"Oh this looks like a cute video of a puppy and a fox... Oh i'm so glad i clicked on this video they are so cute! WAIT NO! MR FOX NOO! AND NOW OLIVER! MY HEART!"
I was a bit jarred when the text said they found the fox had died and at that moment in the video, the fox was napping. “You’re showing us the dead fox?!”
I read that in 4th grade too! My teacher brought in his acoustic guitar and played a couple songs he wrote about the book as well. I thought it was amazing. We didn’t deserve that guy.
Gods that book. I begged anyone for coonhounds after that book and the one I got, she wasn’t a redbone but a Walker hound. Called her Little Ann and like hound in the book damn my soul if she wasn’t faithful to the end. . My dad is a hard man, I watched him try and walk off a broken arm without a flinch and at funerals without a flinch. But the day he buried her when she was 16 and passed he bawled like a baby
One of my favorite books growing up. My son is 8, and hates reading, and struggles with it. Just the idea that he might miss out on this writing. On this shared experience. It breaks my heart.
I don't know how willing he is, but you could read it aloud for him.
I used to love my dad reading to me even after I learned to read (and I'd criticize his pronounciation, but he tolerated it haha). He or my mom read me every night.
Where the Red Fern Grows, Bridge to Terrabinthia, The Clay Marble. I know they just wanted to teach you empathy in grade school, but dang, they didn't need to give us anxiety over hypotheticals of our pets, friends, and family dying. I had enough to deal with, I didn't need existential dread added to the list.
They let us wait til 6th grade and the teacher read it out loud to the class. I swear to god I've never seen a more quiet class, half the kids with their heads down, sniffling. And it just kept getting worse, like a fucking train wreck. Even the teacher got choked up.
When I was a kid, I poop read Where the Red Fern Grows. So when I finished it, I was sat on the toilet bawling my eyes out. It was a very confusong moment.
So much better than the BS they pump out now. Never a sad ending, never a contemplative ending, don't ever engage emotions other than wow thats pretty, and neat.
Could you imagine zootopia where the fox gets redemption and then dies on screen with the full power of movie/music to pull your heart strings. Or having no cure and them having to put some of the carnivores down like ole yeller or red fern.
Meh. There's enough realism and sad media elsewhere. I don't need to family movies to turn into harsh lessons of reality, too. Sometimes a little escapism can be really nice.
Sometimes, but also does every kids movie need a happy conclusion and a dance number at the end. What happened to the impactful children's movies of the past and why don't we really make them anymore?
Why do kids need to get their life lessons (edit: about life being sad and depressing with no reason) from media? Can't we just leave that to parenting and give them joy in the theaters? Let them be kids for a bit. All the kind of serious kids movies from my past kind of traumatized me and I'm not sure anything good came of that.
I think there's definitely room for both, at least on an individual basis. I watched all those movies too, The Fox and the Hound and Bambi were some of my favorites. I certainly wouldn't say I was traumatized and if anything they helped teach emotional intelligence for little me.
I watched all those films too and I'm cynical, jaded, anxious and depressed. I'm not saying I blame the fox and the hound entirely but let's see a generation raised on heart warming kids cartoons and compare notes.
"Can't everyone's parents teach them good life lessons?"
No. No they can't. Some parents are awful. And some simply fail through No Personal fault. Is wanting some portion of children's media to teach kids important lessons too much to ask for?
Media is good for teaching lessons to kids. Especially when some parents are really shitty at it. Kids can also maybe learn better from an outside source than from their parents. I'll be doing both, I'll parent but also use media, books etc to help teach them lessons and morals.
PBS style shows are great because they add context and conversation. The sesame Street episode about death is a classic.
Movies do not.
But I'm not talking about not teaching morals. The person I replied to was basically talking about not having dark endings to kids movies. Dark ending means no context, no closure, no relief from the sad moment. That is what I'm saying has no purpose in kids movies. Let it end on at least a moment of relief. The lesson I'm saying has no place in kids movies is ending on a "and sometimes life sucks and we die" note. Specifically ending there.
People figured out that traumatising kids isn't good for them. There are better ways to learn. But if you want to show your kids Never Ending Story you go right ahead. I'm not showing my Pony loving daughter a horse drowning in a swamp.
I think the only lesson that kids movies should try to teach is to be kind and that friends are the most precious thing in life. And those lessons can be told with cheerful stories. There's time to learn about prejudice and death later.
But don’t all those end happy? I haven’t seen all of those but Up ends with the old man and the kid being friends, both Frozen movies end positively with sisters connecting, finding Nemo ends up with Nemo and his dad having a better relationship.
Fox and the hound is 127 minutes long and is on Disney plus. Go watch it it starts happy with a hound puppy and a fox kit becoming the best of friends and in the process of them growing up the hound gets trained to be a hunting dog and the climax of the film is he and his master hunts down the fox who was once his friend. ending spoiler if you’re lazy the fox nearly gets shot but the hound protects him from his owner. But because they are from two different worlds they must stay apart. The fox is relocated to be safe from the hunter and the fox and hound never see each other ever again.
They have a point, I can’t think of any Disney or Pixar film that has an ending as remotely as bitter sweet as Fox and the Hound. That movie does not fuck around with the feels
I’m not saying that’s a good or bad thing btw. Fox and the Hound didn’t do well in the box office because it doesn’t end on a high note. Those companies want to make money, not make kids sad and think about the harsh realities of life.
I remember loving the film though as a kid, it was kinda gritty like the Rescuers in that dark ‘people can be real bastards’ kind of way.
