially the hero-types. Maybe a sequel could break that down further?

        4. Meebo

          Yeahhhh, so, I’m a human male and I’ve seen it 40+ times, made all my roommates watch it and got them all addicted. And then got my godson hooked. We watch it and recite whole scenes together, much to his mother’s annoyance.

        5. Noah Brand

          Straight cis guy here, that’s enough to qualify me as a “dudebro” by a lot of people’s standards, and I love that picture. Admittedly, I do tend to yell “TEN MORE MINUTES! IF YOU’D KEPT YOUR TRAP SHUT TEN MORE MINUTES YOU’D HAVE WALKED AWAY CLEAN WITH EVERYTHING, YOU GODDAMNED AMATEUR!” at the villain. Beware the urge to monologue, kids, no matter how good the setup line is.

        6. DarkoNeko

          Oh, it’s kinda like Electra, then.

        7. fogel

          I heard that Disney’s doing an adaptation of Electra called “Daddy’s Girl”.

        8. DarkoNeko

          …we’re still talking about Agamemnon and Clytemnestre’s daughter, right ?

        9. NotFred

          DarkoNeko

          “The Electra complex is a psychoanalytic term used to describe a girl’s sense of competition with her mother for the affections of her father. It is comparable to the Oedipus complex.”

        10. Daniel Taylor

          Thanks for saying that. I thought it was just me.

          I don’t have this problem with most Disney villains, because they’re obvious idiots, but in Hans is doing so well. He’s actually good at this.

          And then he blows it making the most elementary mistake imaginable.
          (Not the monologuing. That’s actually OK at this point. His mistake is *leaving the room*.)

          Even if Anna doesn’t escape, he’s wasting a priceless opportunity to solidify his narrative… he should kiss her, watch her suffer and die, and *then* leave the room crying fake tears and demanding vengeance. He’d own the court after that.

        11. MichaelHaneline

          Yeah, basically the writers needed to give Hands the Idiot Ball at the last second to give the heroes a chance to win.

        12. Djiril

          That would be a bit dark for Disney, though.

        13. ScumlordAzazel

          I do not approve of the use a lot of people have for dudebro, then. It’s supposed to be for people who act like a stereotypical frat guy. And I will use it for any gender or orientation.

        14. ScumlordAzazel

          An extreme version of dudebro:
          http://www.rhymes-with-witch.com/rww06062013.shtml

        15. vlademir1

          My experience is it currently also carries some overtones of closed minded privilege in current usage. That’s a big part of why some just treat it as a stereotype for cis white men in general.

        16. Li

          Iunno, the dudebroiest dudebros these days are the comic book and video game dudebros pitching the huge whinefest every time a girl gets anywhere near “their” toys.

        17. Inlaa

          ^ Basically, this – Li gets it. The three most common dudebros I find are hypermacho sports dudebros, nerdy dudebros that think girls don’t belong anywhere near their favorite hobby (whether it be tabletop gaming, Magic the Gathering, video games or comic books or whatever)… and then there’s the dudebros that have somehow formed a dudebro culture independent of any one hobby. They’re the weirdest.

          But yeah, the ones I come across the most are the comic book / video game / tabletop gaming / Magic fans. Then again, I spend a lot of time in my local gaming store.

        18. Li

          You’ve made a great point — I run into these two types most because I’m a gamer and a sometimes-comic fan.

          I actually saw a pretty great post though that reminded me that gatekeeping dudebros demanding women “prove [their] worth” isn’t unique to those two fandoms. It was an anecdote about a woman in a sports team jersey being relentlessly quizzed by a dudebro on the team’s trivia (BEST BATTING AVERAGE THIS SEASON, etc).

          (I think a less-gendered version of this also happens with band t-shirts. But with games, comic books, and sports the assumption is very much that you must not belong BECAUSE you’re a woman, whereas they’ll let their fellow dudes casually wear t-shirts mostly without comment.)

          I thought this was a pretty good rebuttal for that particular dudebro who wants to pretend he’s mad that women are gaining entry into the club he was beaten up for belonging to… because NO GUY HAS EVER BEEN BEATEN UP FOR LIKING SPORTS, yet the attitude is identical. (Also female nerds exist, and we do in fact get bullied, but the dudebro is convinced every woman lives a life of ease and luxury where we just get handed things.)

        19. Rosie

          Energy drinks and catcalls are required for true dudebroism.

        20. Kat

          Girl checking in, not a fan.

        21. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          I don’t know if I qualify as a dudebro, but I’m certainly a straight white guy, and I absolutely LOVE Frozen! I tend to get on my mum and sisters’ nerves by randomly humming/singing “Let It Go” to myself over and over.

          I also have the entire 52-movie Disney canon on DVD in the limited edition o-ring sleeves that they released last year (I’m waiting for a limited edition o-ring sleeve release of Big Hero 6 to match). I love to watch them all every now and then. 😀

        22. Boojum

          Happy to have confirmation that while being a slightly off-brand white cismale, I am not, in fact, a dudebro. I saw Frozen in theater twice, probably listened to “Let It Go” in thirty different versions over a hundred times in a week, and still love pretty much everything about that movie.

        23. Paradoxius

          Honestly, it *isn’t* really that progressive; it’s just that Disney hyped it up so much as such. It’s “feminism” is circa 1940 women’s lib, so good job Disney for getting with the 20th century over a decade after it ended.

        24. gwalla

          They built up interest by putting the “Let It Go” sequence online before it opened, and outside of the context of the story it comes across as an empowerment anthem. The rest of the movie somewhat contradicts that message (the song seems like a remnant of an earlier draft where Elsa’s motivations were very different) but by the time people actualy saw them movie it was already well established.

        25. drs

          “From the studio that finally learned to make Pixar movies, comes the feature-length music video of ‘Let It Go’.”

        26. ajile

          Here is a video of US Marines singing “Let it Go”. It doesn’t get more dudebro than US Marines. Frozen is universally loved.

          https://youtu.be/cOPe9WqpOAc

        27. gwalla

          Fun movie, sloppy narrative, some good songs, plays around with some familiar Disney tropes esp. re: “true love”

        28. El Chupacabre

          Am I a dudebro? I’m a dude. I enjoyed Frozen quite a bit.

        29. Jen Aside

          #NotAllDudebros

          I was gonna defend my point, but who cares–anecdotal evidence is like the “I have a black friend!” argument

          (which is to say I just meant I’ve seen it panned by (some) dudebros and also revered by a wide age range of wimminfolk)

        30. fogel

          Best. Hashtag. Ever. :-0

        31. fogel

          Well, isn’t El Chupacabre The Lover of Women?

        32. Marc in MN

          I still haven’t seen it. Woo! 😉

    2. Kernanator

      Hey, be nice, she’s on her own for the first time in forever.

      1. shadowcell

        she can’t help it, she’s a bit of a fixer-upper

        1. airyu

          And she’s hoping Dina’s love is an open door

        2. AgentKeen

          She can’t help but fall for her, even if she thinks that dinosaurs are better than people.

        3. That Damn Rat

          But people smell better than dinosaurs?

        4. AgentKeen

          That’s true, for all, except Walky.

        5. Kelly

          Do they? Mammals sweat a lot, archosaurs, not so much. Of course my sense of smell is too limited to pick up body odor regardless.

        6. Li

          Lizards and snakes and birds ALL smell so.

        7. Captain Batson

          That’s once again true, for all except you

        8. Plasma Mongoose

          What does a dinosaur smell like anyhow??

        9. LouisvilleRobin

          Like chicken.

      2. drs

        But Ruth’s bad at cutting ice.

    3. otusasio451

      Well, if you’re referring to her status in the closet, we’ve LONG since passed that point.

    4. Doctor_Who

      Oh God, if she hears that song she will be singing it nonstop forever. It makes a very good coming out anthem.

      1. Tunaro

        When Frozen’s soundtrack first came out every friggin’ day some assholes would walk around my school’s halls blasting Let It Go at full volume on a portable speaker and singin’ along. It wasn’t even always the same people! This went on for like two months until someone finally snapped and chucked a guy’s iphone out a window.

        1. DarkoNeko

          hahahahahahahaha 😀

    5. Aisling

      Becky needs “Do you wamt to build a dinosaur?”

    6. Halloween Jack

      The cold never bothered her anyway. (Which you can tell from her outfit.)

    7. hitmonkey

      there were quite a few dudebros, they even had the nickname brozen for it.

  2. Mr. Random

    My first rated R movie was Constantine. I grew up in a different environment.

    1. Wire Segal

      My first (huh, and only) R rated movie was the King’s Speech.
      Rated R for a 5-minute scene where the only word was fuck.

    2. Doctor_Who

      My first R movie was the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. When I was seven.

      It…did some damage. Still a stone cold classic.

      1. setsun

        Secondary mine was the original Scream, double-featured with Cannibal Holocaust.

        I was probably seven or eight, I was completely unperturbed. Even slightly fascinated with the letter film.

    3. Tunaro

      Pretty sure mine was Legend of the Drunken Master back when I was 4. ‘Least that’s as far back as I can remember.

    4. user 18

      I don’t recall what my first was — I probably didn’t even realize it was rated R. My parents cared more about “this is a good movie, let’s all watch it as a family.”

      Looking back, a lot of stuff we watched was not really appropriate family fare. Buffy, for instance, while a good show, is not really family material.

      1. Dr.Zeus

        Oh come on, Buffy is absolutely family material. Then again I have an odd family.

        1. Disloyal Subject

          That’s the best kind!
          Hmm… What was mine, anyway? Probably Alien or Lord of the Rings.

        2. Someone

          All of the lord of the rings films are PG-13

      2. That Damn Rat

        Well, the first three seasons were pretty family friendly fare, and by that point you were hooked.

    5. brasca1

      First R rated movie. Bachelor Party. Can’t remember my exact age, but I know I was too young to see a PG-13 movie. It was on HBO at my cousin’s house. Irony is she later embraced religion although not to the degree that Joyce has.

    6. Tacos

      I don’t recall what my first R-rated movie. My parents didn’t have a problem with letting me watch PG-13 and R-rated movies.

      1. Arianod

        Same here. I think my first may have been The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? At least, it’s the first film I remember watching with that “Hmm, I’m probably not supposed to be watching this” sensation.

      2. Kryss LaBryn

        I think mine was “Cannonball Run”. Some friends and I saw it at the theatre and lied about our ages.

    7. Tom Speelman

      My first was Forrest Gump, I think. My dad sent me and my little sister out of the room for the scenes showing Jenny doing drugs.

      1. Kelly

        I was gonna say, Gump was rated R?! But IMDB says PG-13

    8. Cephalo the Pod

      Mine was Sideways. We made a game out of counting the number of times “fuck” was said.

      1. Kelly

        Huh, for some reason I had you tagged as one of us old folks 😛 Guess not that old if that was your first R… or you have been very sheltered

      2. fogel

        You should rewatch it and count the times Pinot Noir is said.

    9. Dr.Zeus

      I… don’t know what my first one would have been. Maybe Life of Brian? Thinking about it, why the hell does that get an R rating in Ontario but The Matrix gets a 14A?

      1. DarkoNeko

        ’cause it mocks christianity ?

        1. Dr.Zeus

          To be honest it’s prolly the cock shot. Don’t know if this is true but I remember being told in high-school that the ratings board were more willing to include female nudity than male because “the female form is artistic, the male form is threatening”.

          My teacher wasn’t agree by the way she was presenting it as a bullshit argument.

    10. caesaria82

      When I was 11, I snuck into Jurassic Park, which was PG-13. That was the first time I remember being in a movie theater I wasn’t supposed to be in/wasn’t allowed in, technically. My first R rated movie I can’t remember. Probably something on late night TV.

