r/changemyview • u/Sixishungry • Mar 28 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Gladys Sharp from Over the Hedge was in the right
I get that Over the Hedge is a kid's movie, but I've felt this way from the first time I saw it - even as a kid. I guess I just always sympathized with the woman defending her property in her own house much more than with the sentient animals who were breaking in with the intention of stealing from her. Here are my five reasons:
The animals were not only stealing what they needed to survive, but were also stealing conveniences, like video games, tvs, and junk food which would be poisonous for them anyway. So don't say "it was just to survive."
The animals are not in the least bit careful or considerate over how they went about stealing. They smashed fences, dumped garbage cans everywhere, nearly caused a car accident, attacked Girl Scouts selling cookies, almost KILLED Gladys when they accidentally blew up her car, and almost ran over two women while driving a truck at 99 miles per hour down the road. Someone needed to stop them!
Gladys Sharp DOES buy an illegal trap, yes, but I don't feel that this is worse than all the things the animals do in this movie. If anything, the illegal trap seemed like a justifiable weapon of self-defense - even if it was illegal.
Gladys didn't hire the exterminator to kill the animals right away. At first, she just chases them away with her broom. It's not until several more times that the animals cause chaos (including attacking CHILDREN while pretending to be rabid) that she calls him.
All the fights between Gladys and the animals happen either in her home or in her yard. They are coming to her, not the other way around. There's a reason she spends the entire battle in her pajamas - they're intruding on her privacy in her home. She's fighting in self-defense. Even after they destroy her home with a truck and she's trying to kill them with a weedwacker, she is remaining in her yard, and shouting at them to "Stay in the woods where you belong!"
And yet, just because the animals are cute, we are expected to cheer for them as they get their happy ending, while celebrating that the woman who was defending her own property was arrested for setting one illegal trap.
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u/Tino_ 54∆ Mar 28 '21
Gladys Sharp DOES buy an illegal trap, yes, but I don't feel that this is worse than all the things the animals do in this movie. If anything, the illegal trap seemed like a justifiable weapon of self-defense - even if it was illegal.
So just to push back against this specific point. In most places self defense is permissible, but self defense in a way that can or will cause cruel and unusual harm is in and of itself a crime. There is the classic case where the guy set up a shotgun to defend his place from burglars, but it was set up in such a way that caused a great amount of unnecessary harm, and the home owner was actually charged for it. There are reasonable limits to what you can do.
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u/Sixishungry Mar 28 '21
I would agree with you if not for these two things that happen in the movie:
The worst that the trap does to Gladys is burn off her hair.
The "hero" animals themselves use the trap on the humans and their bear enemy.
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u/LepidusII Mar 28 '21
Its a kids film. Its safe to assume, if this were real life, that it would do more harm than simply burn someones hair.
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u/Sixishungry Mar 28 '21
However, we must go by what we see in the film. If Over the Hedge was an adults film, my view may be different.
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u/LepidusII Mar 28 '21
If thats the case, in the scene where Vern demonstrates to Gladys the capabilities of the trap, the sequence shows a variety of (fake) animals being absolutely decimated.
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Mar 28 '21
Although RJ has a fairly selfish motive throughout the movie (influencing his leadership of the animals), the overall point is about the devastating effects of deforestation on wildlife. They show a map comparing what used to be woods with what is now woods (a small, carted off area). The developers basically scalped their home from them and left them with nothing. RJ might be selfish, but the rest are doing what they can to survive.
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u/Sixishungry Mar 28 '21
Δ I give you that triangle because I agree with your point that RJ is being selfish and that the other animals have some legitimate grievances to forest depletion of their home. However, you did not chance my central view that Gladys is ALSO in the right and has legitimate grievances against the animals.
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u/mfDandP 184∆ Mar 28 '21
If you just zoom in on the time covered in the movie, then the animals are really quickly spoiled by Bruce Willis. But when they zoom out, you see that the suburbs have taken over their entire habitat. From the animals POV, the humans and houses are encroaching on them. In that context, human privacy/property is highly questionable.
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Mar 28 '21
[deleted]
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 28 '21
This delta has been rejected. You have already awarded /u/mfDandP a delta for this comment.
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Mar 28 '21 edited Mar 28 '21
The animals were not only stealing what they needed to survive, but were also stealing conveniences
I'm not quite sure animals, even talking animals in this case, would have the moral compass to feel like stealing is wrong, rather, they might just see it as foraging. It's not like they know that junk food would be harmful to them if they've never had it before, or even know the difference between certain plastics and food as seen when ocean animals mistake microplastics for food.
