You may have seen in the news that Disney is remaking Bambi into a live action movie. Even if you’ve never seen the original, I think just about everyone knows that Bambi’s mother is killed by a hunter. My apologies if I just spoiled an 83 year old movie for you. As with any remake, this one is generating some controversy as the filmmakers (allegedly) plan to downplay the death of Bambi’s mother. Now the usual suspects are complaining this is part of some “woke” agenda, but I think that’s baloney, and it’s more of an issue of making sure the movie appeals to a modern audience. What was acceptable to audiences in 1942 might not be acceptable in the 2020s.
But it brings to mind something I think of now and then; It’s good for children to be exposed to traumatic events in fiction. It’s good for them to experience fear and sadness through fiction as it allows them to learn how to process these emotions in what is ultimately a safe environment. Keep in mind I’m not arguing that a six-year-old should watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scanners, or The Thing (I have no idea why anyone things the demographics on this board skew older), but there were some movies I remember watching as a wee lad that were scary or sad. There was the death of Atreyu’s horse Artax in The Neverending Story, I had to seriously fight back tears when Mr. Spock died in The Wrath of Khan, and then there was the death of Lunk and Roy Fokker in the Robotech cartoon.
I saw an interview with Larry Hama where he referred to the original GI Joe cartoon as “morally bankrupt.” Hama was a writer at Marvel comics who was tagged to write the GI Joe comic book and he was also the one who came up with the backstories for most of the Joes. Hasbro would show Hama the design for the toy and he’s write the biography. The comic was targetted towards a slight older demographic and there were people who died. It’s been more than 40 years and I still remember the death of Kwinn the Eskimo at the hands of Dr. Venom. Hama thought the cartoon was morally bankrupt because it featured characters going to war without anyone ever getting hurt. And I agree with him.
I don’t want to imply that kids today are weak as I don’t believe that kind of nonsense. But I don’t know if we do them any good by eliminating the negative from fiction aimed at them. Am I off base here?