      1. Kelly

        My grandma took me to see JP in theaters, so I was 11… or just a few days from it if we went when it opened. I loved it, but i freaked out during some of the raptor hunt scenes.

        1. caesaria82

          I was with two equally 11 year-old friends and we had no adult supervision and I remember the scene with the raptors in the kitchen VIVIDLY because my one friend jumped up, screamed and spilled her entire popcorn. Good times xD

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Just the trailers for Jurassic Park gave me recurring nightmares as a kid.
          Weird ones, too; the T-Rex was sapient and lived in a trailer-park, invited everyone over for poker. Or maybe bridge or cribbage or something; it was all the same to me. And we came, even though it would occasionally snap, warn everyone to run, and then go berserk and hunt us down to slaughter us one by one.

        3. fogel

          You have great nightmares! Rex really would only snap occasionally?

        4. Atlantic Salmon

          We watched Jurassic Park with my 7-year-old kid last year. He actually clapped at the toilet scene.

      2. Trolldrool

        I remember being 8 years old when I went downstairs to visit my older brother who lived in the cellar apartment. He was watching a movie with a couple of his friends and invited me to come a watch it with them, which I eagerly did when I learned it was about dinosaurs. I ended up having a nightmare about my dad being eaten.

    11. Kelly

      My first R- rated movie… hm. Robocop? Is that R? Ah it is. Probably that, unless it was Alien. Now that one scared the shit out of me.

      1. zach

        Aw, yes, Alien! That or Forest Gump were likely for me.

        1. prime_pm

          My first R-rated movie I saw wound up being Alien 3, followed by Ghost in the Machine. What a waste. I made up for it by watching my first R-rated movie in theaters The Matrix. In hindsight, not that big a deal.

      2. A Hapless Newbie

        Robocop for me, too. Or Conan the Barbarian, possibly. I have childhood memories of both movies, accompanied by adult memories of rewatching them and wondering what the hell my parents were thinking letting me near either of those movies.

      3. Disloyal Subject

        RoboCop was R; I recall folks bongoing about the remake being PG-13.
        I couldn’t stomach Alien the first time I tried seeing it. I ended up running away to find a steel pipe and a nice corner to put my back to, and stayed there for the rest of the movie and night. Hopefully that means I was pretty young at the time.

    12. AeroQC

      I think my first R-rated movie was one of the America Pie movies, I’m thinking Naked Mile since it’s the only one I’ve seen start-to-finish, was on free pay-per-view. The Girl Next Door was the first R-rated movie that I bought.

    13. Smiling Cat

      Mine was Fright Night on HBO back in the eighties.

    14. Jen Aside

      Hmm, I think mine was The Crow

      RIP IN PEACE BRANDON LEE

    15. ahuh

      The first one I can remember is probably The Lives of Others, a German slow-burn thriller about a dissident playwright and the Stasi spy assigned to his case.

      1. Arianod

        Why was that R-rated??? Because of the scene with the hooker?

    16. NF

      My first R-rated film was Aliens, when I must have been around 7. I saw the queen xenomorph as some sort of giant spider, which didn’t help me with my fear of spiders.

      My parents were…unconventional…in how they raised me.

      1. Arianod

        If I had seen Aliens at 7, I’m sure I’d have had nightmares for months.

    17. StrawGirl

      For years, I thought my first one was Deep Blue Sea when I was in sixth grade. But then I found out that The Peacemaker was rated R, and I was taken to it in fourth grade. (I was disappointed that he killed people instead of actually making peace.) It was one of those that I was dragged along to because my parents wanted to go.

      Deep Blue Sea was the first one I was actually aware of. I hated it.

      The Matrix came out shortly after, so that was more of an informed choice on my part. I felt really weird having intentionally watched an R-rated movie. It felt like… kind of wrong? I was also like 11 years old, semi-sheltered for that age, and a goody two-shoes in a lot of the same ways as Joyce (still am but less so).

      But it somehow didn’t bother me that, even though it gave me nightmares, I saw Jurassic Park (PG-13) when it came out when I was all of 3 years old. Kept watching it. Kept getting nightmares. But I was never bothered by the rating, even though PG-13 isn’t that much less violent (or whatever) than R. Some personal boundaries are arbitrary, you know?

      1. Narf

        Nothin’ says “peace” like “everyone else is too dead to fight,” right?

        1. StrawGirl

          True that!

    18. ninja_jesus

      My first R-Rated movie was Army of Darkness. At least, it was the first one I liked. Didn’t like The Rock (the Nicolas Cage movie).

    19. Just Karen

      My first R-rated movie was The Exorcist. I was 3.

    20. vlademir1

      I’m trying to remember whether my first R rated movie was First Blood or Nightmare on Elm Street. Any way you slice it, I was maybe five or six.
      My parents had some odd duck rules for what I could and couldn’t watch. Realistic violence and anything sexual was right out until I was 13, but fantastic violence (like in most ’80s horror/slasher fare) was fine and so was over the top action fodder (like Alien, Robocop, Terminator and Predator) so I grew up on the golden age of such crap in the ’80s mainly via HBO.

    21. Opus the Poet

      Mine was the original Rollerball (with James Caan) so you can see how long I have been going to movies.

      1. fogel

        heck, I saw an X-rated film — Clockwork Orange — back before the Xrating was subverted by the “Adult Film” Industry.
        What confuses me, tho, are all of these movies that are rated R or PG-13 for “Language”. That means too much talking, not enough action or ‘firm’s right?

        1. fogel

          ‘FORMS’, NOT FIRM’S. Take your eye off Spellchecker for a minute!

    22. Ray Radlein

      Rocky Horror Picture Show, maybe? Probably not, but that would at least have been one of my earliest. Back in 1977 or so.

    23. Daibhid C

      I was about to say my first 18-certificate (oh, yes, different culture, different rating system) film was Alien. Then I thought “Have I actually seen Alien, or do I just know everything about it because I’m living in the universe?” And then I checked, and the video (which is what I’d have seen) was edited down to a 15 anyway.

      So I’m not actually sure I’ve ever seen an 18 film, really.

    24. Li

      My mom was very sheltering about certain kinds of R movies. I think because she let her boyfriend talk her into showing us both Gremlins when I was around 3-4…? (It came out the year I was born but I know he rented it lol)

      I’m not sure what rating Gremlins would get today — Wikipedia says that complaints about it caused Stephen Spielberg to suggest the MPAA revise their ratings process, and they did. So its “PG” or “PG-13” (the PG is clearly visible on the poster but otherwise I got nothin for the rest of the box’s contents) was not adequate, apparently. People like my mom got tricked into thinking it was family-friendly because of the rating, and its initial presentation only reinforces that. (it takes place at Christmas and revolves around the main character receiving an unusual and cuddly looking pet for Christmas, with a warning to follow three rules of care. The way the Mogwai reproduce and their fuzziness is reminiscent of The Trouble With Tribbles with a better budget, so… yeah it doesn’t scream “horror movie”.)

      After that it was no scary movies but my mom didn’t care if I saw movies with language- or sex-related ratings. I was renting tentacle porn with my mom’s all clear, but not allowed to see The Sixth Sense lolol

    25. Kennerly

      My first R rated movie was An American Werewolf in London, and I was 3. My mother blames my father and that movie for my current phobia of large dogs.

    26. Nagzilla

      The first R movie my mom took me to see was “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”. Because it was a musical. I was 12. My grandma was pissed.

    27. Halloween Jack

      I’m pretty sure that mine was Coming Home, which I saw when I was thirteen, in the theater with my aunt and uncle. I’m still figuring out some of the facts of life and I’m sitting with grown-ups, watching Jon Voight going down on Jane Fonda. Awkward.

    28. Inspector Hound

      Hmm, going by what it *should* have been rated as instead of what it was rated as … “Battle of Britain”. MPAA ratings were only a year old at that point, and it was rated … G.

      I guess we were truly in the grip of the “Violence … good, sex … bad” thought process then, but the scene where a pilot gets his eyes shot out has unfortunately stayed with me for all these decades.

      I think my parents didn’t have a baby sitter, and it *did* have a G rating, so…

      (I also recall “The Andromeda Strain” being rated G and thinking that it should have been rated GP, that being the code for PG back then).

    29. Inlaa

      I think my first rated R movie was Clerks when I was somewhere between 8-10 years old. But then, it was originally meant to be an NC-17.

      …I was sick with an ear infection and my sisters wanted to watch Clerks. Go figure.

    30. AlexDenton

      My first R rated movie was Robocop. I was around 6. My older brother was “taking good care of me” while the parents where away.
      I’m not sure I understood everything back then, but it remains my favorite movie ever.

    31. Icalasari

      My first was Deep Blue at… 8 I think?

      Only saw one scene before I noped out. My parents let me watch it as I wouldn’t stop complaining about how my friends could watch R films but I couldn’t, so it scared me out of wanting to watch more

    32. Yet_One_More_Idiot

      My first 15 (the UK equivalent to an R iirc?) rated movie was on television, and was “Little Shop of Horrors” in like 1987. I was about 5. It should be noted here that this movie is now classified in the UK as a PG rating, having dropped considerably since it came out. 😛

      I do have quite a lot of 15s in my massive DVD collection nowadays, but explicit violence and sex in movies doesn’t really appeal to me much, so these are mostly mild violence and strong swearing. Very very few of my DVDs are rated 18 even now. And I’ve never even seen an R18 movie (the UK’s highest movie rating)

    33. LouisvilleRobin

      The Sword and the Sorceress. My mom did not realize it was a splatter action film set in a fantasy setting, not a fantasy movie that was rated R for a little violence or boobies.

  3. The Thing

    My first R-rated movie was probably Alien – at least that’s the first one I remember choosing to see.

    1. Jones

      Blazing Saddles was mine, I think. My parents thought it was funny, so that made it ok to show to a ychild, I guess.

      1. ahuh

        I think Blazing Saddles would be ok for a child actually-a lot of the more rique stuff would be flying right over their heads(admittedly along with a lot of the other classic Mel Brooks humor).

    2. TheOtherDibbler

      Reading through the comments has made it clear to me that ‘R-rated movie’ does not mean the same thing in every country. I’m Australian, and here movies get an R rating if they’re full-on porn, or extremely violent to the point of giving hardened adults nightmares for years to come. The movies that everyone’s been listing are definitely not R-rated in Australia.

      So, my first (and I think only) R-rated movie was about five minutes of ‘Wolf Creek’ and that’s only because my sister was watching it and I walked in before beating a hasty retreat. Both of us were adults at the time.

      1. Kelly

        What gets a given rating varies wildly just in the US. Depends on the decade, the current trends in movies, internal Hollywood politics, the raters personal biases…

        1. TheOtherDibbler

          So there’s no internal consistency? That sounds confusing. And surely makes the whole system kind of pointless. How can you know if something is really appropriate for a particular age group or not if there’s no set industry standard?

        2. Kelly

          I mean, they *supposedly* try for consistency. But in practice it is kinda all over the place. Sexual situations or nudity tends to make the rating go up faster than violence, that is pretty reliable.

          But yeah, you can’t really look at a movie rating and know if you would want your kids watching it, particular around the PG-13/R line, though it can be true at the other lines as well.

          Check out the documentary “This Film is Not Yet Rated” (it is in fact rated NC-17) for details.

