Friday 1 May 2015

Freaky Friday (1976)

"Male chauvinist pig!"

This is one of two back-to-back old Disney films I will be blogging, mainly because we wanted them off our Sky Plus. They're both fascinating artefacts from another era, though, especially this one.

Obviously this is notable for featuring a very young Jodie Foster, but it also displays an instinctive slant towards gender roles that would never be seen again; phrases like the above quote are bandied about as a joke, but this is a world in which women stay at home to cook and clean, unless they are forced to work as secretaries because their husbands are out of work. It's a fascinating artefact of the social mores in 1970s America, perhaps all the more revealing in that this is a Disney film.

It works quite well as a comedy in spite of it's leisurely pace: the central conceit-another and a daughter switching bodies fortresses best left unexplained- is full of potential, and gives us a fascinating peek into what 1970s American high schools were like, with their marching bands and electric typewriters.

Everyone smokes. Annabel's dad reminds me of an American version of Reginald Perrin. This is the most 1970s film I have ever seen. 

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