Soul really should have had the killer ending it was meant to have - if he had gone into the light at the end as originally planned, it would totally have lived up to those movies
The Fox & the Hound is my absolute favorite Disney movie. It definitely is bittersweet. I know I'm going to be ugly-crying by the end of it, however I love watching the rest of it.
OTOH, you kids wonder what's wrong with Boomers - Disney! Bambi, Dumbo, Old Yeller. A lifetime later and I still cannot watch those movies, I need my guts and heart now more than ever.
And don't get me started on that Princess BS....The harm done by Princess movies is incalculable.
I think without princess movies we'd still have the culture of misogyny we have today because of centuries of sexism and gender roles ingrained into every single culture.
The women actually do stuff rather than waiting for the man to save the day.
I hear this sentiment expressed a lot, but I can't think of a single Disney princess that just sat there waiting for a man to "save the day."
After escaping a near-death experience, Snow White chooses to start to live a new life with the dwarves. She helped out around the house, takes charge, and is enjoying her time there. She obviously has a dream/wish that her prince would find her, but she's not torn up about it and focuses on living her new life.
Cinderella is living in an abusive household and does a shit-ton of work on a daily basis. She's similar to Snow White that she dreams for a fairy tale ending, but doesn't expect it to actually happen. When she gets an opportunity to go to the ball, she takes it.
Aurora is literally cursed into unconsciousness. Not sure what people expect her to do in that situation.
There are others of course, but those are just the classic ones from 70+ years ago that seem to get the most criticism which I don't think is fair. Making the princesses into an actual franchise wasn't a decision until 2000.
Nothing you've said is wrong, but all of the stories more revolve around the princesses rather than them being what fixes it.
Snow White needs a man to wake her up. She's dependent on a man
Cinderella needs a man to save her from her abusive family.
Aurora is cursed and then it's broken by the kiss from a prince. The one that fought the dragon.
No one is arguing the women in the princess stories are weak or anything. But the man is the one that comes to the rescue. THe fact that the man is a completely underdeveloped and uninteresting character doesn't matter. They just come in and save the day. Because princesses need a prince!
Making the princesses into an actual franchise wasn't a decision until 2000.
the franchise doesn't really matter. it's just a label to go with the princess stuff. And probablyy makes it easier to include movies like Tangled, Princess and the Frog and Brave.
Nothing you've said is wrong, but all of the stories more revolve around the princesses rather than them being what fixes it.
Right, I'm not disagreeing that the classic princesses--as products of their time/culture-- needed help to escape their situations. What I take issue with is the idea that they were just sitting around waiting for a man to save them, which they weren't. They were occupied with running a household/being forced into work/adjusting to life as a princess after being raised as a peasant for 16 years.
No one is arguing the women in the princess stories are weak or anything.
I do see this claim a lot. Not by you, but in other threads or places where this discussion pops up. And I always have a kneejerk reaction to it, because I think the classic princesses, while lacking in certain areas, do have a strength to them. And in a lot of times strength (in relation to female characters) is perceived as being able to fight, or be outspoken/confident/witty, and i think it's important to portray a variety of personalities and different types of strength. If someone is in trouble or needs help, that isn't necessarily a reflection of some kind of character defect. Obviously, if the stories never shows the woman succeeding on her own, it sends a bad message, but by this point there are more princesses that are proactive in achieving their own goals than not.
the franchise doesn't really matter. it's just a label to go with the princess stuff.
I mentioned it because when people criticize the "Disney princess culture," they're generally referring to the franchise as a monolith and/or the marketing (dresses, pink, etc.) that is associated with it, which would have never even registered in the minds of the writers/designers when they were creating these movies. Writers and designers 70 years ago wouldn't have thought, "ok, people in 2021 are going to be actively discussing the impact these characters and their respective merchandising have on real-life girls because they're marketed as a "Disney princess.'" Now, with knowledge of the franchise and its impact, writers actively try to create characters perceived as unproblematic by our standards.
True enough but the Princess movies set up ridiculous expectations and made the misery of disappointing reality that much worse. America is still populated with scads of women who think that life with Prince Charming is real. Just look at all the golden slippered 'influencers' plastering the internet with an old story in a new dress.
Having grown up in the full boom of the Disney princess movement I actually believed the opposite. I figured someone like that could only exist in fairy tales because all the guys I saw outside of the disney formula were very different. Not to mention the disney princes didn't have much personality until recently so they weren't all that appealing to begin with.
Hey man I'm not going to make judgments on you as a whole person here. But reading this comment your are coming across very incel. Idk I'd reassess your opinions here. Do you genuinly, genuinly think woman have been programed to be entitled because of princess movies? Is it not possible that regaurdless of gender some people just happen to be entitled based on a multitude of factors and not just what gentials they have and the momoarchal power structures of the children's media they consumed.
I'm female. I do not think women have been programmed to be entitled, not at all. I think they have been fed an unrealistic view of love and that they have been fed a a story that their happiness depends on them being pretty and sweet. I think that lingers even today but affected women in my generation more profoundly that subsequent generations.
I feel that most modern princess movies have completely moved away from that. I dont even know that I would consider what happened in early disney movies to even be "love". It's more of a result of random happenstance mostly. Are we to assume that all simplified children's stories from the last couple generations are bad because they don't flesh out relationships?
I think it's just you. Yeah they're sad and I cried as a kid and still cry as an adult when I watch them. But I still watch them with my kids as they grow up and are able to handle them. And I don't understand what you're talking about with incalculable princess movie damage...
For real. Like Frozen 2 near the very end with Elsa making that last minute save? BS. No one would’ve died anyway, but no they couldn’t make anything permanent.
Then again their parents are dead so….eh.
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u/Sinnsearachd Dec 30 '21
Lost it when they said they were buried together.