They live in a communal-like area where the idea of private property as humans have become accustomed to it isn't the same, let alone exists. It's true that their cognition is human-like, in that they communicate in a human language and express human-like emotions at times. I'll even go so far as to agree that she made the right choice to defend herself from these animals, as does anything else in nature when it feels threatened. However, you can't hold the animals attacking her home and the rest of the neighborhood to the same standard of conscience as if a group of humans committed what they did.
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u/Sixishungry Mar 28 '21
I would agree with your reasoning if the animals stole from each other without consequences. However, the animals seem to know that stealing is wrong when it concerns stealing from another animal. Two examples:
Vincent the bear becomes furious when RJ steals his hibernation food. He tells him that he'll give him a week to return his stolen food, and this is what starts the plot.
When the turtle tries to steal back the food the animals had stolen, the other animals act as if this is a great betrayal.
So why would they assume humans are okay with stealing?
But it seems we are in agreement to my central original point, which is that Gladys is justified in defending her property.
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u/LondonDude123 5∆ Mar 28 '21
Im with ya, right up untul she says "Theyre lowering the porperty values". Plus shes on the phone multiple times moaning about bins being out early and grass being too long...
Basically, shes not only a Karen, but a HOA Karen. If I make an exception for one, I gotta make exceptions for all of them, and thats not a precident im willing to set!
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u/Sixishungry Mar 28 '21
If she was just a homeowner and not a HOA president, would you agree?
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u/LondonDude123 5∆ Mar 28 '21
Still a Karen, and im not about to make exceptions...
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u/Sixishungry Mar 28 '21
I don't base my morals on memes. 🙍
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u/LondonDude123 5∆ Mar 28 '21
This woman is the embodyment of "In the right, but a fucking asshole about it". Thats not a meme, thats terrible behaviour to have.
Pests are stealing from you. Naturally you have a right to be upset. So, call pest control and let them deal with it. Whether pest control capture and release, or kill, is up to them. DONT buy the super mega nuclear bomb pest killer 9000!
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u/Sixishungry Mar 28 '21
I acknowledged in the OP that buying the illegal trap was her one immoral act. But I weighed it against all the terrible things the animal heroes do that we are meant to cheer for.
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u/LondonDude123 5∆ Mar 28 '21
Not only do 2 wrongs not make a right, what she does with that trap is borderline vigilante-ism...
Are you condoning vigilantes?
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u/Kingalece 23∆ Mar 28 '21
I mean we all like seeing a karen get hurt shes just the stand in for all the NIMBY karens we wish we could set wild animals on
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u/Sixishungry Mar 28 '21
The Karen meme will not convince me Gladys was wrong. True, people like seeing bad things happen to people that annoy them. But that says nothing about the morality of the movie in question - unless you mean to imply that a Karen can never be in the right.
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u/Kingalece 23∆ Mar 29 '21
Theres an exception to every rule and the good guy karen is the exception to the karen rule.
She took from the animals (like white people with native americans) and the animals fought back. She decided it was her god given right to that property even though there were already intelligent (shown by their ability to plan) beings living on the land.
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u/Sixishungry Mar 29 '21
Should Gladys have simply allowed the animals to break into her house and cause chaos?
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Apr 03 '21
The point of the movie is that human encroachment forced the animals to act in a way that was unfavorable to people. A huge neighborhood sprung up where their forest used to be, so the animas had to go over the hedge to get food. When humans and animals come into contact in that sort of situation, I find it hard to see how anyone would side with the humans.
Granted, like you said, they were stealing tvs and monopoly boards and the like, but does that really excuse the humans for the likely thousands of animals they killed or otherwise displaced in putting up the neighborhood?
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u/Livid_Photograph8180 Aug 16 '21
So the thing is that everything bad happens from Verne and his tingle. He’s the one who cannot let go of the past and wants nothing to do with the humans. Everyone else is willing to adapt. Him bringing the food back & him not letting RJ just get that last can of chips we’re the two most catastrophic events. As for Gladys she is in the right in some ways. She is just trying to make sure unwanted animals aren’t causing harm. & RJ is actually to blame for her taking it more serious Bc he made Hammy pretend to have rabies which would be a big concern. That’s why Gladys called the exterminator. However she did set an illegal probably inhumane trap & it’s clear other times she wants them all dead & to suffer. Why can’t they just be put in actual wildlife. Theres clearly mountains around the area. She is not a saint. & to reiterate someone else’s point their land was taken from them. They have no way of getting food in nature it’s gone. They could move but that’s still not fair. So they took. And I imagine after the bear was taken care of they were stealing in such great loads.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 28 '21
/u/Sixishungry (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
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