Watching The Fly - a childhood ambition fulfilled

In THIS POST I talked a bit about how, as a small child, my parents wouldn’t let me rent The Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum, from the video shop. Instead, I had to rent some bullshit video about a grizzly bear. The bear fell down a hill or something. It might have been called The Bear, I’m not sure, I can’t even be bothered to look it up. If it was, then that was probably the reason my parents made me select it. ‘After all, Phil, flies, bears, what’s the difference? They’re both films about animals. And this one looks so much cuter’. ‘Okay Ann, I’m sure The Bear is just as exciting as The Fly’.

I’ve had ample opportunity to watch The Fly since then, but somehow I just never have. Just one of those things. Yesterday, though, I did. And it was brilliant.

Even though I loved the film, I have to reluctantly agree with my parents’ decision to stop me renting The Fly as a four year old. But I’ve also been wondering about the exact reason for their refusal. The more I’ve thought about it, the more items I’ve added to my list of potential reasons for them spoiling my fun. There are so many things in the film that would have been wrong for my four year old eyes to see, so I’ve decided to make a list of the most likely suspects. If you haven’t seen The Fly, I’ll warn you that there are major spoilers in this post. But I dare say that I’m probably the only one in the world who hasn’t seen The Fly, and now I have, so there. I will also say that my Word and Blogger today are conspiring against me, and no matter how hard I try I just cannot get the text to all line up, so it goes a bit wonky towards the end. But I am nothing if not unprofessional.

1. The sexy bits –

For a film about a man that gets fused with a fly, there’s a surprising amount of steamy sexing going on. First Jeff Goldblum’s nerdy but brilliant scientist does it with Geena Davis, then his brilliant but deranged and 30% fly self does it with some random hooker he picked up. Plus, there’s a hefty amount of side boob going on. My four year old self might have just thought that’s how flies eat or something, but it might also have forced my parents into having “the talk” with me. While watching The Fly.

2. The bit with the baboon –

The teleportation machine wasn’t always a raging success. Before Jeff Goldblum ‘successfully’ teleported himself, he was kind enough to give a baboon (let’s call him Mike) a shot at being a scientific pioneer. This didn’t really go according to plan, unless the plan was to turn Mike into a quivering pile of gristle. The four year old me seeing Mike pound a bloody limb against the glass door of the teleporter might have caused me to bring my chicken nuggets back up.

3.The bit with the arm wrestling –

Before our hero takes the previously mentioned random hooker home, he must first arm wrestle for her honour. By this stage, he is at least one third fly, and apparently flies are known for their super strong arms, or something. Anyway, our guy has super duper upper body strength, and during the arm wrestle he accidentally-on-purpose rips his opponent’s hand off. I suspect that I, impressionable child that I was, would have refrained from using my hands for anything ever again, in case they accidentally come off. I probably wouldn’t have realised that it was super fly strength that did it, I would probably have just thought that these things happen, so I should be more careful.

4. Geena Davis’ delivery room dream –

Not only would the whole ‘I’m pregnant with a half man/half fly’s baby’ thing have prompted me to ask all kinds of awkward questions, again, but the fact that she gives birth to a larva would have convinced me that all women gave birth to larvae, so I must have started out as a larva. Like I’ve said before, I was a stupid kid. I’d have probably checked every time I went to the toilet to see if any larvae had fallen out. You can never be too careful.

5. The end scene –

I’m a grown woman, and this scene reduced me to tears, embarrassingly. I felt myself welling up a bit when faced with Geena Davis’ anguish at having to shoot the man she loved, but what really tipped me over the edge was when Jeff Goldblum (or special effects pretending to be Jeff Goldblum) pointed the gun at his own head and asked for her to kill him. This would have probably made me cry even more as a four year old – I was an overly sensitive kid. I once dissolved in floods of tears over the Tom Jones song “Green green grass of home” (about a criminal waiting to be hanged), because it occurred to me that the guy might be innocent. Let me tell you, my parents have never let me live that one down.

I'd say that The Fly is one of the best films I've ever seen. But I do have to begrudgingly admit that maybe my parents were right when they made me rent that stupid bear video. Had they relented, I might not have grown up to be the productive, well adjusted individual I am.