        3. TheOtherDibbler

          Okay, thanks. 🙂

        4. StrawGirl

          It depends on the amount of language, violence, and nudity. PG-13 movies have to dance around how many F-bombs they drop. If it’s said more than–I think–3 times, the movie has to be R. If there’s more than a flash of a boob or a butt, then it’s R. I’m not sure where the violence threshold is drawn, but the difference between them is pretty obvious. Compare Jurassic World to Kingsman’s Secret Service, for two recent examples. Jurassic World is PG-13. While it is fairly violent in various capacities, Kingsman’s is exponentially more so. It’s pretty graphic.

          Compare The Matrix (R) to Forrest Gump (PG-13) for more stark differences.

          I don’t watch enough romance movies to come up with examples off the top of my head, but full-on nudity and explicit sex warrant an R. The Watchmen directly shows sex, but Grease only implies it.

          It’s the kind of thing where you know it when you see it, but the lines can get really blurred at times.

        5. Quinctia

          The weird thing about Kingsmen was that the trailer gave the impression the movie was PG-13. My sister and I went to see it, and were a bit confused that it was actually rated R when we bought the tickets. Then a bunch of other people walked into the theater with kids, and we kinda laughed about it as we walked out. Because it definitely was rated correctly, given the violence.

        6. StrawGirl

          Yeah, that’s what I thought, too! I was surprised when the person I was with got asked if he was 18!

          I agree that it was rated correctly, but I think it could have been a really good PG-13 movie instead. It was all a bit excessive for me. My thought is that they really wanted to earn their R rating. 😛

      2. caesaria82

        R rated isn’t the same thing is NC-17, which is probably what you’re thinking of. But I feel you, I’m from Germany and most films that are listed as R rated in the US are PG-13 here. We only have 0 (no restrictions), PG-13 (well, 12 actually), PG-16 (which seems rarely used) and 18+ here as ratings and I can’t remember ever going to see an 18+ movie in an actual theater.

        1. TheOtherDibbler

          We have G (safe for little kids), PG (for ages 13+), M (for ages 15+), MA (also for ages 15+ but with more graphic violence and more severe swearing), and R (18+).

          A single international standard would be much less confusing I feel.

        2. caesaria82

          Right? But then, different cultures have different standards about what’s appropriate or not for children and that needs to be respected. But I agree, the nomenclature should become universal and then the countries can make their own decisions that suit them.

        3. TheOtherDibbler

          Oops, I’ve messed up the reply chain because I tried to reply to my own previous comment to correct myself, because I couldn’t edit it. Sorry.

          But I do take your point about cultural differences regarding what is or isn’t appropriate content. Good point.

        4. Meebo

          I’m curious, is the highest rating more or less an economic death knell in other countries? NC-17 usually means a film will never get a wide screening or be sold in any major retailer. Same with the worst video game rating, AO.

        5. TheOtherDibbler

          Well an R-rated movie in Australia won’t usually get a wide screening, because they’re mostly porn and full-on bloody horror. So some get shown in some cinemas and many just go to straight to DVD, but they get sold and rented alongside anything else, and I suppose they sell enough to keep making them. I know lots of people have seen ‘Wolf Creek’, but that’s the only example I can think of, I don’t tend to watch R-rated stuff myself. (Also I live in the country, where things like that are unlikely to get shown on the big-screen because you’re dealing with smaller, more conservative communities than in major cities, so maybe they get shown more in city cinemas, I have no idea).

        6. fogel

          I hear there’s going to be a parody of Wolfe creek called Sheep Creek in which a couple of Kiwi tourists in Oz are mercilessly ridiculed by Aw-strail-i-ens.

        7. TheOtherDibbler

          Oops, scratch that. PG is not for ages 13+ it’s for children generally, but usually means there’s something that parents might want to be aware of before showing really little kids, like scary scenes or something. So kind of ages 8+.

          Most of the movies people are listing here are rated M in Australia.

        8. Kelly

          That sounds closer to our TV ratings (and video games), which use a newer system than movies, and I think (but wouldn’t swear to it) that it is a bit more standardized and less at the whims of the raters. We still have more levels though.

          Oh, and movies rarely get NC-17 for anything but full on sex… violence almost never pushes it over AFAIK.

        9. TheOtherDibbler

          I think in Australia porn is more likely to get an R rating than violence, but really extreme violence does tip over from MA into R. I have a few MA movies that are quite violent and/or a bit gory, or just too intense for the milder M rating (‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ for example).

          I just looked up ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ as being something US audiences might be familiar with, and I’ve got results for it as both MA and R in Australian stores. So, I guess that’s about the violence threshold for tipping from one category to the other?

          Also, I can never see, hear or think the words ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ without hearing Guy Pearce in my head saying “Texas Chainsaw Mascara?”. Which is always funny.

        10. Seth Gecko

          I can: From Dusk Till Dawn, for instance. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Dusk_Till_Dawn#Schnittfassungen . By the way, the German FSK system contains also a PG-6 rating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiwillige_Selbstkontrolle_der_Filmwirtschaft#Ratings .

        11. caesaria82

          I don’t think I saw that movie in theaters, but I do know there are some FSK 18 movies here, just not as many, it seems, as elsewhere. And I had forgotten about FSK 6, I think that one is very rare though? But I don’t really know/care about ratings for kids movies. Not that I don’t watch kids movies (I do all the time lol) but I don’t have or even really ever hang out with any kids, so it’s not relevant to my life xD

          (hi fellow German btw :D)

    3. Julez

      Mine was Rocky Horror, my sister showed it to me as a kid. Might explain some things about me…

  4. Wack'd

    “Just carry on as if I wasn’t here. To make it super-easy for you I will make disparaging comments at regular intervals.”

    1. Bagge

      It’s Ok. Sarah and Billie do that already, and when Sal comes back she’s into sneering from walls. But the rest of us like to do shit

    2. Doctor_Who

      Give her two robot sidekicks and I’ll watch.

    3. Michael Steamweed

      Seems Amber is not a happy person at this time. She isn’t too happy with the underage drinking (“That is against the law, citizens.”), but Ruthless seems to irritate her more.

      1. TheOtherDibbler

        Really? I’m reading her as pretty neutral here. If I was standing by the wall playing a game on a handheld device and someone came and stood next to me, I’d glance sideways at them too. Her facial expression doesn’t look annoyed or angry to me, just ‘Oh, Ruth is going to stick around, and she’s standing next to me? This could get uncomfortable I guess’.

        1. Heavensrun

          Dude, that frown and eyebrow configuration makes that a first class 100% death-glare. I can tell, I’ve had schooling.

  5. Captain Batson

    Wow, Toe-Dad truly is a monster.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      I bet he made her watch Cars 2.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Then Becky should contact Geneva immediately.

        1. Dean

          Technically, crimes against humanity are tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

      2. Gordon

        Nah. Not all of the cars pictured are American. There’s a Car Pope.

        And clearly machines are possessed by Satan.

        1. Captain Batson

          Is that not always the case?

        2. DarkoNeko

          Only if they run with Windows or MacOS.

        3. Disloyal Subject

          Ah, but clearly other operating systems’ freedom sends a subversive message that must be repressed.

  6. SUGauthor

    Becky’s going to like Frozen.

    1. Keroshino

      Well duh…it’s Frozen!!!

    2. caesaria82

      Becky is gonna become an Elsanna shipper in no time xD

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Ugh. Not another one…

      2. drs

        Depends, is she an only child? I think there’s a correlation between “has no siblings” and “thinks sibling incest is hot”.

        1. Keroshino

          Believed it or not, a person can have “real-life” siblings…and still ship “fictional” characters who are related.

        2. cynthash

          Real life example, right here. *points at self*

  7. AnvilPro

    Amber’s just going to keep glaring at Ruth until she’s noticed

    1. CommunistCanada

      Why is Amber glaring at Ruth anyway?

      1. Renshear Blade

        I figure it’s the fact that she knows Ruth uses her R.A. status for bully like antics, as Billie was saved by some “vigilante justice” not too long ago.

      2. Kraken

        Maybe she smells like booze and burgers?

        Or maybe it has to do with their last interaction where Ruth told Amber about her Dad.

      3. Tacos

        Do people even need a reason to glare at Ruth?

    2. gkheyf

      timers at the ready…

    3. BenRG

      I dunno… I’m not sure if Amber is glaring at Ruth or if she’s just staring at her, in a fixed ‘rabbit in the headlights’ way, because she doesn’t like people outside her tiny intimate circle come so close to her. It’s a shut-in thing.

  8. user 18

    Panel 3 Becky is so enthusiastic!

  9. Nono

    Will there be more ‘Let It Go’ puns, or more ‘icy’ puns? Place your bets here, people!

    1. Wack'd

      I am shocked, shocked, to find gambling in this comments section!

      1. DarkoNeko

        Icy what you did there.

      2. Lord Stoneheart

        Your winnings sir.

        1. Kelly

          Perfect!

        2. fogel

          If there was ever a place to round up the usual suspects it’s the DoA Comments Section.

    2. Tacos

      I’m betting on “Let It Go.”

    3. Plasma Mongoose

      You mean like the sort Arnie made in Batman & Robin? That leaves me cold.

      1. Renshear Blade

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRH-Ywpz1_I

        1. Plasma Mongoose

          nICE!

    4. caesaria82

      Do you wanna build a snowman?

  10. Bagge

    FroBro’s assemble

    1. Wack'd

      /r/frozen

      1. FishBonePendant

        /r/eslanna for Becky

        1. cynthash

          My home will gladly accept her brand of insanity. :3

        2. Disloyal Subject

          There’s a subreddit for this..?
          Crap, now I’m gonna have to find an HFY thread again to restore my faith in humanity.

    2. Bagge

      Ah, here was the link http://hijinksensue.com/comic/full-grown-froze-bros/ 🙂

  11. AHR

    I want to see this entire list

    1. Tunaro

      I would hazard a guess that it probably includes the Harry Potter, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Star Trek and Lord of the Rings series. I also mildly suspect that Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey wouldn’t be on it, but Excellent Adventure would.

      1. Bat

        Wait, Star Wars says we should rebel against our father? No spoilers yo.

      2. Tacos

        What about A Bug’s Life or the Toy Story series? I’m sure crazy fundie parents could come up with a BS reason for not allowing them to be seen.

    2. Bagge

      Golden compass and whichever of the twilight movies they didn’t got to see.

  12. brumagem

    A regular FORBIDDEN Sundance Festival.

    1. Wack'd

      Bring out the Anne Francis movies!

      1. fogel

        Dude, you’ve said the secret word! Quick, Forbidden Planet!!

  13. otusasio451

    That last statement describes a LOT of kid’s movies.

  14. Nono

    And what’s with Amber’s stinkeye to Ruth in the first panel?

    1. Twilightomens

      She’s giving her THE LOOK.
      Probably for standing too close, that’s always pretty annoying.

  15. Idon'tcarenomore

    Yup just carry on like im not here. Yup.
    And smooth move at staying out of the limelight Becky, you were doing good.
    Meantime hadn’t someone better lock Walky in a closet?

    1. Bagge

      Becky nuked it… there are no more closets

      1. DarkoNeko

        …where do they store their clothes now ? 😐

        1. Tacos

          Just pile them up on the floor.

        2. Bagge

          With their secret lesbian lovers. ( Or maybe that’s only Billie)

      2. saki

        So is Ethan hiding in a metaphorical bathroom instead?

    2. Chubsius

      Becky’s running interference to bail out Joyce before she flop sweats. Seriously, Joyce is failing at lying and Becky is providing distraction.

      1. Bagge

        God Point

  16. LeslieBean4Shizzle

    Good choice Becky! What with it also promoting coming out of the closet and all. Depending on interpretations of metaphors and all.

