#237 Will He Wonk Her?

This weekend I watched the original Willy Wonka for the first time. I was in the lucky position of being able to see the original after I had seen the remake. The remake was better. I think Tim Burton did a better job capturing the hopelessness of Charlie’s family than did the original director. The darkness and texture of the modern photography was just so much more depressing than the cheery Technicolor of the original. In the original movie’s credits I saw the actual author of the book, Roald Dahl, wrote the screenplay. Roald is also credited with coining the term “gremlin” to describe magical beings that screw up aircraft machinery. Go figure. Somehow, I see a little gremlin in the Oompa Loompa. They are, by the way, one of those things we accept about the movie but smack a little of third world oppression. What would someone say today to going to a deep dark continent and bringing back a bunch of short people to work in your factory around the clock and their only pay was being spared from being eaten by the hoobastank monster, or whatever it was? How about if they just built the, um, “candy factory” in Oompa Loompa land? Would it be okay for Kathie Lee Gifford or Nike to own it? I was trying to trace back why I had never seen the original movie in its heyday. Then I saw the date, 1971. Well that makes sense. 1971 was the end of the sixties and my priorities were not in cautionary tales about family and candy. I was busy changing the world, fighting racism and sexism, and the exploitation of third world countries by, well, nevermind. I think I was also put off a bit by the signature song from the movie. I remember cringing every time Sammy Davis Junior came on the radio singing, “The Candy Man Can.” Believe it or not, there were those in the media of the day, perhaps the prototypes of Fox Newsies, who decried the candy man song as having veiled references to drug use. The, ahem, Candy Man, was supposedly a euphemism for the drug pusher. I kid you not. But the most entertaining part about watching the new and old movies was how they modernized the kid characters. Veruca Salt was the same spoiled brat, with only slightly more Bill Gates-y aspirations to riches. Gum-Chewing Violet Beauregarde had the added dimension of a driven, athletized, presumably coffee enema-d mother. Mike TeeVee Violence was updated to Mike VideoGame Violence. But the biggest surprise of all was Augustus Gloop, the fat German kid, the only non-English speaking person in the whole world to win a magic ticket. In the modern movie, Gloop’s girth had to be magnified tenfold to portray him as noticeably fat. The Gloop of the seventies looks downright normal by today’s standards. Who would have thought in 1971 that 35 years later we’d have to upgrade the concept of obese. Good job candy man. You not only can, you did.
America, ya gotta love it.