"When the teddy bear craze struck the U.S. in 1906, there was a serious debate over the effect that stuffed animals would have on children; some feared that small girls who played with plush bears instead of baby dolls would be inadequately prepared for motherhood" (187). -The Bambi Syndrome
Sometimes, I find the human race just utterly disappointing.
Because playing with plastic dolls is the way any little girl should learn to be a mother.
"Now, dear, this doll will make you into a great mom. Feed the doll, and nurse it, and pretend it's your own child. Stuffed bears are silly. Those are just animals." What.
Because little children learn their values and actions through their toys and not through their parents.
That's the thing that bothers me about Disney critics. They blame the Disney movies for raising unrealistic expectations of "happily-ever-after" in children, instead of maybe, mmm, looking at how they can improve their parenting. 'Everyone gets a happy ending, which just doesn't happen in the real world, and we should stop feeding our children the idea that it does.'
Um, how about explaining to your kid that
it's just a movie. How about letting your child enjoy the magical worlds and vivid storytelling created by Disney, but teaching them that what they should take away are the lessons and insights, not the happily-ever-after?
When I grew up watching (and loving) Disney movies, I never expected some dashing prince to come and fall in love with me. It was an animated cartoon movie, for God's sake.
There were talking closets. TALKING CLOSETS.
Even as a 5-year old, I knew these movies were just for enjoyment. Just like any other movie out there, ever. I just loved all the wonderful stories and the music and the beautiful animation. I appreciated it, not because it gave me some twisted view of reality and some false expectation of love, but because it made me feel
happy and
warm.
The same question can then be raised to the critics of Bambi. Hunters complained that Bambi portrays Man and Hunting in a negative light, while romanticizing the animal. How about: Bambi is an animated cartoon with talking animals. Give people a little credit, that maybe they don't base their whole ideologies on animated features. Ok, so they may be a little influenced because of how cute the animals look, which, in that case: raise awareness on the 'truth' of hunting. Tell the world how hunters actually help the environment and keep animal populations stable, or whatever. Educate, rather than blame.
It is true that Bambi has had an influence on mass culture, and how some people think of nature.
But blaming and getting angry at a
movie for supposedly propagandizing the world against hunters?
I don't know about that.
Reading "The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature" in Uncommon Ground, I could broaden and deepen my understanding of nature. First of all, I was fascinated by Cronon's novel idea that "far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, [wilderness] is quite profoundly a human creation- indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history" (69). I have never thought in a way that wilderness is not an untouched ground that has nothing to do with human but a created ground that is the very reflection of our culture and history. Moreover, I became to advocate his assertion that we are obsessed with dualism. That is, we often tend to have "a set of bipolar moral scales in which the human and the non-human, the unnatural and the natural, the fallen and the unfallen, serve as our conceptual map for understanding and valuing the world" (89). As he claims, we will be able to better understand the nature and world we live in when we explore the middle ground where "we actually live" and "make our homes" (86).
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