  17. Ashley

    At my Christian school a teacher recommended our parents don’t let us watch movies like Disney’s Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty because they all showed witchcraft.
    Thankfully most of the staff wasn’t that extreme but still…

    1. Adork

      That’s weird, Snow White actually shows a Princess praying. If they wanted to twist that around couldn’t they say that the good princess with her prayers and faith prevailed over the evil one? And there’s the apple thing to consider.

      At least I think so I haven’t watched that movie in ages.

      1. StrawGirl

        My old church banned Disney movies for a while, so I had to be really, really careful about not mentioning them and our frequent Disney trips.

        And yes, I could definitely see a lesson there, if someone would be willing to sit and talk to a kid about it.

        As for the apple thing, my Master’s thesis just got officially posted, and it kind of handles that topic. :3 I realized the similarities between Snow White’s story and things from Paradise Lost and the Seven Deadly Sins. It’s a poetry project that handles the perspectives of Snow White and the Wicked Queen (I named her Lilith, which will sound familiar if you know of Lilith from the Bible). There’s personal stuff tucked into the middle, but the majority of it tackles these ideas and hints at some of the relations between Man’s Original Sin and the story of Snow White.

        If you’re up for a read, then you can look at it here: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1506/

        It’s completely free–I am making no money linking it here! I just like sharing my work with people who I think might be interested in it. 🙂

        1. Disloyal Subject

          Neat.

        2. StrawGirl

          Thanks. 🙂 It’s my baby. :3

        3. Bagge

          Nice use of text composition.

        4. StrawGirl

          Thank you! I worked really hard to make sure that each poem was unique in its own way. :3

        5. Inspector Hound

          Minor quibble: Lillith is not from the Bible. There’s folklore, but the version we know comes from a text that also “… satirically dealt with flatulence, incest, and masturbation.” (Wikipedia article on “Alphabet of Sirach”).

        6. StrawGirl

          Oops! Thanks! I changed her name pretty late in the game (I was working on it for over a year), and I’d seen something about Lilith when I was trying to pick a new name and just rolled with it. I never got around to looking for more details because I knew it had enough connotations that people would get the sense that there were some Biblical things going on.

          Thank you for pointing that out!

        7. Ashley

          Oh, I am gonna read this! 😀 It looks awesome. Maguire (author of Wicked) also did a take on Snow White called Mirror Mirror with the Borgias and the Apple being important parts of it. It’s not a great book but you may enjoy it or at least find it interesting. 🙂

        8. StrawGirl

          Aww, thank you~! I do love Gregory Maguire! 😀 And I either read it ages ago, or it’s on my “to-read” list. X3 Thanks for the recommendation! And I really hope you enjoy my work. 🙂

      2. Ashley

        I think “making sense” is the last thing in these people’s minds when they censor things. One of my teachers actually banned all Santa Claus images from his classroom because he didn’t want us thinking Christmas was about anything other than the birth of Christ. 😛

  18. Bagge

    Got a problem with bossy authority figures, Amber?

    1. saki

      Given her family background that’s actually very likely he case.

      Also Ruth is standing way too close for comfort. From the viewpoint of a shut-in anyway.

  19. Sgore

    Only the best college parties turn into a Pixar movie marathons.
    That is what’s about to happen here, yes?

    No more drama or hurt feelings? Everyone just sits down and watches Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. and stays friends forever?

    Please say yes.

    1. Bat

      Joyce: I love Finding Nemo. Its a great story of how a father goes to save his son.
      Dina: Is not the father going because of reproductive reasons? After all in the absence of a female a male clown fish will (Dina gets tackled by Amber).
      Joyce: What happens?
      Ruth: *snickers and whispers into Joyce’s ear*
      Joyce: *Deafening Silence*
      Ruth: I love creating more drama.

      1. Kelly

        Oh, man. That aspect of clownfish biology is always a great addition to that movie.

  20. Idon'tcarenomore

    Didn’t Ruth throw Amber across the room when she called the first Dorm meeting to intro. herself?

    1. Captain Batson

      No, she threw Billie.

      1. tim gueguen

        Leading to FAAACE!

  21. Idon'tcarenomore

    Ah right.

  22. Yumi

    Remember when Frozen wasn’t everywhere because I don’t.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      I do. It was nice.
      On the other hand, if it wasn’t everywhere I probably never would’ve seen it, and I loved that movie.

  23. Wonder Wig

    I remember back in the day when my elementary school teacher said, “Okay, if everyone takes these permission slips home and gets signatures then we can watch a single PG-13 movie.” Well we got them signed and ended up watching some crappy forgettable movie, and it was only after I got home that I realized I could’ve brought Star Wars to class.

    1. BenRG

      I’m still trying to work out why one of my high school teachers though that ‘Secret of My Success’ was likely to even remotely interest a class full of 16-year-olds…

  24. Idon'tcarenomore

    Trying to think what in particular is causing the ‘if looks could kill’ stare of Amber to Ruth?

    1. BenRG

      “Go Ahead Bullygirl… Let the mask slip… Give me an excuse… No! Bad Amber! No letting Amazi-Girl out tonight!

  25. Khaner

    No Werner Herzog? But how will they learn that life is a meaningless void?

  26. Kraken

    Who’s got two thumbs and is making the same pose as the creator does in his gravatar?

    Becky!

    1. DarkoNeko

      …this kinda need to become a meme now.

    2. saki

      Holy hell how did I not notice that?! 😀

  27. gkheyf

    wait…when is this set again? and for that matter, when did frozen happen?

    1. AY

      From the About:
      “7) Dumbing of Age is not set in any particular year. I only say this because every time some pop culture reference shows up, someone is all “OH HEY HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE AREN’T WE STILL IN 2010???” No. We are not. The comic moves slow, but it operates on comic book time. This webcomic is not gradually going to become a period piece. (Also I don’t ever plan for the story to reach sophomore year, so you can stop worrying we’re not ever going to get there.)”

      1. gkheyf

        within a minute of posting this, i remembered that. i re-read the faq, and i return contrite. i wish to revise my comment to ‘so, what’s frozen about again?’

        1. Chrissy

          It’s about two sisters who become orphans and one is magic and can make ice and snow. It’s a coming of age for both of them, sort of, even though they’re both probably 16+. They learn about life and love and mostly sing catchy show tunes

        2. cynthash

          Elsa is 21 and Anna is 18, in the movie.

        3. Chrissy

          I like that! I just assumed they were younger because all the Disney princesses whose ages I knew were like 12-16, but after seeing your comment I looked it up and apparently a lot of them are 17+, which I think is more appropriate given that most of them are basically about to get married by the end of the movie.

        4. Disloyal Subject

          Is that official, or fanon?

        5. drs

          I forget what the movie specified, but the screenplay gives those ages.

        6. Disloyal Subject

          Also, they’re princesses and their region’s sole surviving royals, so there’s some leadership and responsibility lessons involved too.

        7. fogel

          Kind of like Roman Holiday?

    2. Plasma Mongoose

      It’s easier to think of DoA as being set in the year 20XX.

      1. Screwball

        Year 2XXX; Dumbing of Age; The Graduation…

    3. Chrissy

      This strip is set today, 6/24/15, and tomorrow’s strip is set 6/25/15, etc etc, with a little wiggle room. That way Willis isn’t locked in to only making increasingly dated references to… What, 2004?

      1. Chrissy

        Whoops shoulda refreshed before posting!

    4. Tunaro

      Generally speaking, it’s set “Right About Now-ish.”

  28. Keroshino

    Becky isn’t wrong…Dina is most adorable!!!

  29. Just A. Thinker

    Does anyone remember if Joyce has seen Frozen yet?

    1. DarkoNeko

      Chances are that nope.

      1. saki

        Chances are she hasn’t seen most animated movies. THIS CALLS FOR A MARATHON! 😀

        1. Screwball

          Yes, bring forth….THE ANIME!!!! We shall show her the greatness of Japanese animation, or fry her mind in the process. If mind-rape is the intent tho, we could always start with original-series Neon Genesis Evangelion…

          3:D

        2. saki

          Actually, by animated movies I meant all of the Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks etc kids movies. XD I think the cultural shock with anime would be too much for Joyce and Becky at this point. XD

  30. boomwolf

    I think the main reason I dislike Frozen (dislike is being very very generous) is that everything bad that happens in the movie is essentially Anna’s fault.

    1. Adork

      I dislike that once the hype wears down it’s somewhat average for a Disney princess film with a minor change. It’s a good movie but over hyped, tired of seeing Frozen stuff everywhere even so many years later, and that we have an incest fandom grasping at the slightest thing to justify their ship.

      1. cynthash

        I think you mean wincest fandom. 😀

        1. Kelly

          No, that term is for the Winchester brothers in Supernatural these days 😛

      2. drs

        As a movie it’s okay, could have used another 15-30 for fleshing things out (but I don’t know if Disney’s good at fleshing those things out.)

        As a musical it’s pretty awesome. Also it spawned a great “Honest Trailers” review, I nearly died laughing after watching that.

        Tangled was a decent movie and a forgettable musical.

    2. Chrissy

      The reason I dislike frozen is that it had so, so much potential to be an amazing, expansive story but it felt rushed and thrown together and pushed along… The conflict between the sisters was amped up in a really artificial and character-breaking way. A character motivated by love and a misguided protective instinct would not sicc a snow beast on their loved one.

      1. timemonkey

        Only if you assume the snow beast was actually going to hurt them. It doesn’t, it just dumps them outside, then picks them up and yells. Anna panics and cuts the rope dropping them. But when Marshmallow gets genuinely hostile it’s much different.

    3. saki

      I really liked Frozen, though probably more for everything I saw it could be than for what it turned out to be (yes, I’m the crazy person who likes something’s potential rather than the thing itself). I really enjoyed the songs, especially the puns in In Summer – seriously, I don’t think any pun has ever made me laugh as much as the puddle thing.
      It does have lots of flaws though, the main of it boiling down to – it was rushed. Plotwise, but also animation-wise. I mean, Elsa, Anna and their mother’s face have the exact same shape, what’s that about? And then there’s the villain. I don’t think this story really needed a villain. There are ways they could have had all the tension and worry and [spoiler alert] Anna almost dying without a villain, and just by exploiting Elsa’s insecurities and unstable powers. But I guess every movie aimed at kids needs its villain…
      The things that bother me most about it though is that part of the fanbase hailing it as some cornerstone of feminist Disney or whatever, 4 years after The Princess And The Frog and THIRTEEN years after freaking Mulan. But that’s not the movie’s fault.

      1. Regalli

        Yeah, I don’t mind it but I feel like the pacing seems to have suffered from long production time in a way Tangled really didn’t (Fixer Upper’s place and status as last song feel like if you took The Lion King and put Hakuna Matata in when Simba decides he needs to go back and fight Scar. Or, to be less hypothetical, it’s “A Guy Like You” in Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is just SO badly timed, and the fact that there’s not even a last reprise or two for any of the other songs means you’re leaving on the weakest song in the film.)

        And I really, really wish they could have included the female supporting cast of HCA’s The Ice Queen.

        But honestly, like, it’s a totally competent Disney film to me. Not the greatest, but certainly far from the worst. I’m just annoyed that I can’t go to a freakin’ dollar store without running into Frozen merchandise.

        1. saki

          That’s right, I completely forgot Fixer Upper is the last song! That’s just… wrong. They really ought to have added a reprise at the end. With some luck (read: lots and lots of luck), they’ll do a better job with the sequel. Maybe. I’m hoping.
          Oh, something I forgot to mention; for once, the couple that gets the love song duo doesn’t actually end up together, I thought that was kind of cool. :3

          I have to admit I have not read Andersen’s Ice Queen (yet). I hadn’t even heard of it until Frozen. (Andersen’s works aren’t all that known in my region, I guess).

