Kids movies are scary. At least my kids think they are. When we went to Disney World last year, I’m pretty sure my kids were the only ones there who had seen only a small handful of actual Disney movies. Of that handful, they’d hid their eyes or run screaming from the room for half the running time. Very shortly after trying to introduce Lua and Charlie to some of my favorite childhood movies, I wondered why I was bothering to do so.
In Cinderella, the protagonist is orphaned and then thrown into a life of indentured servitude to her step-family. In Finding Nemo, Nemo’s mother gets eaten by a shark within the first few minutes of the film, while the rest of the time is spent in a child’s worst nightmare as Nemo is kidnapped and held captive in a Dentist’s office. In Toy Story, a psychopathic neighbor child torments and mutilates beloved toys and dolls. Lady and the Tramp has a bunch of creepy cats who slink around the new baby threatening to suck the life out of it. Don’t even get me started on The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Sleeping Beauty, all of which are full of evil, violence, and dead parents.
Why do we do this to our children? Most kids are sensitive to the slightest unfairness. They have trouble in real life processing illness, aging grandparents, dying pets, and bullies. Why then do we expect them to react with excitement when they see lovable characters in the movies losing family members and friends to vicious predators and bad guys? If they get to the point where these things are no longer upsetting, but thrilling, is that supposed to be a good thing?
There is one Disney movie that my kids and I actually love. It’s on repeat in our house a lot, and we own a ridiculous amount of it’s associated merchandise. That movie is Cars. Cars is sweet, and fun, and exciting. There are no bad guys, no violence, not even a scary scene. Yet somehow it manages to hold my children’s attention. The main story line of the movie Cars revolves around friendship, and the end of the movie is a pretty touching scene in which the main character learns about the value of sacrifice and love. Cars is a movie that I don’t feel bad showing my kids.
This is why we were so excited in our house for the release of Cars 2. It's also why I was so disappointed when we actually went to see the new movie. Everything I loved about Cars is turned on it's head in Cars 2. Not only is there the typical Disney bad guy in this movie, but there are machine guns, bombs, and even torture. There are cars that are actually tortured to death using electric shock in Cars 2. Apparently the people at Disney were trying to appeal to the adults who had to see this movie with their kids by turning into a spy thriller. Well guess what, Disney? I've already seen that movie. It's called Every James Bond Film Ever Made. The plot is old and tired, and did not interest me in the least. If I'd wanted to see a spy thriller, I would have gone to the newest Matt Damon flick. You didn't need to remake it using my four-year-old son's favorite cartoon characters.
As a parent of a little boy, I can vouch that it is very tough keeping my son away from all of the gore and violence associated with "boy" toys and TV shows. Even though Charlie has never seen a Super Hero movie, he somehow became obsessed with them and their accouterments as if someone has been whispering stories about weapons and muscles and Batmobiles in his ear as he slept. The last thing he needed to see was Mater (the goofy tow truck friend from Cars) with a bomb attached to his engine, shooting at bad guys with machine guns that pop out of his chassis.
I'm sure it's apparent to everyone now that Cars 2 upset me. I know I'm not the only one. A lot of my friends were angry about it too. But where is the general outrage about these kids movies? Why is it that Toy Story 3 (in which the beloved cast of toys gets locked in a daycare with a bunch of demented crazy toys and an evil dictator teddy bear who ends up being burned alive in an incinerator) got such rave reviews? Probably because parents thought it was exciting.
I would like to suggest to Disney/Pixar that they start making kids movies for kids again. Until that happens, I won't be taking my children to any more of their movies, nor will I be buying any more of the gobs of movie merchandise that is being pushed on us every time we enter a store. I know that I'm just one person, and I'm sure that they'll continue making millions on Cars 2 and the other movies like it. Hopefully though, if some other parents have the same idea, Disney won't make quite as many millions as they were hoping for. Maybe next time they will take some inspiration from the original Cars movie and create something that we can be comfortable showing our kids. I don't know about everyone else, but I would like to avoid another conversation with my four-year-old about why someone is trying to murder his favorite cartoon character.
Okay, end of rant.
4 comments:
Tajalli and I watched Toy Story 3 and were pretty surprised that it was for kids. It's like the Shrek movies, the writers think if they put sexual innuendo in the films that it will go over the kids heads and that the parents will love it.
Nemo’s mother gets eaten by a barracuda.
I'm not sure kids movies ever were made for kids. There are few films of any ere that I would want my young child to see.
Other than that, right on!
I couldn't agree more about Cars 2!
My 3-year-old loved Cars so we took him to Cars 2 for his first-ever theater movie.
Wow, was I disappointed. Like you said, Cars was a magical movie about friendship that is great for kids. This was a James Bond rip off that was not only unnecessarily violent, it was hard to follow for kids and there was hardly any good Lightning McQueen scenes in it.
I'm sure some writer somewhere thought this was a good idea but I was very disappointed.
Thumbs down to Cars 2!
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