Live data from Hacker News

The original “Bambi”

newyorker.com

71–80 of 232 posts

Re: The original “Bambi”

#71

If we're talking about bleaker topics in older Disney works, I'll ask you to take a moment and consider the entire premise of _Dumbo_ (1939). Why are the other elephants scandalized by the baby elephant with the big ears, asking what Mr. Jumbo would think? Why did they mean, just a few moments earlier when they said elephants are "a proud race "? Why would they shun him, declaring that he is not one of their kind? ..…

The tear jerking properties of the treatment of Dumbo’s mother doesn’t get enough attention. There really is no greater love than that of a mother for her child.

/ notice I said “greater” leaving space for an equal ie a father’s love

Re: The original “Bambi”

#72
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why Germans refuse to refer to Disney movies by the names of the original Grimm stories. Disney/Hollywood version is always Cinderella, and German that closely adheres to the original is called Aschenputtel. The same goes for Snowwhite and Schneewitchen, Sleeping Beauty and Dornröschen.

I wouldn't say this applies as a rule. Both Snow White (Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge) and Sleeping Beauty (Dornröschen) kept their original titles in German. Cinderella is really the only exception which makes sense since it's more based on the Perrault version. There's even a counter example. The 2010 film Tangled is called Rapunzel like the original fairy tale in German.

"Snowwhite and the Huntsman" kept its original Hollywood name, it was never translated as "Schneewitchen und der Jägger". But you're right, it's “based on” a Grimm story, not a literal story adaptation.

Re: The original “Bambi”

#73

For some reason I got my hands on George Orwell's "Animal Farm" at a very young age, as it looked like a kid's book. That's a fairly bleak book, for example when the pigs sell the draft horse to the glue factory, but only the goat (whose only friend is the horse) knows what's going on. Watership Down is another good one, the character of the Black Rabbit of Inle (the Grim Reaper of rabbitkind) was memorable. However…

I read the Animal Farm to my below K12 kids on one sitting and they were hooked.

Kids needs scary stories in a safe environment. This will help them process these thoughts and prepare them for the inevitable trauma they will face at some point in their life.

Animal Farm is also not a bleak read but also fun as you can do all the animal voices with their characteristic animal sounds.

Re: The original “Bambi”

#74
post #2

I’ve grown watching „The Animals of Farthing Wood” (1993 cartoon). It has episode showing family of mice struggling to survive and worried about future for their babies. In following episode we get shot of same mice family impaled on needles by birds going to eat them. https://www.wykop.pl/cdn/c3201142/comment_EkpfJKfyX8WRKQnr7H... Entire story is told around forest dying out and animals struggling to survive in it.…

> It was once called „that animals cartoon that traumatised generations”. Although I can imagine this being quite horrific, I also don't recall that this cartoon was all that upsetting me when I watched it as a child. Then again I grew up in the countryside so maybe it was less shocking to me because I already knew what nature was like. When it comes to animal cartoons I think Watership Down and The Plague Dogs were…

The Plague Dogs is so unrelentingly bleak, few films have the spine to just be utterly hopeless. It's like a "children's" version of something like Threads or The Lighthouse lol

Re: The original “Bambi”

#76
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say this applies as a rule. Both Snow White (Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge) and Sleeping Beauty (Dornröschen) kept their original titles in German. Cinderella is really the only exception which makes sense since it's more based on the Perrault version. There's even a counter example. The 2010 film Tangled is called Rapunzel like the original fairy tale in German.

"Snowwhite and the Huntsman" kept its original Hollywood name, it was never translated as "Schneewitchen und der Jägger". But you're right, it's “based on” a Grimm story, not a literal story adaptation.

I had to look that film up[1]. It's not a Disney movie so I don't see how that would apply here.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Huntsman

Re: The original “Bambi”

#77

For some reason I got my hands on George Orwell's "Animal Farm" at a very young age, as it looked like a kid's book. That's a fairly bleak book, for example when the pigs sell the draft horse to the glue factory, but only the goat (whose only friend is the horse) knows what's going on. Watership Down is another good one, the character of the Black Rabbit of Inle (the Grim Reaper of rabbitkind) was memorable. However…

This is only true if the young ones in question are in a psychologically safe and emotionally supportive environment.

I read things as a young child, without having the support to talk and parse them out, and additionally on top of the chaotic environment I was already in, where reading things like Animal Farm, or, specifically in my case, being introduced to the concept of destructive extinction events in books, movies, and magazines caused much trauma. I had a year where I didn't sleep well, until I could finally convince myself that aliens weren't going to get me in the shower, and that a giant meteor wasn't going to collide with earth any time soon (yet, at least).

Re: The original “Bambi”

#78
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can go decades without any kind of serious events in your life, living in a perfect bubble until shit hits the fan. That's when you learn nothing prepared you for that and no one cares or knows how to behave. That's kind of the main reason we started to write stuff down, to learn things from the past through other's experiences, so that you don't have to feel alone going through every traumatising events…

The hardest part about being involved in a life altering event/catastrophe is that even having the preperation you're often blindsided by someone's or some groups avarice. My father who was financially devastated by people close to him passed on one insanely strong piece of advice that is superior to any fairy tale and saved me. 1. Always have a legal agreement at the start even/especially if it's friends and family.…

Don't lend more than you can claw back in small claims court. And have a written agreement. The small claims court size limits the potential downside, and the written agreement is proof of intent enough to stand up in small claims, so long as it's SMART (just like goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound).

Re: The original “Bambi”

#79
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Life will give those hard lessons out for free Does it?

In the world as it was when these stories were first told, yes.

I don't follow. Human history until recently was sustained largely by oral tradition and story telling; superseded by written story telling. What's the problem with telling stories that confer some wisdom or some sense of history or for fun?

Many of these stories are embedded idiomatically in many languages? Let each parent decide at what age they should read Rapunzel, when they are ready.

Re: The original “Bambi”

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> learned a bit about how difficult life can be and the consequences of moral failings or lack of hard work I don't remember anything about consequences of moral failings in the old fairy tales, just random violence and chaos. In Sleeping Beauty the prince's mother turns out to be an ogre who tries to eat Beauty's children, but luckily the prince returns in time and kills her. Where's the moral lesson there? Don't mo…

Well, off the top of my head from Grimm: --Cinderella: mean deceptive people might get their feat chopped off & eyes pecked out. (In short, Karma. though unfortunately the world doesn't quite work that way, but there's still a bit of "the world can be ugly" too) --Cat & The Mouse: Never forget that the nature of a predator is predation --Hansel & Gretel: Don't take candy from strangers. Also, if something looks to go…

>Hansel & Gretel:

Beware from the child rapists as an analogy. Kinda similar to The Little Red Hood.

Post reply on HN