          Yes, I completely agree. 🙂

        2. David M Willis

          fffft, “love is an open door” isn’t the love song, it’s the villain song

        3. Bagge

          I like Olaf. His nose is a carrot.

        4. Spencer

          Why do you have to be such a Fake Frozen Fan, Bagge? You’re ruining it for the Brozens!

  31. John

    Hmm. Maybe Amber’s considering whether Ruth’s abuse of authority is worthy of Amazi-retribution?

    Oh, and I was updating my timeline earlier, and realized that Dorothy’s current drunkenness is Danny’s fault.

    1. Jones

      While Danny being a fool was an impetus to making the decision, it was ultimately Dorothy’s decision, and Danny can’t be faulted for danning this one up.

    2. Spencer

      I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much a stretch to blame Danny for something that wasn’t his fault. Not since “Danny is to blame for Amber lying to him and inserting herself into his day with his parents!” anyway.

      Besides that, it’s a repeat of an earlier joke where Joyce wants to watch Hymmal with her, whereupon Dorothy says she’s going to consider drinking.

      1. Bagge

        So it’s Walky’s fault then, for being so good at portraying a cute little mouse boy that Joyce had a crush on him that she decided to bring her tapes with her to college, so she talked about them with Dorothy and Dorothy decided to drink.

        It all makes sense now.

        1. Rich

          This is wandering into Chaos Theory territory. Blame the butterfly, why don’t you?

        2. Spencer

          Somehow Danny is that butterfly.

  32. insomniac

    This might be a good idea–could just drive Ruth away with g-rated movies!

    I wonder just how autobiographical this one is.

    1. Leorale

      Yes, Ruth’s fatal weaknesses: boredom and catchy show tunes! (Also, depression, trucks.)

      1. DarkoNeko

        …alcohol

        1. Disloyal Subject

          Buxom half-asian alcoholics.

        2. fogel

          Or half cauc.

    2. saki

      I know “driving someone away” is a common expression in English, but as someone who’s not an English native… well my first thoughts were “Ruth driving somewhere after a party sounds like such a bad idea”.

    3. Tacos

      I don’t know. It’d be kinda funny if she becomes engrossed in the movies. Just picture Ruth watching Frozen and spending the rest of the day singing Let It Go.

      1. saki

        I don’t know, I think Ruth’s more the Do you wanna build a snowman type… Either way, that would be a sight to see. XD

  33. caesaria82

    Can’t wait for Joyce to freeze the entire kingdom, then flee, then for Becky to get her back with sisterly love and a talking snowman and then in the end both of them reigning together over vaguely Scandinavia!

    1. gkheyf

      thank you, this answers my prior question perfectly and succinctly 🙂

      1. caesaria82

        There were also some boys involved and trolls and a reindeer, but it’s allllll about the ladies, really 😉

        1. fogel

          So, essentially, the boys, trolls, and reindeer are interchangeable?

        2. drs

          Boys are icky or try to kill you. It’s the perfect movie for these two!

    2. FinalOwen

      I’d have thought Becky would be the Elsa of the story. Running away from home to a place where they can openly be themselves, restyling their look to fit, etc. Joyce is presumably Anna, the well-meaning hero of the story who wants to help her sister/best friend.

      Hans is definitely Ryan.

      1. caesaria82

        You gave this way more thought than me, I just based it on hair color xD

      2. Bagge

        Personalitywise they are both Anna. Walky too

        1. caesaria82

          Maybe Sal is Elsa? Or Billie? Dorothy is Kristoff. Maybe Walky can be Olaf, even though even just typing that makes me feel bad xD
          No one is Hans because Hans is the worst. Not Blaine or Ryan levels of worst, but pretty worst.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Sarah seems like our best fit for Elsa, though I’m probably overlooking others.
          Big sister.

        3. Li

          Totally Sal, they share a glove fixation

        4. fogel

          Hans Gruber?

        5. caesaria82

          Hans OfTheSouthernIsles. That’s his name. Don’t ask 😉

        6. saki

          I want fanart of this. ._.

  34. Wack'd

    Man, given Joyce’s past romantic experience–and in fact the entire reason a dorm party was needed–showing Joyce a movie which contains Hans might not’ve been the best idea.

    1. JessWitt

      Oh god, Ryan is the DoA’s Hans. Which would make Ethan a pseudo-Kristoff?

    2. DarkoNeko

      Having never watched Frozen, I’m suddenly going “uh oh” ?

    3. Leorale

      Or she’ll be able to relate in a safe environment. And I think Hans gets face-punched off of a boat.

      Luckily, I don’t think Willis will really want to draw the comics version of Frozen.

    4. feli

      Everything is good in the end and Hans gets what he deserves from the women himself. So, might be good for Joyce?

  35. Bibulb

    I assume that the real danger here is that Joel shows up and starts singing along.

    1. Bat

      But is he as good a singer as Hans?

    2. Kelly

      Joel? Like MST3K Joel? Or David’s friend Joel Watson of Sharksplode and Hijinks Ensue?

      1. caesaria82

        I assume the latter if their bro-off on twitter currently is anything to go by 😉

  36. Tacos

    I like how Joyce and Becky have quickly gone from essentially, “Oh noes! Ruthless!” to, “Ooh! Movies!”

    1. Bagge

      They are kinda hyper like that (and it’s adorable).

      Also, it’s the single best thing they can do to throw off suspicion. Acting normally not acting “what we imagine normal might look like”

      1. saki

        Then again, would Joyce and Becky even know what normal looks like in the non-fundie world?

  37. Romanticide

    Sometimes I wonder how Joyce even managed to see twilight… but I guess parents vigilance can only go that far…

    1. tim gueguen

      I don’t what would be worse for them, that it’s a romance between a teen girl and a 100 some year old vampire, or that it was written by a Mormon. Then again maybe they’d be pissed off the romance was a ripoff of Buffy and Angel’s.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        If Bella had as many kills under her belt as Buffy, Twilight would have been a very different story.

      2. Li

        Willis indicated that Mormon author was “close enough” for Joyce’s parents, despite that Joyce clearly wigged out a little meeting one in person.

        Also Joyce’s parents DEFINITELY avoided Buffy. Like the plague.

        1. drs

          Giles calls the Bible wrong in the second episode. “This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons walked the Earth.”

        2. Li

          Yep.

          I mean the show is VERY LOOSELY positive on the Powers That Be, but it explicitly rejects Christianity in some interesting ways.

          Crosses and holy water work, as does garlic (which is an old holy herb), but churches are not at all special. In the season four “Who Are You?”, a group of vampires holed up in a church and their leader comments that he doesn’t know what he’s been so afraid of because the church feels empty to him.

          I don’t know what the Buffyverse rationale for crosses and holy water and garlic working, but it might be simply that these artifacts are a form of magic; after all, in actual Wicca practice, it’s frequently explained that spells are like prayers, so why not vice versa?

          But Buffy would get no points for being BASICALLY positive on religion, not from Joyce’s fundamentalist patents. It needs to explicitly embrace the Biblical God if it’s going to mention God at all. (They would probably have fewer issues with Supernatural, which is VERY Biblical in many places, with its explicit Angels and Demons, with Lucifer and Metatron; with a Christian God who is totes more powerful than those silly “old” gods! (I hated that part of SPN.) But since SPN also portrays God as absent, it’d lose points again.)

        3. drs

          The Powers That Be were more of an “Angel” thing than a “Buffy” thing. The examples of the greater powers on “Buffy” were Glorificus (described explicitly as a god) and D’Hoffran (Anya’s boss) (or heck, Anya herself.) The latter was from “the lower planes” (or dimensions) which suggests higher ones, but no more than suggestion. Bit of a miracle snowstorm saving Angel from his attempted suicide by sunlight, but never explicit; I think Jasmine took credit for it on “Angel”. And she was a rogue Power IIRC, out to actively spread peace and love by brainwashing and the globally minor bit of human consumption. Dead Buffy seems to have been in a heaven but that’s Christian-compatible more than explicitly Christian. (And maybe not that compatible with Joyce’s parents, given that Buffy lived pretty much indistinguishably from an atheist.)

          Don’t remember Buffyvamps caring about garlic. Anyway, even your link says it was magic more than holy, certainly isn’t Christian-holy. And yeah, I headcanoned that crosses affect vampires because Reasons, and Christianity lucked into the cross or deliberately adopted it as an anti-vampire measure. Or things got very confused… Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus was a vampire, crosses repel/hurt/kill vampires, Jesus died on a cross, Jesus gives eternal life. 🙂

          IIRC that vampire who sneered at the church found that a cross still burned him on contact.

        4. Li

          Garlic was NEVER Christian holy, but it was held holy by other religious beliefs, which Buffy made equally as valid (or invalid, depending o your point of view).

          If you go back to early seasons, you’ll see a few times where garlic is used specifically. I believe it’s part of the attempts to keep Angelus out of Buffy’s room until the de-invitation spell can be performed (strung up around the window along with crosses), but don’t hold me to that. It’s definitely shown rather than told.

          You’d think it would get use more often, but maybe garlic needs to be blessed in some way the same way holy water does. (And it’s not like Buffy makes a lot of use of crosses, herself. She doesn’t even always seem to wear them, and they’ve failed to be enough protection from determined vampires before.) (Probably doesn’t help that they seem to be very proximity based, and somewhat strength-of-vampire-to-resist based. A cross around your neck doesn’t protect your wrists from being bitten, for example.)

          And yeah, I mean, crosses still burn, but I thought it was interesting that the church itself was powerless. And that’s where the inconsistency, such as it is, lies. (The mad vampire who was Buffy’s 18th birthday test endured and even seemed to enjoy the cross burning, but it wasn’t that it didn’t burn him. He was just masochistic.)

        5. timemonkey

          The cross was a symbol of the sun. Naturally this would have problems for vampires.

          The show is pretty subtle about it but the overall feeling is that God as the bible depicts him is purely fictional. There are gods, some good some bad, and powerful forces for good, even entire heavenly dimensions. But no one true GOD.

        6. Li

          I like this explanation, though that still leaves holy water as a question mark.

          Overall I agree with you, though, I just also think of stuff like “Buffy thinks she was in Heaven”. The show gives you an out, that it might be a heaven dimension in the same way that Angel went to a hell dimension. And Buffy says nothing overtly religious about it, for sure.

          I’m basically trying to say, I think Buffy could be somewhat compatible with spirituality, but not with fundamentalism. No one who’s attached to the literal Bible, or even a traditional image of God, would feel like Buffy gelled with their beliefs. I do think Joss played a little fast and loose with it, as he did with the show’s mythology in general. Some parts of it work a lot better when taken as a whole than other parts do, as a result of changing and evolving ideas, and a lack of preplanned mythology.

          I mean one example is that the Hellmouth is only even as specific as it is because the WB execs were really keen on it and wanted more information than the fuzzy stuff Joss had planned. (This is per him, on a DVD commentary.) Some writers plan everything out ahead of time, some writers fly by the seat of their pants a little more. Joss was always more focused on the characters than the internal consistency of his setting, and sometimes it shows.

      3. Screwball

        The Twilight Saga, a series of books then made into movies about a girl deciding between necrophilia or bestiality, choosing necrophilia, apparently somehow spawning a child that then chooses bestiality, according to people who have tried getting me to read them/see the movies. They didn’t use those exact terms, but when you strip it down to bare facts…

    2. saki

      Maybe they like the “no premarital hanky-panky” message it has?

