Originally submitted to Cracked.com:
Certainly no legitimate critic of film and television really
believes that films and television have a negative affect on children’s minds.
There was war and violence long before there was appointment television and The
Wachowskis. But just because children aren’t affected doesn’t mean that some of
the entertainment children are exposed to doesn’t bring up uncomfortable
questions for parents. That seems to be the real problem with entertainment. It
leaves parents having to actually talk to their kids and no parent wants to
uncomfortably try to explain concepts like death to their children. So as a
public service, parents might want to avoid showing the following films to
their children.
1.) Bedknobs and Broomsticks
If you’re not familiar with the story of Bedknobs and
Broomsticks, it’s about a trio of orphans who go to live in the country during
World War II (as was common practice at the time to avoid bombings and the
horrors of war) with a mysterious woman who takes the children on a series of
adventures. Oh, We forgot to mention that the woman they go to live with is an
apprentice witch who is trying to master magic spells in an attempt to assist
in the war effort. Despite the adventures and trips to Portabello Road and the
Isle of Naboombu (a magic island where animals talk) the crux of this story is
Witches versus Nazis. NAZIS! In a Disney movie. And not some allegory for Nazis
which is sometimes seen in films for kids (the Hyenas in the Lion King ring a
bell) but actual swastika wearing SS uniform Nazis.
Yeah it’s a cute and fun tale for kids but if that concept
were pitched to a studio today, this would be a hardcore horror movie produced
by Sam Raimi or Roger Corman (or anyone who likes putting buckets of blood in
their films). Instead of turning people into rabbits, kindly Miss Price (played
by Angela Lansbury in the original but probably recast as Megan Fox in today’s
version) would just straight up explode people’s heads. Same with the suits of
armor she enchants to scare the Nazis. They would be hacking and slashing Nazis
left and right. The only thing that makes this seem like a children’s movie is
the animated animals, who would easily be replaced with CGI.
2.) The Black Cauldron
One of the lesser known Disney films, the Black Cauldron was
made in 1985 during that period in between where Disney had hit classics based
on fairy tales but before its resurgence with The Lion King, Aladdin and Beauty
and the Beast.
As such there was a lot of experimentation with this film. At least with its
animation. A lot of the story elements are pretty standard. A young farm boy,
an evil king, a princess, a magical pig (yes, a magical pig that can see the
future), and a wacky funny sidekick.
Oh yeah, and an army of zombies. The goal of the villain in
this movie (The Horned King who is pretty terrifying without an army of the
undead) is to find the titular Black Cauldron (which is why he needs to find
the magic pig) and use it to raise an army of the dead. And these are not
cartoonish looking deadfolk. They are skeletons with flesh rotting on their
bones. AMC’s The Walking Dead would proudly cast some of these zombies
(ignoring the fact that they are in chain mail and would be wildly period
inappropriate for modern day Georgia). Adding a cherry to the not meant for kids
sundae, the funny sidekick commits suicide in order to stop the army of the
dead, flinging himself into the Cauldron.
3.) Balto
From dead soldiers to dying children. Balto could have been
a cute story about a boy and his dog and the dog being accepted after being
seen as an outcast, but the story adds a ticking clock when the children of
this small isolated Alaskan town come down with a deadly virus and a dogsled
team needs to be put together in order to get medicine. Now since this a
ticking clock, the stakes need to be reminded to the audience constantly.
Children in this town are dying. It’s a great story of heroism.
But it’s also an animated movie. With music. And talking
animals. And dying children. While not shown specifically on screen it is highly
suggested that some of the children actually do die throughout the film. We see
parents grieve and motionless little child hands. Very disturbing stuff. Eventually
we are only left to care about one girl, Rosy, who owns Jenna who is the dog
Balto is in love with. So as long as that one sick child doesn’t die the story
has a happy ending. Of course every other kid in the town can bite the dust and
that doesn’t matter.
4.) Corpse Bride
Death seems to be a common theme in kids’ movies but Tim
Burton’s Corpse Bride adds a completely new element to expose children to.
Necrophilia. Granted there is no actual sex in the film, but man does end up
marrying a dead woman (the titular Corpse Bride). Not just dead, but rotting.
One of the characters in the movie is a worm that is living inside the Corpse
Bride’s skull and eating away at her rotting brains.
And if we expand the definition of necrophilia to include
someone who wants to be with a corpse then the protagonist of this film, Victor
(voiced by long time Burton collaborator Jonny Depp) then it completely fits
the definition. Victor chooses to stay with the Corpse Bride, even when he gets
the opportunity to escape. And when the Corpse Bride comes looking for young
Victor she brings along all the other dead humans she was sharing the afterlife
with. These walking undead then proceed to reunite with their loved ones in the
town, renewing their previous relationships. One woman even is reunited with
her skeleton husband. Certainly we can infer these two lovers still have
romantic feelings towards each other.
5.) The Incredibles
Super heroes are a rife source of things that are tough for
a child to understand. There are tons of stories of some kid breaking a bone
because he jumped off a roof trying to fly. But that’s not what the problem
with the Incredibles is. The problem with the Incredibles is suicide.
The movie starts with a scene of Mr. Incredible doing the
things that super heroes do. He saves a cat from a tree, he stops a bank
robber, and he catches a man falling to his death. Except we learn that the man
falling to his death wanted to die and would have succeeded were it not for the
intervention of a super hero. This is a Pixar film and a man wants to take his
own life. Maybe that’s not too traumatic
if a kid just watched the Corpse Bride and thinks the man would come back as a
dancing skeleton. But more likely this will bring up all sorts of uncomfortable
questions about depression and mortality. Especially when you see Mr.
Incredible later in the film in a mental state probably not all that dissimilar
to the man who jumped at the beginning of the film.
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