You know I think it all started with Frozen. That one Disney movie which not only created the "let it go" meme but also seemed to mark the beginning to a shift, where kids' movies started getting way too real. In case you haven't seen Frozen, spoiler, but the prince the girl meets at first is not her true love and betrays her. How terrible, right. See while I don't think children should remain sheltered and innocent for as long as possible, I do think that fiction should stay fiction. You might argue "but there was magic and snow monsters etc etc", but for me the "magic" in these stories was never turning pumpkins into carriages, it was the fact that love existed at first sight and happily ever after was a guarantee. We know all too well that's not how it actually works, but in a fictional universe where we dictate the parameters, why wouldn't it be that way?
So I took my sister to see the Cinderella live action movie yesterday- and I'm pretty sure she hated it. There was no singing and music and happiness, there was just a tragic sense of doom and oppression, and even when the magic happened it was only transient. I think if we had to drag Cinderella into the real world it'd be more like "she was so sad she couldn't attend the ball, she started hallucinating things but her psychotic state was over by midnight". Also what troubled me was how absolutely fucking depressing the whole movie was. Like sure I know Cinderella is actually such a short story and you need some filler to make it 100+ minutes, but goddamn why couldn't they write some songs or some shit... like all their other Disney movies. In this rendition of Cinderella, she has a pretty mother, who dies of some illness while she's really young, then her father actually loves her, but of course he dies too. Then even the prince Cinderella meets has a father WHO ENDS UP DYING. Like, why, why create these characters which were not a huge part of the essential story, just so they can die off and drag us closer to reality.
What was horrifying was how they even went into the politics of marriage and social class and gender oppression. Women HAD to marry or else they had no way of supporting themselves, and apparently her wicked stepmother was once just another bright eyed girl who married the love of her life, BUT THEN HE DIED. So to support her daughters she had to marry this merchant who happened to be Cinderella's father, and she's really stressed out because her daughters are stupid and Cinderella's father doesn't seem to truly love her, he still thinks of his dead wife and is really fond of her daughter--- it's all such justifiable, human, natural jealousy. I really wouldn't be surprised if anyone felt the way she did, given her circumstances. The only thing that was unreal was how overblown her actions were against Cinderella- fulfilling the whole "wicked stepmother" thing... But it's like, the wicked isn't just wicked, the wicked stepmother is just a fragile woman to be pitied because she's suffocating in the tempest brewed by a patriarchal society and there was nothing she could do. Also she probably really needs help since she obv. has anger management issues or a hint of sadism or something... but yeah bottom line is I feel bad for her.
Though I am the kind of person to feel bad for Joffrey and Cersei after watching season after season of Game of Thrones.
Anyway Cinderella was a depressing piece of shit- sure the cinematography was great and so was the costume design, but for a shitty kiddy movie I took my sister to watch that was wayyy too real. Oh yeah How to Train Your Dragon 2 was the same shit! His Dad died or something- and the kid was crippled and had 1 leg! Like wtf that's so miserable, especially when you're a viking that wants to fight all the time. Then tonight my sister watched Big Hero 6, and I was busy playing games or w/e, but I noticed how the protagonist was orphaned and only has his brother, then his brother died, then all he got left with was his brother's robot, and the robot died too in the end. Like, they tried to salvage it (I think the kid rebuilt his brother's robot" but yeah that shit was fucked.
In summary, I'm totally not a fan of this trend of kiddy animation turning grim and dark, I just want to watch something that's mindlessly happy, where nobody dies or loses a limb and tragedy doesn't befall on anyone- bad people are just bad not morally ambiguous and situationally bad, good people are good for ever an ever and don't turn out to be some evil mastermind with selfish intentions.
I'm so done with this fucking world. If I wanted to feel bad I'd go read my textbooks instead.
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