  38. zach

    The first R rated thing I saw was Plague Dogs, And I swear I saw an R rating on an episode of Gumby.

    Don’t tell me those don’t count! The big dog god talked the little, schizophrenic dog into swimming into the sea, saying that they were swimming to paradise, because he new death would be kinder to them than going back to the labs.

    Does starting the book Flowers in the Attic count?

    “Mommy, what happens next?!”
    ‘…Lets read something else, sweaty.’

    1. zach

      In the Gumby in question, the Blockheads kidnap Horsy and abuse him so that they can harvest his tears.

      And no, it wasn’t Dog God bringing the dog to paradise, just his friend being kind.

    2. Bagge

      Yeah, I was a big fan of the “Watership down” book and saw the movie in young age…

      yeah… “Sleep tight, sweetie, and don’t think of little rabbits suffocating, OK”

      On the other hand, I read the plague dogs when I was 17 which was the perfect age for morbid stuff.

    3. Adork

      Whenever someone does that ‘cartoons are for kids’ thing to me I always suggest that they watch the first five minutes of Plague Dogs. Once I was really pissed off that someone said that to me then later ask that I suggest something for their family night. I really don’t know why they listened given the title.

  39. Jason

    I didn’t grow up with movies… I can’t join in this conversation. 🙁

    I haven’t seen Frosen either. Some of the things I’ve read about it, particularly compared to the source material, have made me reluctant.

    1. zach

      You mean like how a piece of ice in the eye means you can no longer see beauty, and a piece in the heart means you can no longer love, and effectively loose your soul?

      Namesake comic has a lot of good fables referenced, and explained in it’s comments section.

      Many movies, when I look back on them, were clearly dumbed down for kids. Like Alice in Wonderland, or The Golden Compass.

    2. Hors Service

      Honestly, I think it’s better to consider Disney versions as inspired by fairy tales and legends rather than direct adapations from them.

      And sometimes, good adaptations makes for bad movies 🙂

    3. Disloyal Subject

      I expected it to be awful, but it floored me. I suggest you give it a shot.

  40. Nonagon

    This one had me in stitches and I’m not even sure why. It’s just the perfect blend of words and facial expressions.

    Amber’s expression got me wondering about how she actually sees Ruth. She’s one of exactly two people that Ruth’s made an effort to be nice to, which puts them on better terms than most of the floor. A kind of spiritual rival, maybe? “No, using your aggression from an abusive father figure to maintain order by beating people up and instilling fear is only acceptable when *I* do it.”

  41. Nono

    I wonder if The Incredibles was given the green light. I mean, it’s a movie about the importance of family, right?

    1. Kelly

      Only Jesus can have superpowers!

      1. Michael Steamweed

        So this comic would be acceptable? 🙂
        http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3776

  42. Leona

    Spidey senses tingling…
    Anyone else thinks Ruth now knows Becky was on the loose and joined in to keep watch till her dad or cops show up? Joyce’s mom could’ve asked the school to check since she was evasive on the phone earlier.

    1. Kelly

      Not totally sure what Ruth would do if she knew about Becky, but given her relationship with her… do we know who “sir” was on that phone call?

      Anyway, point is, I think she might have some sympathy for someone with a terrible authority figure in their life.

      1. Someone

        Sir was her grandfather (I think)

    2. DarkoNeko

      …nope nope nope.

  43. Glitchmebaby

    Tangled would be perfect for this. <3

    1. JessWitt

      I have yet to see that one. Saw Frozen after all the hype, felt underwhelmed.

      1. Kitty

        I felt the same way about Frozen, but I loved Tangled.

        1. JessWitt

          I’ll get around to Tangled someday I hope.

        2. timemonkey

          Before you watch Tangled ask yourself this question ‘how much does watching a realistic depiction of emotional abuse bother me’. If the answer is a lot then you should probably just skip it.

  44. Mr. Mendo

    You know, sometimes I think Joyce’s church is just making things up as they go along. After all, doesn’t the Bible say to reject your parents if they’re not righteous, or something?

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Perhaps, but since they’re oh-so-righteous, they can’t go letting their kids question them.

    2. saki

      “Making things up as they go along” is pretty much how I understand all fundamentalists roll.

  45. Aegon01

    Dave, do you write the alt-text when you draw the comic, or do you put it in when it uploads? Just curious.

  46. thebatman22

    Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope

  47. Ozzi

    Two points:

    1) Darth Wilis seriously isnt that evil to get the rights to Frozen and then re-enact it in the comicbook form……

    2) In College in the UK, so 16-17 year olds, we convinced our English lit teacher that Dusk til Dawn was rated at 15 and not a 18/R rated movie. It was delightfully hilarious.

  48. Someone

    Could Becky refuse to go with her dad? She’s 18, the school can kick her out but it’s not like her father owns her

    1. Leorale

      Legally, I think that taking somebody to your house against their will counts as kidnapping. But there’s no chance that Toedad will see it that way. Becky might want to look into getting an order of protection (restraining order) so that she’ll have a cop-obvious paper trail if/when he shows up.

      1. Leorale

        Actually, would that fly in Indiana? I mean, I know that the cast is about as likely to seek sound legal counsel as they are to get themselves some therapy, but now I’m curious.

    2. Spencer

      Becky is a legal adult, therefore any attempt by Toedad to take her anywhere against her will is basically kidnapping. If he knew his daughter was hiding with Joyce, he’ll probably alert campus authorities and try to maneuver Becky back home.

  49. 6Qubed

    They’re all cartoon movies, mostly princess movies.

    Brave is anti-marriage and encourages disobedience towards parents.
    Beauty and the Beast promotes female agency, literacy.
    Tangled promotes witchcraft somehow.
    Wall-E is full of robots, and robots=science=THE DEVIL
    Mary Poppins has a woman as a messianic figure (and that’s just crazy talk)
    Shrek has fart jokes.
    The Land Before Time has dinosaurs which are not in the bible.
    Mulan features “the orientals” as literally anything other than those people we fought in that war that one time.
    not even sure what’s wrong with Alice in Wonderland exactly but I’ll know it when I see it.

    (I think I need to lie down now, as attempting to think like one of those yahoos was unpleasant.)

    1. JessWitt

      Alice in Wonderland is drug-related.

      1. Jen

        Alice in Wonderland is actually math related. Lewis Carroll (i.e. Charles Dodgson) was a professor and really hated the new abstract mathematics, which he felt made no sense — he preferred Euclidean geometry and traditional math.

        “So why is a raven like a writing desk? Because the new mathematics didn’t make sense to Carroll. “Lots of things that every common-sense person would say are different in this new mathematics turned out to be the same,” Devlin says — a point Carroll found ripe for satire.”

        http://io9.com/5907235/a-math-free-guide-to-the-math-of-alice-in-wonderland

        http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124632317

        http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07bayley.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

        1. Roborat

          So his drug use had nothing to do with the story?

        2. Jen

          As far as historians have been able to determine, he didn’t use drugs.

          “Can Lewis Carroll’s creativity and writings be explained by any possible drug use, epilepsy, migraines, or other mind-altering circumstance?
          In brief: no, no, no, and no. Based on all evidence unearthed to date, unless you count the occasional use of an over-the counter homeopathic remedy, Lewis Carroll was not a drug user.”

          http://www.lewiscarroll.org/faq/

          “The drug link is a homespun thing. You’ll find it on a host of random forums.
          But the experts are usually sceptical. Carroll wasn’t thought to have been a recreational user of opium or laudanum, and the references may say more about the people making them than the author.”

          http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19254839

    2. Bagge

      Ooooh, Becky and Dina needs to see The Land Before Time

      1. Disloyal Subject

        THIS
        BY THE EMPEROR, THIS

        1. Rich

          Your screen name makes me question the sincerity of oaths taken to the Emperor, somehow. 🙂

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Erm… The disloyalty originally referred to the nonhuman Princesses of a certain magical land. But yeah, Emps was a prick.

      2. Li

        Idk, the technical inaccuracies might bother Dina even more than in Jurassic Park. JP at least knew dinosaurs were warm-blooded and agile; TLBT was very firmly in the “slow moving reptile” camp with the way it portrays any dinosaurs that aren’t the kids.

        Also, INCREDIBLY DEPRESSING for a date movie. At least The Lion King has catchy songs and a romance after the lingering scene of tragic parental death.

        1. timemonkey

          But the Lion King has pre-marital hanky panky! Seriously, Sumba and Nalla totally banged during Can You Feel The Love Tonight, it’s cannon!

        2. Li

          They’re also half-siblings, but that detail didn’t actually make it directly on film either. (I mean, the alternative is that Scar is her father, so they’re cousins at BEST. And with Scar’s attitude, there is absolutely no way he was fathering cubs before Mufasa died, which is only one of many reasons why TLK2 is terrible, though I guess you could probably argue all those lions sprung up after Mufasa died.) (Anyway.)

          I don’t know whether TLK would scandalize Joyce, since none of the characters are human. :|a But I was suggesting it for Dina and Becky, not Joyce, and I think Becky would be okay with it….

          …..but mostly it’s just the only Disney film that sprung to mind with a scene of lingering parental death.

        3. Li

          (Plus in the musical, Scar wants to mack on Nala, so… probably better that Nala and Simba are half-siblings than that her dad wants to boink.)

        4. Kelly

          I was like 6 or 7 when The Land Before Time came out and I hated it for it’s inaccuracies *then*. And the terrible terrible names. I could pronounce every one of the real names correctly well before that age, there was no need to dumb it down like that. The Land Before Time sucks.

        5. Li

          This is an excellent point that I had forgotten.

          Jurassic Park the book mentions it, as part of why book!Alan Grant loves kids. Even the smallest child knows those big long names, though many will forget them as they grow up if they lose interest in dinosaurs.

          But yeah the target audience of kids who went to see TLBT were not the people who needed those nicknames. It was the parents, if anyone.

        6. 6Qubed

          …this was not the place I was expecting my post to end up at

        7. Greenygal

          I dunno, it seems reasonable to me to use the nicknames not because the kids need them, but because it’s weird for the dinosaurs to call themselves by names that humans made up millions of years later.

          On the other hand, it’s also weird that the dinosaurs speak English, so this isn’t a point I’m prepared to defend to the death or anything.

        8. Disloyal Subject

          Fair enough, but I was rather fond of it anyway; it’s not like they called any sauropods “brontosaurs.” It was cute and had some decent conflicts to drive the story, violent and otherwise, so I liked it. I’m not too picky about scientific accuracy in animation, and even so they did reasonably well.
          Rose-colored glasses may be in effect here, but I was a stickler for details of things I cared about, and Mesozoic reptiles topped that list.

      3. Roborat

        That is what I was going to suggest, watch this movie series, just to watch Dina’s head explode.

        1. Disloyal Subject

          She tolerates Jurassic Park’s inaccuracies in the name of fun, despite her refusal to endorse it.

    3. Captain Batson

      Alice in Wonderland depicts children interacting with other cultures.

  50. StrawGirl

    This is me posting to be a snot about spelling. It should be “freshmen” with an “e” instead of “a,” because “freshman” is singular. That is all. (And now we return to your regularly scheduled fun.)

    1. leadsynth

      Yep. We’ve found a rare David Willis grammatical error.

  51. Arianod

    Would ‘t that be “freshmen”, though?

    1. Arianod

      (Damn, StrawGirl beat me to it)

  52. KSClaw

    Why not something more classic, like Beauty and the Beast? I can see someone having objections to that, considering how there’s magic involved.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      For starters, Frozen is so present in the current public consciousness that Becky’s pretty much guaranteed to’ve heard of it.

