unknownfate

Both my parents were teachers in West Virginia and if I remember right, the only state that paid teachers less at that time was Mississippi. Money was tight. We also lived too far off the beaten path to get cable even if we could afford it. We had our one little channel (NBC) and a vcr. We also had access to the county board office's media library.

It was full of educational or education adjacent movies. We watched a lot of them. And for some reason, today I found myself remembering a British period drama we watched all those decades ago. Well, just one scene anyway.

The two British soldiers had been captured and imprisoned and then taken to a hilltop to be killed by firing squad. They held hands as they went to their deaths and I remember being struck by that, that these two brave people could be so calm in the face of their executions, but still reaching out for each other. Again, this was rural West Virginia where you only took your hands out of your pockets for immediate family. My little sister asked why they were doing that, and my mother, already weepy behind her kleenex, said that it was to comfort each other. Then, we all cried.

That is the only part of that movie I remember. I don't remember the name or any other part of the story, whether the soldiers knew each before or had only met in prison. I have that one scene, of them walking up the hill at gunpoint, holding hands. I'm pretty sure they were killed but I don't remember that part clearly. Random memory strikes again.

I took a yen to watch Return to Oz last night and just for fun, I looked it up on tumblr to see if there were any photosets or anything. There were. There was also a whole boatload of pansies bellyaching about how traumatizing the movie was and 20 years later, still the nightmares, boohoohoo.

What? It's a kid movie! And like all the really best kid stuff, it is equal parts bright and dark and beautiful and weird.

The only really scary part about it to me was that all the adults Dorothy should've been able to trust were all so willing to electroshock a little girl who couldn't sleep. Because you know what cures imagination? High voltage! But no, a guy in a Mardi Gras jacket and wearing roller stilts has scarred them for life.

Seriously though, think about it. The kid got sucked up into a tornado. It's a miracle she's even alive. Did they ever even find the house?? Nope. It's still in Oz, remember? Even if there is no Oz, and it was all just a delusion, a child is allowed to be weird after something like that. And what exactly is so abnormal about a prepubescent having vivid dreams and imagining a better place than being a poor orphan in rural 1890s Kansas? Who they want to lightly electrocute. Y'know, because modern medicine. That's the terrifying part. Not the rollerderby Krewe. Or the headless princess, or the muttering rock faces.

I can't imagine not liking Return to Oz. That movie was gorgeous. Mombi's palace with all the gold and mirrors? AMAZing. Jack Pumpkinhead? Adorable. Fairuza Balk? More adorable. Lunchpail trees! OMG. Your own steampunk robot bodyguard. Who wouldn't want one? Deadly Desert? Best don't touch the floor game ever. Flying couch with a living moose head? I want one! Dude, there's a sassy talking chicken. What is better than that??

I guess there's no pleasing some people. But just imagine if they had used some of the original Baum stuff, like the river of needles that would pierce whatever tried to cross it full of tiny holes. Or Chopfyt, the meat man that gets built out of all the body parts that the Tin Man accidently cut off himself. What about the three wisemen who angered the king, who put them into a meatgrinder and mixed their pieces into one wiseman? Or the Yoops, a married cannibal and evil sorceress. And then there's the Rak. If you were spooked by monkeys with wings, you don't ever want to see a Rak.

Just saying.

I made it through another week. It was a wacky one. Why just today, we had a four year old girl go to the hospital. She had rolled up a a piece of paper and shoved it in her ear, and then came crying to me. Luckily for her, I didn't have any tweezers, because my first impulse was to sit on her, pin her head still, and go digging for it. That's how most of my childhood injuries were dealt with. 'Twas many a time that I grimaced at the hearth rug whilst a parent pinned me flat and extracted whatever sharp thing I had been punctured with.

( A brief flashback... )


But anyway, the poor child was sent to the school nurse. (We have one now! Woo!) She was unable to reach the paper also, so the girl was sent to the hospital. One of her classmates was all bug-eyed and making scissor-finger movements at his own ear.

"Will they cut her open?" he asked.

"Maybe," I said. "But probably not. Probably -" And here I curled up the fingers of one hand to be an earhole and with the other hand I started making weird, medical utensil-type gestures with the other. "What they'll do is get some SPECIAL tweezers..." By then I had a rapt audience of hip-high people. I rammed the utensil-gesture hand into the earhole hand. "And REACH WAY IN and PULL IT OUT!"

"Oooooh!" they said. Having their complete attention is a rare thing, so I took the opportunity to advise them all to NEVER, EVER stuff things in their ears, noses, or wherever. It's easier to remember stuff when you have graphic visuals.