Messed Up Childhood Movies

As I get progressively older, I look back on the films that were integral to my formative years. Through the haze of nostalgia I am coming more and more to a simple conclusion: I watched a lot of messed up films as a kid. Now it wasn’t that I was exposed to inappropriate films. My parents were not that reckless. No, these were films that were AIMED at a young audience. These films were targeted for children and yet watching them as an adult I feel these films might have ineradicably harmed me in some way. At the very least they explain my bizarre tastes and weird behavior as an adult.

What got me thinking about this was the movie Labyrinth. I remember being terrified seeing this movie as a child and openly rebelled against my babysitter because she tried to force me to watch it. As an adult I now see that film as a whimsical fantasy film from the Jim Henson Company. But when I look at this movie and think about what it might be for a child to see this, I realize this is a horrific and terrifying film. First of all the inciting incident of the film is a girl selling her infant brother to a Goblin King. That’s right children, the woman who is supposed to be taking care of you will give you away to monsters as soon as she gets annoyed with you. And even though there are countless stories about children being swept away to magical worlds, the world of the Labyrinth is no quaint fairy tale like land like Wonderland or Oz. The Labyrinth is populated by Goblins, Gremlins, Giant Crabs, a deformed Woman with a pile of garbage on her back (which I found particularly scary as a child) and all number of other strange and terrifying creatures. And the only human who lives there is David Bowie, which is scary enough on its own.

Of course, Labyrinth is not the first (nor the last) movie I saw that while aimed at children should be considered absolutely terrifying to children. That honor goes to Disney’s The Black Cauldron. The Black Cauldron came out in that weird period when Disney was not making movies based on fairy tales. The Black Cauldron was particularly disturbing because the main plot of the film is that the Horned King wants the cauldron in order to create zombies. Not cute Plants vs. Zombies style zombies, but genuine Romero style undead zombies. Which he does! Which I saw as a child. Corpses rising up and killing the living, all from the same people whose last film was The Fox and the Hound.

Come to think of it, Disney is guilty of putting a lot of disturbing things in their films that have probably traumatized children for generations. The Pink Elephants scene from Dumbo and the Heffelumps and Woozles song from Winnie the Pooh are probably the closest I’ll ever get to having an acid trip. Bambi’s mom getting shot was certainly a heart breaking moment, almost as bad as the idea of having to shoot Ole Yeller. Pinocchio and Alice in Wonderland both show kids that it’s both enjoyable and cool to do drugs, smoke, and drink alcohol. Song of the South (a movie so controversial that Disney has yet to rerelease it) seemed to tell children that slavery and racism is perfectly okay.

A large part of the problem is that we in America automatically assume that because something is either animated or features puppets then it must automatically be meant for children. An aesthetic not shared by most of the rest of the cinematic world. Japan is notorious for producing animated films that are heavily violent and erotic and most assuredly not meant for children. A good example of this is Watership Down, a British film. While the concept of the films should seem like the plot of a typical Disney film, rabbits fleeing to safety as their home is destroyed, some of the visuals are horrible. There is a depiction of two rabbits brutally killing each other, complete with blood and matted fur, certainly realistic to actual wild animal behavior.

Many people are always complaining about violent video games or offensive music as being damaging to a child’s psyche. And yet no one seems to care about all these wolves in sheep’s clothing kids movies that are probably doing deeper and longer lasting psychological damage to a child than any video game. A violent video game is not subtle about its content, bombarding the player with obvious images which the player initially sought out. When a child sees a Disney film, he or she is not necessarily expecting a scene of brutal murder or drug metaphor, and long after they see such a film are processing those images in their young minds.