    2. saki

      I love how people mention the magic in Beauty & The Beast but not the (not-so-)underlying zoophilia. But people are furniture, let’s worry about that.

      (Not that I didn’t love Beauty and The Beast as a kid. It’s just a bit weird when you think about it.)

      1. Adork

        The weird thing is Beauty and the Beast just might be Disney Princess movie with the longest “dating period” before they married. Mulan might contend with it but he didn’t know that she was a woman, not sure how much time passed between both movies, and some would argue that Mulan is not a princess.

        1. Li

          The people who argue Mulan isn’t a Disney Princess aren’t worth mentioning. (She’s in the freaking toy line. Stop being racist asshats.)

        2. timemonkey

          Saying Mulan isn’t a princess isn’t racist, it’s a fact. She’s not royalty, at all. She’s in the line because she’s a popular character and they didn’t feel like renaming the line.

        3. Rich

          There’s a difference between being a Disney Princess (note the capital P) and just a plain old regular princess. The former category has no genealogical requirements, is solely dictated by Disney marketing, and includes two characters (Mulan and Pocahontas) who are not royalty, and therefore not small-p princesses. Being a mere princess is nothing special, it’s just an accident of birth or the result of matrimony and even the real world still has an awful lot of them – hundreds at least, maybe thousands depending on how you define royalty. “Disney Princess” is a far more exclusive title. Mulan is very definitely part of that club, as is Pocahontas – and both of them are part of the original lineup of the franchise (which started in the early 2000s), so there’s no question of them “renaming” the line for them. They’ve been there since day one.

        4. Spencer

          I feel like there’s two different arguments going on.

          Mulan is not a Disney princess, in that she is not a member of royalty.

          Mulan is a Disney Princess, in that she’s in the merchandise line with the other women who are mostly all princesses and that’s the name of the brand. This has nothing to do with her royalty.

        5. timemonkey

          Yes, exactly.

        6. Li

          If you agree with that, timemonkey, why were you arguing with me? I both meant and said Big P Princess. And there are plenty of people trying to exclude both Mulan and Pocahontas from that, with the inane argument that they’re not “real” princesses. They’re supposedly not as good of people as Cinderella and Snow White and Belle.

          I will add that I think part of why this argument happens at all is Kingdom Hearts, which took the Disney Princess line and made some bizarre alterations to it, then tried to say these princesses have pure hearts. (They include Alice, but not Mulan.)

        7. Spencer

          On the plus side, she got to be a party member where no other Disney princess has so far, except Ariel. There’s even specific emphasis placed on her becoming more powerful and confident when she stops pretending to be a man.

          That, and Kingdom Hearts 3 is confirmed to feature a Tangled world with Rapunzel as a party member.

        8. Li

          Honestly, The Land of Dragons was… maybe my LEAST favorite of the KHII worlds, which is saying something. Like, I enjoyed the idea of Mulan as a party member, and she was effective in a fight, but while Sora always helps out I felt like he did everything for Mulan, and KH’s version of her was a lot more in need of help. (By contrast, I loved the way Sora’s intervention in the Pridelands was handled.)

          Pirates of the Caribbean I also hated intensely, but mostly because it was just super boring. Movie rehashing with almost no changes, except for that weird beat where Will betrayed Jack at zero provocation.

        9. Li

          I think there’s actually an argument to be made about Pocahontas, since she’s the daughter of her tribe’s chieftain, and effectively “royalty” in that sense.

          I mean, apart from where I think Disney made some kind of official statement a decade or so back that Disney Princesses are more about being a good person than being any kind of royalty, it is a bit unnecessarily exclusionary (and nonsensical) to claim that only the European type of princess should count.

          Mulan and Esmeralda are explicitly not princesses, so much as common women. (Mulan, like Cinderella, seems to belong to a noble or otherwise “middle class” family, though. Esmeralda is just plain living in poverty due to racism and religious intolerance and all the other factors tied up in discrimination against Romani people.) But Pocahontas is none of these things. She’s not an ordinary daughter, and her responsibility to marry well so that her tribe will have a strong leader is not dissimilar from Jasmine’s responsibility to marry.

          And I mean if Nala were human I think you might have to include her in the princess category too.

          Still not women like Jane, who I think should be a Disney Princess, but I really don’t see much reason to exclude Pocahontas.

        10. Kreepy

          Technically Ariel isn’t human, and the animals are just as sentient as the other princesses. My favourite Disney Princess would be Terk, Tarzan’s gorilla cousin. She’s Kojak’s niece, and since he’s the leader that means she’s in the jungle equivalent of the royal family. Plus Terk is super awesome and, like the other Disney Princesses, she has mad skills in the musical department.

        11. saki

          In my head I like to think of Shang as bi/pan, so I totally count his time with Mulan pre-“Oh my god you’re a woman what the hell are you doing in the army” as a dating period. But that’s just my personal headcanon, haha. Apart from that, Pocahontas comes to mind. She didn’t even get married until the sequel (and to the wrong guy, too).

          As for the princess thing, I consider all Disney female leads as princesses, whether they have that rank (or their cultural equivalent) in-universe or not. :3

        12. Rich

          All Disney female leads? That’s awesomely inclusive, I heartily approve. Let’s see who that gives us to work with:

          Yvette Mimieux from the Black Hole? Angela Lansbury from Bedknobs & Broomsticks? Sandy Duncan from The Cat From Outer Space? Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl from Popeye? Michelle Trachtenberg as Penny from Inspector Gadget? Oooh, and the Hannah Montana movie must count too!

          You’ve made Miley Cyrus a Disney Princess! Yay!

        13. saki

          Oh hell. XD I’ve actually never seen Hannah Montana, haha.

          Though when I said Disney I was actually only thinking of the animated movies, but, oh well. XD

        14. timemonkey

          Have you ever seen the captioned pic series that shows Shang’s potential journey of discovering his sexuality during the movie? It’s hilarious.

        15. saki

          Yes, I have! It’s like one of my favourite meme-type things ever. XD

        16. Li

          I’d definitely like to count Jane, and Lilo. She had some growing up to do, but so what, come on, she has a great heart.

  53. BenRG

    Okay, I’m all for parents being sensible and protecting their kids from malign social influences until they have the maturity to deal with them but that is just silly! It also makes me feel uncomfortable; it has the feel of a power trip: That Joyce and Becky’s dads are more interested in having power of their daughters than raising them properly.

    Something tells me that tonight is going to teach Rose that, in fact, she doesn’t know the kids on her floor at all.

    Meanwhile… I just loved Joyce and Becky’s mutual triangular smiles! It just goes to remind you just how similar the two girls are and just how young in spirit they are!

    1. APersonAmI

      Yes. Unhealthy destructive power trips are indeed things that parents do.

      1. BenRG

        Any Christian parent who believes that they cannot make a mistake and clearly want to shut down any feedback from their children in advance are walking down a dangerous path that will ultimately end up with a disaster for their family.

        1. Kole

          It can and does happen constantly, even if it’s a horrible idea. My father raised us much the same way, and most of us have crippling social awkwardness because of it. I don’t really know how I was born bucking against the system the entire time, but most of my siblings have a hard time making decisions for themselves now. It’s really awful.

        2. APersonAmI

          I am sad to hear that you went through that, but happy to hear that you came out okay.

          I work a lot with kids and parents, and yeah, I have seen way too many people that did not come out okay, and I have held lectures where parents arrived drunk, asking how to educate away completely harmless or beneficial behaviors, especially anxiety relieving behaviors.

          parents tend to become extremely panicked when their child starts doing something that helps them cope when things becomes to much. While I can see how that would be worrying, what the hell do they expect forbidding these behaviors will do.

          But yeah, my parents fucked up raising me. My father beat me up and forbade me anxiety relieving behaviors because they were not normal enough for his taste, and my mother would get angry with me when I wasn’t feeling well, upset that her empathy made her sleep badly. Often were the mornings that would start with her screaming at me, angry at me for being ill or sick.

          Made it out okay though. I hope your siblings will learn to express themselves.

    2. saki

      There are tons of reasons why some parents have abusive behaviours, and obviously, not having studied psychology, I can only make speculations, but… I think one possible factor could be that, depending on your interpretation of the Bible, that’s exactly the kind of “parent” God is; he is never wrong, and you must always obey him and never question him or the consequences will be dire. Of course there are a lot of currents of Christianity (I’d like to think most) where God is loving and accepting, but the fundamentalists tend to only give the love to those who 100% conform to their own way of life. So yeah… Old Testament God? Not the best role-model for parents. Of course this is just a theory of mine concerning one of many possible factors for why some parents seem to think it’s okay to put their ego above their child’s well-being.

      1. BenRG

        The Bible is also very careful to stress that humans are nowhere near as smart as God and certainly not infallible. However, I’ve noticed that some people have this nasty tendency to only apply the bits that are convenient for them and ignore the bits that aren’t.

  54. Jenny Islander

    Ooooh, and Tangled promotes disobeying our Godly and wise parents, who after all just want what’s best for us! “Parents” in this case meaning “Mother Gothel.” This is an actual thing that I have read on the Internet.

    1. Amias

      I read this strip out loud for fun, and when I got to the last panel it flowed very smoothly into “oh my god, that’s exactly what my mom said about the Croods”

  55. CJ

    Wasn’t Frozen vorbidden to Joyce and Becky just because it is a Disney movie? Alison Bechdel has some of her DTWOF-characters joking about southern baptists boycotting Disney, though I never quite found out why.
    It is kind of funny how the perception of “dangerous films” or shows has changed. When I was in my teens, Charlie’s Angels was shown on German TV after nine (i.e at a time kids were supposed to be in bed), nowadays, it’s shown sometimes between 5 and 10 in the morning, where you have kids watching totally unsupervised.
    The first film I watched we’re I was supposed to be too young must have been Ben Hur….

  56. APersonAmI

    I liked Frozen. The incredibly inept parenting in it was extremely relatable.

    1. BenRG

      To me, Frozen had two lessons:

      1) There are more types of love in this world than romantic love; it isn’t even the strongest form of love!

      2) If parents become so afraid of their child that they can’t even raise her in anything other than prison-like isolation, something has gone horribly and irretrievably wrong.

      1. APersonAmI

        I agree, strongly, on both counts. Additional awesome things about Frozen, in my opinion:

        – The act of true love that cures Anna is her own, enforcing the idea that love is not something that happens to women, it is something that happens with them.
        – Anna’s need to marry and find “the one” was born out of her loneliness. Once her relationship with her sister is repaired she does not immediately wed Kristoff, instead their relationship seems romantic, but much less desperate, born out of mutual interest rather than lacking sense of self-worth.
        – Kristoff expresses that he wants to kiss Anna, and then waits for her to respond. Good manners.
        – The Fixer Upper song, basically. People don’t change, but being with the people you care about – regardless of the type of love – brings out the best in you.
        – The parents are told exactly how best to help Elsa, but they choose to act out of their own fears instead, while claiming that they are doing it to help her. This is both very fucked up, and very common.

        Frozen gets healthy relationships. It really makes me smile.

        1. timemonkey

          Yeah, no. They didn’t choose to ignore Grandpappie, they misunderstood him. It’s ELSA who decided to live in near complete isolation and complete emotional repression. The dad just gave her some gloves to try and help contain her powers (and they did work on the psychological level, it’s just Elsa is so afraid of herself she then became completely dependant on them) and told her to try and not be afraid. Elsa then warped this into repressing ALL emotion and that just made everything a thousand times worse.

          The parents made mistakes, no question, but Elsa took those mistakes and made them worse on her own. That’s her character flaw, she pushes away, isolates herself and prefers to run away from the problem rather than confront the problems. It’s all with the best intentions but her approach is entirely wrong.

