Mars Needs Moms is a Disney movie about a young boy that saves his mom from Martian kidnappers.
Visually it has the look and feel of a Tron like world, with occasional scenery that reminds us of the underground of The Matrix.
Oh ya, it also has racist undertones, so in my opinion, not the best flic for your kids to watch if you care about this sort of thing.
How is it racist? The good guys are all average American white folk. The bad people are Martians, but the Martians are all Asians that look like Mutant Ninja Turtle bugs with Asian eyes and accents. The Asian Martian men are all stupid goofy characters, and the Asian Martian women are stereotypes, right down to the their voices in English not matching the mouth movements at times, like in old badly voiced over movies. And one other interesting fact is the Martians discover a lost ancient artifact with an image of them, and they look much more round eyed in their past when they were happy well adjusted normal families. And now they have stereotypical Asian eyes, since they are now evil kidnapping Amazonian Asian Martians.
I love racist humour and see nothing wrong with it when it’s done right, like with South Park for example. The racism in this movie is somewhat subtle, but I feel done in poor taste, and that’s based on a person that has no problem with raciest humour in proper context. I would be curious to see what a person sensitive to these things would say. Regardless, if this was intended to be a kids movie, shouldn’t it be less black and white to the kids than white people good, Asian people bad until they see the light and are modernized to white American family ways?
6/10
