It’s no stretch to say that Disney’s new film Prom is a squeaky clean affair, but according to Washington Post film critic Sandie Angulo Chen, this is apparently a bad thing. Prompting responses from Newsbusters and Christian Toto, Chen’s piece laments the lack of edge, angst and subversion in Prom, stating that the event is associated in cinema with things like the iconic pig’s blood prank from Carrie, and the race to lose one’s virginity in American Pie. She wonders why there are no violent outcasts or brooding bad boys that smoke cigarettes, as though the House of Mouse is a studio that has a reputation for delivering hard-hitting works of gritty social realism.
A trap many film critics fall in to is that they feel that movies have a responsibility to speak absolute truths and subvert the norm, which is a nice way of saying that they want movies to conform to, and confirm, their own worldview. Just look at Roger Ebert, a critic who loses his mind any time a movie treats violence in a manner he doesn’t deem politically correct. A good recent example would be the way Ebert childishly punished James Gunn’s Super for being too violent by spoiling the ending in the opening paragraph of his review. This is the same Roger Ebert who scolded Michael Medved for doing the exact same thing to Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby in 2004. But I digress, critiquing a movie is one thing, actively punishing it is another. Of course, Chen doesn’t stoop to Ebert’s level, but what she does do is expect the movie to behave according to her perceptions.
I’m not criticizing Chen for attempting to put Prom in the context of the real world, one reason we enjoy movies is to think about how they relate to life. But Chen’s review seems to confuse real life with “reel life.” She acts as though Prom has a responsibility to portray the titular event in a way that she deems realistic, yet her view of the activities that go with said event seems to be informed primarily by other movies. This causes her to come across as an out-of-touch film critic living in a movie bubble.
My personal experience with high school prom wasn’t full of sex and debauchery. It consisted of a nice group dinner and a dance where a DJ played trendy music at a swanky venue to this day. I was the same person going out as I was coming in, despite the fact that movies try to sell you on the idea that prom is some sort of rite-of-passage that changes you forever (unless you count the fact that to this day, Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” still prompts uncontrollable rage-vomiting whenever I hear it). If my prom were a movie, it would probably be rated PG. It’s a given that many teenagers have prom experiences that would be directed by Bob Clark and earn a hard R-rating, but there are also many with the toned-down experience I had with my friends. That isn’t to say that Prom is at all realistic, but rather, that the experience of prom isn’t the always the time teens use to indulge in bad behavior. A shiny, clean perspective like Prom is perfectly acceptable.
Granted, Chen concedes that not all teen-themed fair needs to be full of horny teens doing drugs, and it seems she simply didn’t care for the movie, which is fine. But she forgets that movies can depict certain events like a high school prom in whatever manner they choose, be it raunchy like American Pie, horrifying like Carrie, or kid-friendly like Prom. Toto noted in his piece that a movie can be whatever it wants to be, so long as it is engaging, and I agree with that statement completely There are many ways to approach telling any kind of story or theme. Critics should remember to criticize a movie for what it is, not for what it isn’t, unless of course, it isn’t good.