[Poll] "Show Dogs": "Miss Congeniality" with dogs or Wikihow for pedophiles?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Just saw a distressing item on Facebook, forwarded by my homeschooling, vaccine-averse, homeopathy-promoting, FitBit-wearing sister. The item concerned the film Show Dogs. The Wikipedia article suggests that it’s a movie that will appeal mostly to kids (along the lines of Alvin and the Chipmunks, complete with a cast member from Arrested Development). The plot summary suggests that, per the thread title, it’s Miss Congeniality at a dog show.

The Facebook item, which I present here, stripped of its FB coding, is a bit more breathless in its assessment. You know how, in real dog shows, the judges routinely place their hands on various places on the dogs, to assess points of conformity (well, you probably do, if you’ve ever watched Best in Show, and how can you call yourself a Doper if you haven’t?)? Well, the Sandra Bullock dog (voiced by Ludacris) has to go undercover as a show dog, so he has to be trained to get over his tendency to object to being handled there, by strangers, if he’s going to avoid being called out as a ringer. My impression, from what I’ve read, is that the training, and particularly the dog’s distaste for the routines, is played for laughs as a parody of hypermasculine homophobia.

Back to the article (on foreverymom dot com): the author informs every mom (and anyone else who happens to read it) that the sequence teaches kids how to let themselves be groomed for molestation. Sort of a “lie back and think of England” technique for enduring the ordeal. Strikes me as a little overwrought.

The site that this article cribbed its alarmism from goes on to reveal that the Sandra Bullock dog is engaging in this technique at the dog show. Not revealed is whether the technique turns out to be mission critical, so I guess the writer gets some professionalism points as a reviewer.

So, has anyone seen the movie? How do you respond to the concern it raises in the macaronikid mom and the foreverymom mom? Valid, or seeing-predators-under-every-bed level paranoid?

2

Yeah I saw someone post that too. The movie looks really shitty, and I also can’t really understand why a “family buddy cop film” involves talking about touching a dog’s dick. Whether it’s a deliberate attempt to influence kids, or not, I really have no idea, but it’s fucked up either way.

3

I’ve heard that the movie is just plain awful, regardless of its content.

4

I haven’t seen the movie, but I forwarded that link over to a friend, who has a master’s in counselling and is a childhood sexual abuse survivor and her response was, “Uuuuuuuhhhmmm, the fuck?! Yeah, how that made it thru is beyond me.” So that’s two abuse survivors who don’t think this is a good message to give to kids. Like, at ALL. Teach them how to dissociate? Yeah, no agenda there!

5

Well, I dunno; is it really possible to make that assessment based simply on reading an article that clearly has its own agenda??

6

Why would someone just randomly pick one movie out of dozens and suddenly go feral on it for no reason? If the interactions are as described, then that is describing a textbook grooming tactic and an equally textbook method of coping with abuse damage. If even one time in that movie a character states unequivocally that he does not want his junk handled and is ridiculed, persuaded to submit to it and told to just think of something pleasant to get through it then that is a piss poor message to include in a kid’s movie. I’d be grossed out to find that in a movie for adults and would have expected a content warning.

And no, I’m not going to watch the POS movie in order to prove the article “right.” I’ll just recommend to my son and DIL that they pass on taking my grandson to it.

7

Oh, and here’s another critic who’s not overly comfortable with the movie either.

8

I voted “Other” - I doubt it’s deliberate, but it is fucking clueless. Especially after all the effort parents nowadays go to, teaching our kids that “No means no” and bodily autonomy. Counterproductive at the least.

9

Edited in [Poll] in the title, at OP’s request. Though, depending on how you view it, the word poll may now appear twice (Poll automatically is included in threads with polls), the edit may helpful for those using Tapatalk to read the board.

10

And on the other side, it teaches that abuse is funny. If you are touched when and where you don’t want to, you should just shut up, lie back and think of England; if someone says ‘no’, call them a wimp and ignore it.

And if you and your four pals are accused of gang-rape, get away with “abuse during a short period of time” and the two of you who are a cop and a soldier get to keep your jobs at 75% pay while in prison, why, “it could happen to anybody”. (I haven’t found a link to the letter from the cop saying exactly that)

11

Has anyone been involved in dog shows? Does genital fondling come into it regularly? If so, then the films being realistic, I imagine most dogs don’t like random people grabbing their junk but can be trained to put up with it.

It’d be a pretty far-out paedophile tactic to sneak some grooming stuff into a kids film so as to potentially molest a viewer of the film later.

12

The “dogs” in this movie are basically humans in animal form, and if a creature has human emotions and human intelligence it should have the same rights as a human, or at the very least be treated to the same level of respect as a human. Showing children that this type of abuse is o.k. will characters they might identify with is wrong.

13

In Sagrada Familia subway station there is usually one police dog on duty. Most commonly I’ve seen a very large yellow female (lab?) who looks like she has enough hair to make a couple of sofas, and a male who looks like a German shepherd. Often I see parents whose very-young child wants to pet the pretty doggie use that as a chance to teach that “you don’t bother people at work” includes doggie-people.

The movie, as described, is the opposite of that.

14

Dang, I let my kid watch Tom & Jerry with my Dad when we go over, I’ll expect him to start running through walls leaving a toddler shaped hole and smashing people in the face with frying pans so hard that the face leaves an impression on the pan.

It’s clearly overreacting, kids know the difference between people and animals, even animals that talk on TV.

15

From my limited experience watching dog show, yes. Judges do perform a quick manual inspection of dogs’ genitals. Male dogs, anyway.

My first impression upon reading the OP was “alarmist drivel.” Reading more about how the material was handled in the film, it sounds absolutely horrible! Playing “I’m sexy and I know it?” My goodness!

Sandra Bullock having to submit to manicures and waxing was fine to play for laughs in Miss Congeniality. This just isn’t.

That show dogs get their genitals handled may be realistic, but that is one bit that should have just been left out of a kids’ movie.

As for the pedophilia angle, well, I think that’s a bit of a stretch, but it does blur the line between the occasional unwanted but necessary touching, such as at a kid’s annual physical, and other unwanted touching.

16

Yeah, this. People treat animals differently than it is acceptable to treat human beings, that’s what you have to tell your kids.

17

I can see how homeschooling, vaccine-averse and homeopathy-promoting go together in suggesting a tendency towards crankery, but including FitBit wearing seems a bit much.

Or at least Mrs. J. would think so. She’s accumulated a lot of steps. :slight_smile:

18

I didn’t want her to come off as one-dimensional.

Also: me? Not a fan of exercise (although I can see where having a monitor could be useful in ensuring that I don’t accidentally get too much of it).

19

I’m going to raise my hand here and object to one item in the poll. If the issue is pedophilia, why is attention directed only at NAMBLA? This perpetuates the notion that pedophilia is directed mostly by men at boys, which is not true. I suppose this is the only organization (that I know of anyway) that publicly attempts to justify this particular behavior. The poll choice could have been written in any number of cutesy ways without this reference.

I am not intending to attribute malice to the OP, only a certain amount of thoughtlessness.

20

Someone. Has. Issues.

But it does make me wonder what By-Tor would think.