Movie Article

Have You No Shame?

Remaking ''Adventures in Babysitting'' -- Disney plans to put a new spin on the classic '80s film

''Don't f--- with the babysitter'' is possibly one of the greatest lines ever to come from an '80s teen comedy. Uttered by a knife-wielding Elisabeth Shue, it's just one of the reasons why 1987's Adventures in Babysitting couldn't be made today. With profanity-spouting teens who get stabbed, propositioned by underage prostitutes, and mistaken for Playboy Playmates, it's probably too edgy for today's increasingly tame studios. Which is why it's baffling that Disney has greenlit a remake starring Raven-Symoné (the Cosby Show alum now starring in Disney Channel's That's So Raven). Aside from the necessary changes created by the racial reversal (Shue had to sing her way out of a black blues club. Will Raven have to pogo her way out of some hipster indie-rock gig?), there's the fact that unlike that other great '80s teen movie set in downtown Chicago — Ferris Bueller's Day OffBabysitting does not see the big city as a place where anyone can lip-synch ''Twist and Shout'' in a parade, but rather as a place where white kids from the suburbs might actually die. And, honestly, America's big cities are just not as stereotypically scary as they were in the '80s. So, Disney? Please reread the first five words of this piece and take them to heart.

Originally posted Jul 21, 2006 Published in issue #888 Jul 28, 2006 Order article reprints
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