Upon reflection, I'd have to give this one a pass.
23/40
One of the fun things about being my age and having small kids is getting to revisit a lot of the stuff you knew about three or three and a half decades ago. There's a lot of WTF involved.
The Revisit: Peter Pan (Disney, 1953)
We watched this over the xmas break on family movie night, figuring it'd be OK for both kids (ages 6 and 2) and the grandparents. Well ... yes and no. There was no cursing, sex or violence, but yikes, that thing was NOT what I remembered from the once or twice I saw it as a kid.
The story itself is pretty thin -- it'd be about 30 minutes if they told it straight. But then they go and add all this crap about the whole family tiptoeing around this blustery clumsterfoot of a domineering dad, which makes me not like the Darling family much. And then and THEN they have this really long (like 15 minute) super crazy racist scene at a "powwow" with what Kid Gleemonex, bless 'er, called "Native Americans" -- big old red hook-nosed Injun "braves" and nasty "squaws" and one suspiciously pale young princess (because only light-skinned people can be pretty), all this "How!" and "Big Chief smoke-um pipe" business that just went on for god.damned.EVER. Plus there is this longer-than-necessary scene with the deliberately pre-pubescent/latent Peter Pan and these clearly adult and super, SUPER-cunty mermaids who get their mer-vajays all stretched sideways over the amount of attention he pays to young miss Wendy -- it's pretty fucked up, honestly. Not Judy-Garland-as-Dorothy-Gale fucked-up, but close.
One of the fun things about being my age and having small kids is getting to revisit a lot of the stuff you knew about three or three and a half decades ago. There's a lot of WTF involved.
The Revisit: Peter Pan (Disney, 1953)
We watched this over the xmas break on family movie night, figuring it'd be OK for both kids (ages 6 and 2) and the grandparents. Well ... yes and no. There was no cursing, sex or violence, but yikes, that thing was NOT what I remembered from the once or twice I saw it as a kid.
The story itself is pretty thin -- it'd be about 30 minutes if they told it straight. But then they go and add all this crap about the whole family tiptoeing around this blustery clumsterfoot of a domineering dad, which makes me not like the Darling family much. And then and THEN they have this really long (like 15 minute) super crazy racist scene at a "powwow" with what Kid Gleemonex, bless 'er, called "Native Americans" -- big old red hook-nosed Injun "braves" and nasty "squaws" and one suspiciously pale young princess (because only light-skinned people can be pretty), all this "How!" and "Big Chief smoke-um pipe" business that just went on for god.damned.EVER. Plus there is this longer-than-necessary scene with the deliberately pre-pubescent/latent Peter Pan and these clearly adult and super, SUPER-cunty mermaids who get their mer-vajays all stretched sideways over the amount of attention he pays to young miss Wendy -- it's pretty fucked up, honestly. Not Judy-Garland-as-Dorothy-Gale fucked-up, but close.
Labels: 40/40, I'm just sayin, movie rules, surprises in the attic, The more you know, things that sound great but really aren’t once you think about them
posted by Gleemonex at 5:26 PM
3 Comments:
Good to know. It's been well over 35 years since I've seen it so I really remember nothing about it and might have decided it was ok for the kids. I'll pass. I might have passed anyway since awhile back I read a good, super creepy adult take on Peter Pan that made PP actually really disturbing. Great book, but PP is kind of done for me.
Yeah -- I mean, the old-school Disney animation is beautiful and all, and it's not the worst thing a kid could see, but ... meh. Plus I have never ever liked the idea that Growing Up Is The Worst. That's kind of a fucked up way to start out in life, isn't it?
JUST watched this at my parents' house three nights ago or thereabouts. I couldn't get past the first 5 minutes when the parents stepped out for the night and left the dog to babysit. (But yes, agreed to all those other extremely upsetting parts as well.) And also- 90% of Disney movies are kind of too thematically mature and/or inappropriate for kids, now that I'm re-watching them in adulthood.
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