One of the legacies of Ralph Macchio's Karate Kid (1984), and ultimately Bruce Lee's popularization of Chinese martial arts, was a fad of ninja kids. Unfortunately, they almost invariably limited buddy bonding to concentrate on making teenage or preteen martial artists, or both, improbably hetero-horny, contributing to the 1990s insistence that no gay kids could exist.
Born in September 1979, Ted Jan Roberts made several karate kid-type straight-to-video films before he retired to become a martial arts pro. In A Dangerous Place (1994), the fey thirteen-year old kicks, jabs, and buddy-bonds with William James Jones without glancing at girls, but in A Power Within (1995) and Tiger Heart (1996), the fourteen year old’s main goal in life is to ask a girl for a date.
The ninjas had remain to be kids, just on the edge of adolescence, in The Three Ninjas Kick Back (1995), only Max Elliott Slade remained of the original cast. Sean Fox now played Rocky, and J. Evan Bonifant Tum-Tum. At fourteen Colt was obviously an adolescent, significantly taller, with a deeper voice. Again, Colt is the one who grins at, almost-kisses, and rescues a teenage girl.
What are we to make of these variations in heterosexual desire?
1. Not every kid in the movie had to pursue a hetero-romance, but at least one of them did.
2. There was no room for same-sex friendships. Males were bullies, antagonists, enemy spies, never friends.
3. Heroic fantasy, such as the Neverending Story, had more room for buddy-bonding than movies set in our own world.
4. Beefcake was not necessary, nor even recommended, since every shirtless or swimsuit shot invites the gaze of gay boys and teenagers, and you want to pretend that there are none.
-->> Ernie's film was what it was, i mostly found it incredibly fun and was more in the vein of the Ninja Turtles films of the early 90s which he had had just left.
ReplyDeleteErnie connects well with his his fans and students and appreciates them all no matter where they come from.
He's become a good a friend the past couple years, and it's films like the TMNT franchise & SURF NINJAS that bring mostly just good memories.
Eh , well .
~ t
I remember the original Three Ninjas and I know of one sequel. Were the rest made for TV or worse, direct to video?
ReplyDeleteI do remember Surf Ninjas, though. Saw it with the family at the drive-in. I remember later was this Vietnam Syndrome again? (For those unfamiliar, every film, TV series, or video game set in Southeast Asia from the late 70s to the 90s featured an evil rebel faction and a leader in exile. Bonus points if, decades after the war, the rebels are still torturing POWs. Triple word score if there's some reference to leftist intellectuals being the reason the rebels won.)
I mean, I don't mind hetero horniness. Bisexuality is a thing. But there is some matter of propriety about the boys' ages: Under 12 means they're probably not in puberty (though I had my first wet dream at 9), and acquiring a Playboy before 18 is harder than you'd think. You can either steal one from Dad (We call that maneuver the Red Hood.), have a Cool Bro who just gives you one, or the Legacy: A Playboy circulating among the youth of our town since the Nixon administration, hidden in an isolated field or some natural setting like a cave or a forest.
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