Phillyist Reviews/Interviews... Bratz: The Movie

From there, my attention waned. Eight-year-old girls were turning around screaming “I Love You Yasmin!!” or “I Love You Jade!” As the girls would describe the next day in an interview:

So, how was last night?
Talking over each other, in unison: AMAZING! OVERWHELMING!! SURREAL! It just gets to your heart.

I have to agree with them: it would be overwhelming to sign autographs for that many small children. Although, I don’t think it’s very amazing to see a film in the presence of screaming ankle-biters. I’m convinced that small children have the attention span of pigeons.

With each intense scene, every triumphant moment for the Bratz, the audience would erupt with glee. However, I noticed that the four girls (who were seated in the row right behind me) would sometimes preemptively scream and holler in order to get a reaction from the crowd. This would, inevitably, prompt about five more minutes of incoherent, high-pitched child-screech.

My attention to the movie picked up as the girls were tossing various cafeteria lunch-stuffs at each other in an enormous high school courtyard. The primary antagonists of the food fight? The Bratz. They had become nemeses through flying spaghetti.

The next day, I asked the girls whether they thought they had a normal high school experience as compared to an average American teenager.

Logan: I went to four different high schools. Public school and private school and home school. I just graduated.


Nathalia: I’ve been to public school my entire life. I was in the middle of my freshman year when I started filming Bratz. I love high school so much and I’m going to keep going. I go to regular high school in Miami and I love it.


Janel: I’m from Hawai’i and I only had one year of high school back in Hawai’i and then I moved out here (Los Angeles) four years ago, when I was 14 and then I got home schooled from there.


Skyler: I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I was home schooled all throughout high school. But, being on the Bratz set, I feel like I experienced high school.

I became befuddled at this point in the interview. Out of the four responses given, two attempted to answer the question and two simply explained their high school travels. I suppose inherent within the notion of attending four different high schools is abnormality. I guess that’s what we take away from these answers: Teenage screen actresses do not have normal high school lives, but to the extent that they think they do they love them and they want to keep going. I see nothing normal about this, but I don’t argue. These girls are either lack self-awareness due to their younger age or they’re wily beyond my comprehension. I suspect the latter.

Anyway, that’s what I recall from the movie: Jon Voight, teenagers preparing for their first day of class, and a food fight. I do know that they tried to squeeze some romance out of it with Jasmine and a deaf pianist nearly locking lips (oh yeah, there’s Jon Voight and a deaf pianist). Finally, the girls rejoin forces in an attempt to dominate Meredith Baxter-Dimly.

As the interview winded down, I wanted to get to the bottom of the Jon Voight thing. Something is off about Jon Voight playing a prominent role in a flick aimed at nine year-olds.

So, what’s it like working with Jon Voight?
In unison: HE’S SO FUNNY!

Janel: He’s brilliant. He’ll, like, change one line of dialogue to a whole page.

Logan: Sometimes, he’d come to set in character, and it’s the funniest thing.

Nathalia: A lot of the things that end up in the movie that he says are ad-libs. Like the names that the calls Meredith, “my little pollywog” or “my candy cane.” Those are just so simple, but they’re so funny.

Skyler: I’m very fortunate enough to have him as a Godfather, too.

I think that adequately sums it up. Jon Voight, the Godfather, uses terms like “pollywog” and “candy cane” affectionately toward a girl named Meredith Baxter-Dimly while four best friends try to win the hearts of an entire high school. The things a man will do in the name of pleasing his little banana-nut muffin of a Goddaughter.

In the land of the Bratz, apparently, crazy things are normal and normal things are crazy and the Midnight Cowboy is riding shotgun.

*This is clearly a play on Meredith Baxter-Birney, Alex P. Keaton's mother from Family Ties (or, Chuck Klosterman's GPS Navigation system's voice in Killing Yourself to Live), but I'm lost as to why they're playing on her name. If the 8-13 year old demographic can pick up on such plays on names then there is something seriously wrong with American popular culture. There are enough neo-Cons running around out there, we don't need another Alex P. Keaton on our hands.