Product Description

Another dazzling suburban phantasm from writer-director Todd Haynes, Dottie Gets Spanked (made post-Poison and pre-Safe) is a stylized, bittersweet nod to his childhood fascination with I Love Lucy. Deep in the heart of pre-hippie 1960s America, young artistically-inclined Steven Gale is obsessed with Dottie Frank, wacky star of the eponymous hit sitcom The Dottie Show. While his mother gently encourages the boy's fixation, his father grows increasingly frustrated by his son's apparently "sissified" interests. This provocative, heartfelt mini-feature anticipates Haynes' Oscar-nominated Far From Heaven with its excavation of placid mid-century surfaces and deeply-buried emotions.

SPECIAL FEATURES
- New audio commentary by Todd Haynes
- Rare 1989 short film He Was Once: an inventive parody of 1960s kiddie claymation show Davey and Goliath, co-starring and co-produced by Haynes
- Behind-the-scenes production photos
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88607 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-11-02
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 45 minutes

From The New Yorker
Todd Haynes's rarely screened short is like a Freudian haiku: it hints at some larger psychosexual truths, yet glides coolly under them, leaving us to extract our own meanings. It centers on Stevie, a six-year-old boy who is obsessed with Dottie, the star of an "I Love Lucy"-like television show. Mother indulges his devotion, Father disapproves, and the girls on the school bus, who, unlike Stevie, can freely discuss their adoration of Dottie, think he's a freak. Haynes subtly presents the forces acculturating an effeminate boy in the stilted atmosphere of fifties Long Island. In the face of this pressure, Stevie retains his poise and dwells on fantasies of revenge. By the end, the question of who does or doesn't deserve to get spanked gains a remarkable intensity. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Short and Very, Very Sweet
"Dottie Gets Spanked"

Short and Very, Very Sweet

Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

What "Dottie Gets Spanked" does in half an hour many full length films never manage to do. With no pretense and frills, Todd Haynes, the director conveys what it is like to be a youngster on the verge of becoming gay. The movie is simple and straightforward yet a very emotional experience. The movie hugs you and draws you in a dark and sinister way without you even realizing that it is happening. It uplifts sissy power to a degree heretofore not dealt with on the screen.
I felt as if I was taken back to the shame I felt when I could not share my early sexual fantasies. Our main character, Steven Gale, is fascinated by the world of women and he is mesmerized by a TV star named Dottie who is his world. What lies beneath this attraction for Dottie is deeply psychological and we watch as Steven attempts to understand the meaning of the word normal. Here we get a very tasteful and sincere look at a young boy's interest in and awareness of his sexuality. Ashe observes innocently the mores of the society in which he lives, he finds a curiosity about some of the stranger details of adult life. He sees Dottie as his heroine and his role model.
The script is tender and sensitive and the director renders it with class and humor. Something happens in this movie that can change your life and the beautiful and careful way this movie is constructed takes the viewer to a different time and place. Steve's reality is bases upon a television show and the reality behind it brings about a multidimensional understanding that will probably bother him later. So many of us have experienced something like this and it is absolutely amazing to watch it happen to someone else.

A small gem
This wonderful short film brilliantly (and entertainingly) captures the moment when a young boy's burgeoning sexuality becomes something he feels he needs to hide. Not to mention the fact that it's a spot-on period recreation, something at which filmmaker Haynes appears to effortlessly excel. A great companion piece to his later and more mature work on the same decade, FAR FROM HEAVEN. And like that film, one in which one false step could have caused the entire structure to collapse. An astonishing balancing act -- very funny, very sad, very moving.