        2. Greenygal

          Elsa’s parents are the ones who closed the gates, isolated Elsa, and told her nobody could ever know about her powers. Her dad doesn’t say “don’t be afraid,” he repeats “conceal, don’t feel, don’t let it show” with her, which is a rather different thing. Elsa continued that after they were gone, and probably took it to extremes they hadn’t meant, but she’s not the one who started the isolation and repression.

          (Mind you, some of it is Grandpappie’s fault as well. Not only did he hear the king say what he was going to do and not object, he took away all Anna’s memories of Elsa’s magic “to be safe”, thus establishing the idea that it was dangerous for her to know about it, which is clearly not true and didn’t help anything.)

    2. Bagge

      There is a “princesses and dragons” themed playground not far from where I live with a four meter tall, pink castle.

      I once spent half an hour there watching a kid, maybe three years old, in a princess dress dance back and forth on the drawbridge singing “Let it go” over and over again.

      Now, I’m pretty cool. There are lot’s of pretty cool people in the world – but at that moment no one – NO ONE – was anywhere near as cool as that kid. She OWNED the princess identity.

      1. APersonAmI

        That is awesome. Thank you for sharing that anecdote.

  57. DarkoNeko

    My first R-rated movie was… actually, how the HELL do you even remember that ? I can’t.

    1. DarkoNeko

      I guess being 33 doesn’t help, but still. How ?

      1. feli

        Yea, I have no idea.
        But I’m not one to ask, I’ve forgotten what I ate for breakfast yesterday.

      2. Khrene Cleaver

        Trying to remember what movies scared me as a kid help.

        My first R-Rated film was one of the Chuckie movies.

      3. saki

        I’m 20 and I have no idea what my first R-rated movie was, haha. I do remember I watched Zodiac when I was 14 while in my country it was 16+, but I’m pretty sure I’d seen other things earlier.

        1. DarkoNeko

          I think I watched most James Bond movies as a kid, but starting what age .. ?

        2. Rich

          Probably not your first R movie no matter how old you were. Of the older Bond films, only License To Kill had an R rating, and even it was edited and re-rated to the same PG-13 the others held. Pretty sure even the most recent crop has been PG-13, although I’m not certain. Helps ticket sales enormously, which is why they edited L2K.

      4. Rich

        It’s not that hard. I’m 49 and I can narrow it down to one of two 1978 films – either the first Halloween movie or Animal House, whichever came out first that year. And boy, did I get in trouble over Animal House.

      5. Tacos

        Age doesn’t mean much. I’m 24 and I don’t remember my first R-rated movie. I think maybe it was either Scanners, Hellraiser, or that one movie that had some floating metal balls that killed people that I can’t remember the name.

        1. Rich

          That last would be Phantasm, or perhaps one of the sequels. Phantasm came out in 1979, Scanners in 1981, and Hellraiser in 1987. Since you were born in 1991, you wouldn’t have seen any of the originals new, although both Hellraiser and Phantasm had sequels that were late enough that you could have seen them in theaters. Seeing an R-rated movie at home hardly counts – who’s going to enforce the age limit?

    2. Kamino Neko

      Being scarred by The Hills Have Eyes part 2 at (*checks dates*) 8 years old makes it pretty easy.

      1. Roborat

        Scarred by the movie, or by the horrible plot and terrible acting?

        1. Kamino Neko

          I couldn’t tell you anything about the plot or acting (and seriously, I was 8…I thought the Transformers G1 cartoon was well done)…I could, however, tell you about the long-standing phobias I developed about machetes and sheds.

    3. timemonkey

      Mine was Aliens. I was 3. Good times.

  58. hikaru

    ruth doesnt seem even actually suspicious of them right now. is she just bored and lonely so decided to join in, or

    1. saki

      I think she might actually just be lonely and using the “I’m supervising this party to make sure no one does anything against regulations” thing as an excuse to get some company, especially company that includes Billie.

      1. DarkoNeko

        Very similary to this sequence

        1. saki

          Indeed.

          … Ruth really needs friends, huh. *imaginarily hugs Ruth*

        2. timemonkey

          She should try being less of an abusive bully. Act horrible, end up alone, it’s a simple concept to understand.

        3. saki

          She’s probably not half as horrible to others as she is to herself. I think she’d be much more uh sociable if she wasn’t so depressed. But she doesn’t seem like she’ll get better on her own, and I don’t really expect anyone in this comic to ever get therapy, so I guess we have to put our hopes on Billie.

        4. Spencer

          She should probably stop being horrible to people either way.

          Unlike say, Sarah or Billie, Ruth’s actions have actual consequences and weight to them since she’s an employee of IU. She doesn’t get to slap Mary in the face, no matter how much we want her to.

          And, you know, I’m still not cool on how completely abusive she was, and in a way still is, to Billie. I get that the girl has serious problems that she desperately needs help for, but she’s hurting the one person who also really needs the same kind of help. It’s in the nature of drama, but I have a hard time separating Ruth the tragic victim and Ruth who threw Billie into a chair, tripped her up, stole from her, harassed her, and stripped in public.

        5. saki

          I agree. When it comes to fictional characters I tend to be more concerned with their own well-being than with how they might negatively affect other people’s well-being because of their problems. I know that logic doesn’t make much sense, but… I guess that’s a flaw of mine. I do hate the part of Ruth that is violent and abuses her power. In a real-life situation I would not stand for it. I really hope being with Billie will make her behaviour better over the long-term. Maybe she’ll have a moment of realisation, along the lines of “Oh crap I’ve been abusing her so badly all this time, what’s wrong with me, I have to stop”. Fingers crossed.

  59. zebrathinker

    Amber is sure giving Ruth the evil eye

    hot damn

  60. feli

    And then straight to Harry Potter Marathon. Bad evil wizard stuff.

  61. feli

    Oh, I just remembered what I’ve been trying to forget.
    I watched the animation felidae when I was around 7. Its rated 12 here …
    -goes crying in a corner until she forgets-

  62. MrMyerst

    …. D’awwww….

  63. Rakzo

    Sooo, how long until we get a full “Elsanna” reference?

    We all know that is bound to happen.

    1. Kelly

      It was like 30 comments in, at most.

  64. The Gardener

    I love Becky referring to Dina as ‘the most adorable dinosaur girl’. I hope they become a fully-fledged couple.

  65. Bionic

    Panel-1: is Ruth sporting a package??

    1. Screwball

      *Scrolls up to look* It could just be the pants bunching, or the angle. Or she brought a strap-on & is wearing it now to get used to it or use it later…

  66. Howard

    I knew a kid whose dad would let him watch R-rated movies. Naked women? No problem. People getting cut to pieces? No problem.

    Harry Potter? That promotes witchcraft. THE CHILDREN, THINK OF THE CHILDREN

  67. Jen

    The great thing is, no matter how far we go into the future and how may sequels to Frozen come out before this comic is over, this joke still works and, actually, it gets even better. 🙂 In my experience with kids who have parents that forbid certain movies and such, they are way behind on current pop culture and their wishlist of movies includes things that came out a long time ago. They could just as easily really want to see the original Disney Snow White, which shows a parental unit in a poor light and has a young woman pre-maritally live with seven men.

  68. DarkoNeko

    Really, Joyce couldn’t give a hoot Becky just kissed a *girl*. Seeing where she started, it’s really nice

  69. Daashi

    Frozen is probably for the best. Robocop would leave Becky and Joyce in a state of catatonia.

    1. Screwball

      *Stops just short of closing the DVD drawer, takes 1980s Robocop out of DVD player then slowly walks off…*

    2. Tacos

      It’s… kinda embarrassing for me to admit that I’ve not seen Robocop until this year when it was on tv one day and I had nothing else to watch.

  70. Edupoet81

    I can’t recall my first R-rated movie, but I’m pretty sure I was still in high school. Don’t remember what it was, though. I do recall watching “Heathers” and “Chasing Amy” on VHS at a college summer program the summer before my senior year of high school. I don’t think those were my first, though. My parents never restricted what I could watch, so it wouldn’t have been a momentous occasion for me — could have been years before that.

    This comic got me thinking of a preview panel from the July 1st comic. http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/114221711018/itswalky-july-1

    I’m wondering if they’re reacting to a scene from Frozen there. This is wild speculation here, but Joyce appears to be backing away. I can think of one scene in particular that could be triggering to her. Joyce met a guy who she thought she had a real connection with, until he turned against her in a really ugly and frightening way. The scene I’m thinking of could definitely remind Joyce of that. There would be an irony to that, with everything else going on at this “safe” party, if it’s ultimately ruined for Joyce by a Disney movie.

    Alternatively, that panel could be something completely different. Joyce and Becky could love the movie, and relentlessly sing “Let it Go,” until Sarah goes Incredible Hulk on them, and threatens to smash everything with her baseball bat.

    1. BenRG

      My guess is that someone has collapsed – probably Walky, Dorothy, Ethan or Danny because of the booze. It isn’t too bad because the reaction seems to be confused and annoyed rather than upset. Whoever it is probably is telling Dina, Becky and Billie about the rainbow unicorns flying around their heads.

      1. BenRG

        Actually, looking at DMW’s preview images, it looks like we’re going to be stopping following the party in a few strips’ time and be checking in with some other characters (although we may go back to it later).

      2. DarkoNeko

        My bet was on Walky.

      3. saki

        I wouldn’t totally rule out the possibility of Ruth collapsing. OR, given the look Amber’s giving Ruth in today’s strip, things could somehow escalate and one of them could have knocked the other to the ground. (Money’s on the drunk bongo)

  71. Benjy

    Part of me is wondering if Ruth somehow found out about what happened at Joyce’s first party and is there to keep an eye on things.

    1. Potatamoto

      Oh dear…that makes me wonder if keeping an eye on ‘things’ isn’t more keeping an eye on Billie, and if Ruth isn’t going to see Billie getting the party drunk as some kind of obscure betrayal. Y’know, some kind of unspoken rule that since they’re both ‘poison’ they should keep the badness to themselves, not inflict it on others.

  72. Potatamoto

    Wowzers, Amber really has that ‘I’m trying to figure out if I’m going to have to kick her ass tonight’ expression as she looks at Ruth.

  73. MJ

    You can say that about any movie written with a kid as the star. That would be most of the G and PG-13 movies ever shown.

  74. Xiaqueri

    Wow. That is almost an exact quote from my dad about the old Disney movie Snowball Express!

  75. Lis

    My mom tried to get me to watch The English Patient when I was 9 I don’t remember my “first R rated movie” but I’m sure it wasn’t long after that. but my parents were aggressively open minded in some ways.

  76. A Hapless Newbie

    I’m unclear on my first R rated movie, but I do remember distinctly the first R rated movie I saw in the theater: Die Hard. My friend and I were dropped off to watch something more age appropriate and snuck between theaters when the theater staff wasn’t watching.

    Die Hard still has a warm and fuzzy place in my heart, much moreso than any R rated movie I first saw at home.

  77. slurm

    really digging the art these last two days! Not even sure why today – maybe that the faces are so large?

    1. slurm

      The color palette is nice too.

  78. Tenn

    I was expecting the alt-text to finish something like “there’s gonna be sixteen comments about how this is a ridiculously exaggerated stereotype of christians before I’ve pruned the first one”. ^_^

    1. Tenn

      “Wait, is that ‘pruned the first comment’ or ‘pruned the first christian’?”

      Yes.

  79. showler

    Considering how many of the people in that room can identify with characters in the movie, and considering that some of them are drunk, this could be fun.

  80. JA

    Brave would be a good followup to Frozen.

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