What has Hollywood got against pens?

Jackie Chan in "The Spy Next Door"

OK, this is just anecdotal, and hardly a trend, but two of the kid's movies I've watched with my daughter in the last few months seem to have a thing against . . . pens! Or, more specifically, people who sell them.

The first movie I saw this in was The Spy Next Door, with Jackie Chan. I was looking forward to the movie because I think Jackie Chan is an absolute riot. (And he did not disappoint in this movie, or in the outtakes, which were hilarious.)

Chan plays a super-spy who has a cover identity as a pen importer. From that statement and the action outtake of Chan at left, you might think, Cool, a pen importer who's a super-spy. What a great image for pen importers!

The problem, of course, is that his two identities are portrayed as polar opposites. The super-spy persona isn't meant to be a great image for pen importers. The pen importer persona is meant to be a negative image for a super-spy! That's not a huge surprise, I guess. But the kids in the movie don't like him, and are upset that their mom is dating him, because they think he's a "boring" pen importer. As if that's a bad (or at least a boring) thing. They only warm up to him once they learn he's a spy.

Now, maybe I'm a boring guy, but . . . man, would I love to be a pen importer! Some days, at least. Compared to the grind of litigation some days, pen importing sounds downright glamorous.

There was a second movie that painted a pen salesman negatively, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. Next movie I see like that, though, the studio is getting a nasty letter!