Starting with Tigger. Obvious case of ADHD. Pigglet is an anxiety poster pig. Rabbit is a closeted homosexual and loner. Owl is OCD. E-ore is depressive and potentially suicidal. Christopher Robin is schizophrenic and living in an illusion half the time. And poor poor Pooh, I pray he can overcome his addiction... but his mind is lost forever.
What is the disney agenda? And more importantly, what does it say about our culture, and human psychology, that the flawed are praised so?
Note: This isn't as unique as I hoped, here is another similar and interesting take on it by the Canadian Medical Journal.
3 comments:
"that the flawed are praised so"? is that to assume that there are better role models who are somehow not flawed? perhaps we should only tell children stories about jesus, and leave out the parts where he loves all the flawed people?
in all forms of storytelling, there are personality traits that are exaggerated to become a "type." you can pick out similar sorts of simplification in shakespeare, tv sitcoms, and the bible. the characters may have a little more depth to them than winnie the pooh, but winnie the pooh is meant for kids.
this isn't propaganda, this is just how stories are told, and have been for ages. and it's not in an attempt to praise bizarre behavior. kids happen to find the idiosyncratic oddities amusing. every time pooh gets stuck in a honeypot the kids love it. it's a running gag, not a validation of addiction.
you can read anything into a story if you're looking for it. such is the beauty and tragedy of language.
also, disney didn't invent these characters.
Zuum is right, the fact that all the individuals in the hundred acre woods are so flawed is what makes them entertaining, the stereotyping here can be seen in every aspect of the entertainment industry, and I'd sooner have a kid in love with Tigger's antics than Batman's neverending quest for justice. Batman (Bruce Wayne) could be considered to have OCD (at the very least) if we applied the psychological typing to supers and vigilantés as well. Real people are flawed, and so are our favourite characters you'll find if you looked carefully.
And look up Alan Alexander Milne sometime, and quit blaming Disney.
Yet we can all relate to each and every character. I think this is more telling about how each of these "disorders" naturally occur in all of us. It's surreal and bizarre to me that our emotions and expressions of human nature are now referred to as if they were unnatural and need to be eradicated. Even stranger that the treatment involves expressing them on a regular basis... while my experiences generally show that practicing a habit only makes it stronger.
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