Since I've made such a point of addressing celebrity adoptions, defending the rights of movie stars to be real live people, and reminding anyone I can that there's manipulation in them thar hills of media pap, I thought some reflection on the reaction to the new Disney film, "Meet the Robinsons" might be in order.

(Before anyone gets het up over the fact that I haven't seen the movie, I'll plop in a line here about how I don't know Angelina Jolie, either. First-person, up-front-and-personal experience is not what I'm offering. If you want that, come back in six months or so when the movie makes it as far as this little island I live on.)

The flap is all over the adoption world. Yesterday, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, an organization I greatly admire, put out a media advisory saying that they're calling for, "an urgent meeting with Walt Disney Pictures to discuss the potentially negative impact on children and families of its new movie, 'Meet the Robinsons,' which is generating strong criticism in the adoption community because of its insensitive portrayal of adoption and, in particular, of an orphaned child."

The Institute's Executive Director, Adam Pertman, is quoted as saying, "I'm sure the filmmakers were well-intentioned, but their apparent lack of understanding about the realities of orphanage life (and of the effects of rejection on children) led to a storyline that is upsetting many adopted boys and girls, particularly ones who spent time in orphanages themselves,"

You know? I'm sorry, I think Adam Pertman is great, but this just sounds silly to me.

As a 'heads up' to anyone out there who's losing sleep over this here's a flash for you ...

IT'S A MOVIE!

To drag the point out just that little bit more, not only is it a movie ... IT'S A CARTOON.

Movies, cartoons especially, are made to entertain. Why? Because that makes a whole lot of money for the people in the business of making movies.

Movies = money ... it's as simple as that.

They aren't made to educate, enlighten, expose ... although sometimes that does happen ... they are made to make money, and if no money was made on movies no movies would be made. Well, darned few, and none of them Disney.

If you don't want to support what a movie says, don't see it. Don't buy the DVD. Don't rent the video. If enough people ignore a movie, it goes away pretty dang quickly.

If you don't ignore it ... if you start jumping up and down all upset about it ... you end up with stuff like the New York Times review that gets really offensive:

Lonely orphans? Hey, this is Disney; they practically invented lonely orphans. If you like time travel, they have that too. Lessons for the children: take your pick. Warm fuzzies for the grown-ups? That's what lonely orphans are for.

Personally, I HATED the "Every Which Way ... " movies. ("But Loose", "You Can"), and found them horribly distasteful and downright dangerous. It was the orang utans, you see. I know what it takes to get those amazing animals to put up with the shenanigans that go on in the making of a movie, and the idea that such magnificent creatures should beaten and subjugated just to be set up for ridicule like that really had me steamed.

So, what did I do? I didn't watch the movies. I didn't let my kids watch them. Done.

Mel Gibson's been very good at getting people hot and bothered, irate and so on, but does he care? Not unless his movies bomb. Then he cares BIG TIME.

Much like the rest of the POV I propose when it comes to this sort of thing, I must continue to insist that movies are NOT real life, the people that make them are just doing a job like everyone else, and life is WAY too short to spend any time suffering angst over stuff this silly.

As impressed as I am with the Adoption Institute, I must say they're letting me down a bit with this.

Other Adoption.com bloggers have actually seen the movie and written about it here, here, here, and here ... so far.