‘Orphan’ movie strikes controversy
Isabelle Fuhrman plays Esther in "Orphan."
A controversy has popped up surrounding “Orphan” the movie, and Wikipedia seems to be the first place to highlight it. Wikipedia says:
The film’s content of an adopted child causing trouble has not been well received by the adoption community. The controversy has already caused filmmakers to change a line in one of their trailers from “It must be difficult to love an adopted child as much as your own,” to “I don’t think Mommy likes me very much.” Some of the main criticisms of the movie include:
“The movie Orphan comes directly from this unexamined place in popular culture. Esther’s shadowy past includes Eastern Europe; she appears normal and sweet, but quickly turns violent and cruel, especially toward her mother. These are clichés. This is the baggage with which we saddle abandoned, orphaned, or disabled children given a fresh start at family life.”
Conflict and the bottom line
Sometimes a controversy can hinder a movie at the box office, but more often than not it helps it. People who have a quick payday coming up might decide to go see it just to find out “What’s so bad?”
I don’t think the controversy will stop people who were planning to see it. Also, because it’s causing a bit of a stir, some people who hadn’t even heard of it probably will hear about it.
“Orphan” movie spoilers
Of course, there are “Orphan” movie spoilers out there that very well might cut into the film’s earnings. Especially with a horror movie that lists “twist at the end” as one of the movie’s keywords on IMDB, people who already know how it ends will likely not want to pay nearly $10 to go see it.
Why spoil the movie?
I wasn’t really planning on seeing “Orphan,” so I dug around and found the “Orphan” movie spoiler and a good explanation for why people are letting the ending slip on the internet. Jamie at Knox Road says:
I guess movie studios really like horror movie twists? Like maybe they saw The Sixth Sense and were all “That’s the ONLY way to do it now.” So now we have Orphan and the tagline is basically “This movie has a CRAZY twist.” But the twist happens to be SO crazy that people online are having lots of fun spoiling it. Because it’s ridiculous. Ridiculous. Like so much worse than “The ghost has been riding your shoulders the whole time!!”
Jamie also publishes the “Orphan” movie spoiler on her blog, so if you want to know the ridiculous, crazy, “Orphan” ending twist, you can read her article “Knowing the Orphan spoiler is more fun than seeing the actual movie. Also, there’s a pretty long discussion in the comments section there about whether the “Orphan” movie spoiler is really any crazier than the regular plots of “Law & Order: SVU.”
Personal side note: I don’t know why, but for some reason I find it amusing that the parents in the film are named John and Kate. Those two, simple, common names will never be the same. At least not when paired together.
