New Horror Movie

Why “Orphan” is Beneath Contempt
By Dr. Jane Aronson

Tina Kelley Dr. Jane Aronson, at her Maplewood office on Valley Street.
Dr. Jane Aronson, a pediatrician specializing in adoption medicine, is founder and CEO of the Maplewood-based Worldwide Orphans Foundation. She wrote this post after seeing an advance screening of “Orphan,” a new movie opening tomorrow, last night.

What kind of society are we when we resort to making a horror film about a murderous orphan child? Who thought this was a good idea?

Did a bunch of idea people hatch the plot poolside on a sunny L.A. morning as they tried to come up with a new twist for a tired formulaic slasher movie? Did the conversation go something like this: “I know … let’s make the psycho-sociopathic child nut job an orphan.”
“Inspired … never been done … and I know … at the end, it’ll turn out to be ….”
Away they go, visions of fame and fortune dancing before their eyes. And before you know it, your kids and mine are sitting in a movie theater somewhere in America watching a trailer for “Orphan,” Warner Bros.’ horror film, opening in theaters this Friday.
I had the opportunity to attend a special screening of the movie in New York yesterday, before its official opening.

“Orphan” is about Esther, a 9-year-old adopted child who turns out to be evil and wreaks havoc on her new family. I watched the film to the bitter end and walked out of the theater feeling like one of Esther’s murdered victims.

To see such extreme violence committed by a so-called orphan was shocking beyond belief.
The movie has a plot twist at the end about Esther, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that filmmakers would use the concept of an orphan who carries out a murderous rampage against her adoptive family throughout the film. Esther’s demonic characteristics perpetuate the stereotype of an orphaned child who is a “bad seed”.

Just another slasher movie, you say? Don’t be so politically correct, you minimize? Tell it to the more than 7,000 adopted children I’ve cared for as a pediatrician specializing in adoption medicine (yes, Virginia, there is such a specialty) in the last 20 years.

Acceptance and understanding of adoption has come a long way in this country. It is no longer an anomaly to see an Asian child with her Caucasian parents, a biracial child with his two dads, or as is this case in my family, two moms, a blue-eyed blonde daughter, and two sons — one born in Vietnam and the other from Ethiopia — all adopted.

So are we safe from the ugly innuendos and not-so-subtle stereotypes that a film like this perpetuates? Not if you are an 8-year old kid whose friends have seen the trailer (even if parents won’t allow them to see the movie) and who turn to you and say, “You’re an orphan, too. No wonder your real parents didn’t want you. Orphan! Orphan!”

While I know there will be those, like myself, who advocate voting with the pocketbook by not seeing the film, I remind you of all those kids sitting in movie theaters watching the trailer. The damage is already done.

Finally, for those guys sitting around the pool, or the office or the conference table, maybe it would help to play a game of substitution, i.e., what would the response be to a film about a demonic money-changer who drinks the blood of Christian babies? We could call it “Jew,” and — in a twist — at the end, the evildoer turns out not to be a Jew after all? That way, no harm done, right?