Dangerous Disney Mentality
A lot of movies are awful and influential in negative ways for obvious reasons: too much gore, too much violence, promotion of rampant materialism, advocacy of selfish individualism, glorification of irresponsible and meaningless sexual behavior and unrealistic portrayal of the reality of engaging in excessive alcoholism or drug use.
But lately I've been thinking about the fact that Disney movies can be pretty terrible too. I'm sure there's a whole slew of reasons why, but the particular one I have been contemplating is the dangerous disney mentality that you can screw everything up and yet somehow at the end of the day some quick fix will clean everything up, and not only restore the situation but somehow improve it.
This unrealistic mentality has somehow permeated our society. Clearly, Disney (and other film studios) is not solely to blame. But I don't think it helps when from childhood the movies we learn to love promote this sorty of panacea-mentality that as long as you realize you did the wrong thing and team up with right person, everything will be a-okay!
Life isn't like that. Bad decisions can often have grave consequences that do not simply disappear or magically transform into good things.
I read this utterly horrifying and disturbing article on CNN about the most disturbing movie ever made, The Human Centipede, and it just got me to thinking...what is the outcome of all of this going to be? Our movies are getting increasingly more macabre, sadistic, cruel, sexually permissive, and our youth are starting to watch these films at younger and younger ages. How will they not be psychologically affected by all of this? How will this not leave its permanent mark on their psyches and as a result on our world?
To expect otherwise is foolish, at best, and most likely, quite dangerous.
But lately I've been thinking about the fact that Disney movies can be pretty terrible too. I'm sure there's a whole slew of reasons why, but the particular one I have been contemplating is the dangerous disney mentality that you can screw everything up and yet somehow at the end of the day some quick fix will clean everything up, and not only restore the situation but somehow improve it.
This unrealistic mentality has somehow permeated our society. Clearly, Disney (and other film studios) is not solely to blame. But I don't think it helps when from childhood the movies we learn to love promote this sorty of panacea-mentality that as long as you realize you did the wrong thing and team up with right person, everything will be a-okay!
Life isn't like that. Bad decisions can often have grave consequences that do not simply disappear or magically transform into good things.
I read this utterly horrifying and disturbing article on CNN about the most disturbing movie ever made, The Human Centipede, and it just got me to thinking...what is the outcome of all of this going to be? Our movies are getting increasingly more macabre, sadistic, cruel, sexually permissive, and our youth are starting to watch these films at younger and younger ages. How will they not be psychologically affected by all of this? How will this not leave its permanent mark on their psyches and as a result on our world?
To expect otherwise is foolish, at best, and most likely, quite dangerous.
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