Internet Strangers Have Let Me Down Again

You internet strangers have let me down again.  I’m talking about the ones posted to babycenter.com and other parenting websites, suggesting that Dumbo would be a good movie for a toddler.  These are things that happen in Dumbo:

  • A baby elephant is teased because he has big ears.
  • His mommy spanks a mean man who teases him.
  • The mommy is whipped, shackled, and placed in solitary confinement, away from her baby.
  • The baby is shunned by the other elephants.
  • The circus tent falls down and injures all of the elephants.
  • Clowns are mean to the baby elephant.
  • Clowns drink alcohol.
  • Clown alcohol falls into the water that the baby elephant and his mouse friend drink, and they get drunk.
  • Baby elephant and mouse friend have terrible, psychedelic dreams about marching elephants that bash into each other, which only makes more psychedelic elephants.  The entire sequence is loud and upsetting.
  • Black crows (depicted in a racist manner) tease the baby elephant.

You know what makes parenting hard?  Modern culture is crass and sexualized, so you’re tempted to dig back into earlier culture, which is more sanitized.  Except those old artifacts are imbued with the worst things about the culture they come from, so they’re awful on race, or ethnicity, or gender.  Was there a short window of time when pop culture was both kid-friendly and politically correct?  Maybe in the late 1980s, for a month or two?

10 Notes/ Hide

  1. rhubarbic reblogged this from jeffmiller
  2. brazoscole said: Did you not grow up on movies like Dumbo? If you did, how were you not scarred for life?
  3. thecallus said: Nope. Pretty much the only choice is peekaboo until they turn 40.
  4. jeffmiller posted this
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