PTA: Parent, Teacher, Asshole

Not Wild About Recent Kids' Films

So, explain to me the appeal of modern children’s films. Well, to help you explain, let me tell you what my problem is.

If you look at the evolution of children’s films, you can see how the filmmakers view their audience. Back when Disney was making a big impression with animated movies like Dumbo, the movies were dark and serious. Certainly there were bits of humor and levity, but as in Dumbo, Disney didn’t half-ass his depiction of Dumbo’s isolation and ridicule. He didn’t couch it in lightheartedness. It was dark and serious because the story of Dumbo was dark and serious. The villains of Disney’s first films were to be feared. The witch queen of Snow White, Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, even Cinderella’s stepmother are all scary characters.

Then things take a lighter turn. Prince John in Robin Hood is a thumb-sucking lion, Edgar the Butler in The Aristocats is a goofy looking character, and Ratigan of The Great Mouse Detective, though voiced by Vincent Price, is a silly rat who sings and hates being called a rat. But despite turning away from human characters to animals, making it more difficult to empathize, and making the villains less frightening, the themes were still serious. We were still able to feel sorry for the animals oppressed under Prince John and feel the fear and uncertainty of being stolen from your home and being lost, or having your father disappear and not knowing what to do because you’re a young child.

But things get lighter still. Simba seeing his father die in what he believes is an accident which is his fault is very traumatic and emotional, and Scar is a scary villain, but most of the film focuses on the comedy, even with the villains. Jafar in Aladdin is scary, at the end, but again, the villains are becoming even more comedic and there’s not much real emotional turmoil. The same goes for Ursula. She’s pretty menacing at the end, but most of the film, she’s a bit silly. And the emotional pull of the stories aren’t there. Ok, well, Lion King’s fight against Scar is compelling, but Aladdin? A love story? Same with The Little Mermaid…Love stories…for children? But fine, we bumble through some misadventures, then the shit hits the fan, we get concerned…

But Shrek? Madagascar? The Wild? Lord Farquaad is foolish! Madagascar doesn’t even have a villain, and The Wild’s wildebeests are hard to see as villains against even a zoo born lion. And the conflicts aren’t compelling. The characters aren’t sympathetic. Shrek isn’t a hero, he just wants to be left alone. The Madagascar animals are just looking for greener grass which they won’t find on the other side, and from The Wild, Ryan’s just an obnoxious kid and Samson’s a father repeating the same mistakes his father made with him and pushing his son away while at it.

But it’s not even just the villains…it’s the writing. The earlier films discussed had tight plots, everything ties together. They flow. But some of these modern children’s flicks, which everyone seems to love, remind me of when I used to watch Saturday Night Live. It’s the same group of people, but putting them in different scenes, different skits, with barely any connection. They aren’t cohesive stories. That, I suspect, has something to do with the atrocious attention spans our society likes to blame on just being young when really it’s a modern problem whose solutions (less TV, less video games, less computer, more reading) no one wants to accept.

It’s not that I expect all children’s films to be good, but I can’t understand why everyone speaks so highly about Shrek, or Madagascar, or The Wild. Course, I don’t know why Napoleon Dynamite is considered a great comedy. Or Ron Burgundy.

For the record, there are some recent children’s films I did enjoy. Pretty much anything from Pixar, though Cars was kind of weak. Ice Age, Over the Hedge, Chicken Little. I don’t think we should go back to the dark movies of Disney’s beginning, but the careful writing and plotting. That’s what I want my children to watch.

Labels: children movies The Wild

posted by Bodog @ 4:26 PM