A Case against Bambi

I saw a commercial today touting the upcoming re release of the “Walt Disney’s Beloved Coming of Age Story, Bambi” and I thought to myself what a perfect gift for a child you want to watch have a complete emotional meltdown.

Come here, honey, let’s make some popcorn and watch a movie about a cute baby deer who watches his mother get shot to death by a hunter and then gets separated from his dad in a raging forest fire. I think I’ll have to pass on the classic joy of traumatizing my sons.

Mac is already obsessed with death because he realized early that his dad has two parents and I only have one. At two years old, he asked me why I didn’t have a mommy and I had to explain to him as gently as possible that my mom is an angel. Then a year later our parish priest died and Mac burst into tears and said “I never want to be an angel – I want to live in our house with you forever!”.

We watch Spiderman cartoons in our car every day and a day doesn’t pass that Mac, now five, doesn’t ask me “why does Peter Parker live with Aunt May again?” because he is fixated on hearing me explain that Peter’s parents died.

Superheroes are pretty much always really tragic orphans which is super scary for little kids but I guess not as frightening for the grown up nerds that comic books were really created for. This is fine – as I’ve pointed out before there are plenty of adults who make the choice to torture themselves with movies like My Sister’s Keeper or Rabbit Hole. I’m just not one of them. There’s enough sadness in real life so I sort of think entertainment should be happy.

And there is no reason why children should have to experience loss or tragedy until it actually comes their way in real life. Watching Bambi is not going to prepare Mac for losing me. It’s just going to make him obsess about when he’ll lose me and doing that is a waste of the time he could be enjoying as an innocent. A beloved classic should be something that made your child smile, not something that made them question their own mortality. So, sorry Bambi, but you will never be welcome in my house.