Which brings up the question: does he object to the portrayal of the wolf Romulus and Remus? It’s just as inaccurate.
Ahh, so wolves are pro-life crazy right wing George Bush supporters? And you say they are NOT evil??
On the face of it, the idea of preserving and respecting wolves as wild animals is a worthy one, but that website, with its bad colour schemes and design, glurgy pictures and embedded sounds all over the place, just makes me wonder just a tiny bit if the author is one of those batshit-insane dog-lovers* that just decided to take the step to the next level.
*[sup]NB: I’m not by any means saying all or even most dog lovers are batshit insane, I’m talking about the kind of batshit-insane-dog-lovers that stage weddings for their animals and send letters to newspapers purporting to be penned by them.[/sup]
The truth is Disney is in the habit of slandering wolves and portraying them as evil predatory creatures. It goes far back to “The Three Little Pigs” and carries on throughprojects such as “Peter and the Wolf,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Narnia” (just the latest in Disney’s attacks on gentle wolf-kind).
Disney hates wolves!
I once started a thread asking which species of animal were good and which were evil. For instance, all mice are good, all rats are evil, all dogs are good, all cats are evil, all horses are good, all hyeanas are evil. It was interesting to see the responses and the justifications for those responses, variously folklore, cartoons, personal predjudices.
Actually the whole “wolves=evil” theme is SO played out that the the countertheme “wolves are noble misunderstood heroes” is played out too. I’ve heard the “wolves are misunderstood” argument since I was a kid, so much that it’s the new orthodoxy. Um, in 2005 it’s not exactly brave and original to claim that wolves aren’t evil monsters. What WOULD be brave and original is to eschew the noble brother wolf glurge that’s out there. It seems that some people aren’t happy with an animal that’s an animal, no, they have to project human qualities onto that animal…it must be evil, or noble, or sexual, or heroic, or whatever. The noble wolf is just as much a Freudian myth as the monster wolf. I sometimes despair that most people are incapable of seeing and appreciating an animal for what it really IS, rather than how it reflects back their own psychological needs and dysfunctions.
Those are polar bears, though, right? Clearly they are in favor of the frozen version of Narnia.
IIRC, bears don’t come into the book much, but in Prince Caspian, bears are definitely good, if they are talking bears (regular bears are just bears). The bears hold certain ancient rights. Any animal can turn to the Dark Side, however.
Wait, are you suggesting that this isn’t a realistic image of a wolf? They lied to me in Wolf Cubs?
Definitely an odd sort of website… just goes to show, I guess, that there’s no belief so sensible that it can’t be defended in a flaky manner. I’m all in favor of giving our lupine brethren their due, so I can certainly sympathize with the guy’s general concerns. Even so, I think that even the wolves themselves would be a bit puzzled at the vehement tone of the website. They’d probably be looking at each other and wondering, “Did we miss something? Are we really still in such a precarious position that this Disney movie is going to tip us back over the edge again? What’s up with this guy, anyway? Is he one of those orphaned children we raised in the wild, or what?”
Just in case the “Heart of the Wolf” guy ever sees this thread: dude, take a step back and calm down a bit. The Wolves do not want you to suffer cardiac infarction, aneurysm, or legal privation on their behalf.
Disney was actually a bit ahead of the curve with their sympathetic depiction of Mowgli’s adoptive parents in **The Jungle Book ** (even though I don’t recall that they rated a song-and-dance number; what a gyp), and also produced the film adaptation of Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf, if I recall correctly. So their track record isn’t too bad overall.
Ahead of the curve in a nineteenth century kind of way, of course. 
Oh, now you know what I mean; I’m not trying to take any credit away from Kipling, of course. But even back in the 1960’s I don’t think the general public perception of wolves was quite at the favorable level it is now, where people commonly buy calendars featuring images of their adorably fuzzy high jinks. Somewhere I’ve got a book from that era about North American game hunting, which remarks that shooting wolves from a helicopter is both fun and extremely sporting. So there’s been significant progress since then, is what I’m saying.
I wonder if the guy has seen this yet.
According to Colbert, any Bear is a grave threat to the American Nation. And now they want to publish scandelous information about our celebrities they obtained after rooting through their garbage cans, destroying our entertainment industry, and thus our economy. This will not stand! We will fight the Ursinefacists, wether the pinheads at the UCLU like it or not!
Big ones with alternate lifestyles are a grave threat indeed. Make no mistake: They’re after your basket.
I blame the furries and their yiffing.
We’ve got the Russians rooting through celebrity garbage cans and destroying the entertainment industry? Where do I send my thank you note to Putin?
Not to worry. Kipling, of course, wrote an excellent book called The Jungle Book (or two, to be exact), but any similarities other than the names and species of a few characters are quite coincidental.
Some people might be surprised to learn that Rama was the name, not of Mowgli’s adopted father wolf, but of a herd bull; that Kaa, so far from trying to eat Mowgli, was one of his closest friends and advisors (and certainly didn’t take any shit from Shere Khan or anyone else); that the monkeys did not have a jazz-singing orang-utan for a king :rolleyes: and that Hathi was not a comic British-colonel type but the wisest and most powerful creature in the Jungle.
On the other hand, the songs were modern classics, almost without exception.
Doesn’t even start to make up for all the villains with English accents that Hollywood has foisted on us for the last 20 years!
Anyone read the new CSL bio The Narnian?
I think the poor guy is just lashing out due to the embarassment of this.
–Cliffy
BTW, I noted there was a quick shorthand in the movie. Winter creatures (wolves, polar bears, snow tigers, etc.) were all on the witch’s side. I’m surprised mre people didn’t pick up on this.
Cats are evil. Proven fact.
I agree. But if it works, it works, and it works in Lewis.
Besides, Maugrim was well written; not just a cold-blooded killing machine, but a creepy and deeply intimidating character who came very close to persuading Peter that he, Peter, didn’t have the balls to kill him. A good job by the scriptwriter.