Confuscation

Have you ever watched something and watched it and watched it and thought, "Something's just not right"?  That's how I've been feeling for the past week whenever I think about the latest Muppet movie.  We've been looking forward to it for quite a while.  We all love the Muppets, Boogaloo especially.  She's been running around the house yelling "Frog on d'pay" from their football ad all week.  But when we went to see the movie on Wednesday, something just wasn't right.  Boogaloo enjoyed herself. She watched the whole movie raptly. She sang along with the theme song and ran down the aisle shouting "Muppet show, muppet show."  (The theatre was pretty empty, and most of the chuckles were appreciative, so I didn't worry about it.).  Seth and I weren't as satisfied.  Seth looked at me over dinner and asked, "Is it bad that I thought the previews were funnier than the movie?"

I felt the same way, and it bugged me, bugged me to the point of keeping me up at night.  Well, actually, I've been sleeping poorly lately, but while I was lying awake, I was analyzing The Muppets, and I think I've figured it out.  It sends a conflicting message.  The main idea is that the Muppets represent a return to innocence no longer represented by American entertainment or corporate interests. They need each other, and we need and want them.  It says, "We want you to like us, but you're really a dork for doing so."  Why else would they have their main proponents be such losers? 

"Hey, wait a second," you say.  "I've seen the movie, and I thought Gary and Walter were good guys."  Yeah, sure, they're good guys, and their devotion to each other is touching, but it's the only outstanding or redeeming character about them.  By the time they're adults, waking up in matching pajamas in the same bedroom, presumably in their parents' house, and marching down the street in matching pale blue leisure suits (not practical for the bus, I can tell you that!), I started to feel that something was amiss.  Gary has to be at least twenty-eight, with Walter not far behind, and yet neither of them appear to have a job, a degree, or even a commercially useful skill.  Gary has been dating his lovely, intelligent, employed (and unsatisfied) girlfriend for 10 years, and he doesn't even have a desire to separate that relationship from his relationship with his brother.  I mean really, talk about failure to launch.   It kind of proves the cynics right. 
So I guess I never really bonded with the main characters.  Kermit was the first person that made my heart leap, and by that point, I was already off.  They had set up the wrong atmosphere: a pathetic atmosphere that begs us to like them out of pity, not on their obvious merits.  They had apologized for something that wasn't readily evident, and that never helps solidify your case.  It only makes people wonder what's wrong with you and doubt you more.  By the time the wheels really started rolling, and the Muppets were doing their inimitable thing,they had already implied that you couldn't be a fully realized person and like what they do, and that was kind of insulting. 

After all, I like the Muppets, and I like to think of myself as mature and responsible.  I like to think I would have tried to save their theatre too.  Furthermore, they've never fallen out of the spotlight.  Are we really supposed to believe that the frog who taught us that "It's not easy being green," can't get an audience with any network executive he wants.  And the Muppets may seem like good clean fun compared to some of our reality tv, but they're really not all that innocent.  "The Muppet Show" was not a kids' show.  They blew up cute little birdies and ballerinas.  They had their go at great art.  They had their go for women's lib and animal rights.  The antics of Miss Piggy backstage (and Gonzo occasionally) were PG-rated at least.  The Muppets were snide in all their silliness with a dose of hippie idealism and skepticism to mellow it out.  They delighted to give you what you didn't expect, and there is a little bit of that in the movie, but by the time we see it, we've been set up to believe that it's not entertaining.  So the whole time, we watch with conflicted feelings, half ashamed of liking the antics on the screen.