So I've read recently that there's going to be a sequel to Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey, which is a slasher film using the characters that were Disney-owned. You know, Winnie the Pooh bear, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, and Christopher Robin. The fact that there's a sequel means the original must have pulled in more than its share of bucks.
I always felt the intellectual property (or IP, if you're trendy) should remain in the ownership of its creator. I guess after a time, it falls into the public domain, regardless of repetition of renewals. This is now happening with an early rendition of Mickey Mouse (circa Steamboat Willie) and its already been done with the Grinch (although I was unaware he fell out of public domain). Has he?
Now I guess new ideas and outlooks lent to a character can be fun and interesting, and even refreshing to a degree, but it seems the directions these filmmakers generally go in is horror film bloodbaths.
To a degree, in my eyes, this is sacrilegious, even blasphemous. I suppose there's a certain group of people that may find humor in it, I guess, but I've already read stories of kids left with these movies, and being emotionally hammered by the event. The parents should pay closer attention to what they're exposing their kids to, but at the same time packaging can be misleading (Hell, I even recall a big cardboard disclaimer attached to the shelf Pan's Labyrinth was sitting on at Hollywood Video so parents would know the film was not directed at children.)
It even happened in a classroom: click here.
But it comes down to the spirit of the idea. What's in your head that makes you want to create images of long time childhood icons murdering people in the most graphic ways? This is a trend that will not be going away, folks, it's catching on, and I find it disturbing.
Call me a fogey, call me touchy, whatever. Actually, As a matter of fact, I'm kind of a horror film buff to some degree . So I’m not a prude, and if I want to see people disemboweled, I'll go see In a Violent Nature, I don't need to watch representations of my childhood sources of comfort executing the worst of acts.
My sister and I were given copies of some wonderful Winnie The Pooh and Eeyore books as kids, had plushes of Eeyore in Pee Wee's case, Tigger in mine. We brought them with us everywhere. They were a source of companionship when lonely, warmth when cold,
Peace when troubled. And there were troubled times.
The stories were well drawn and eye catching, and something we both enjoyed looking at over and over. To think of it all being desecrated for a few bucks or a few yuks weighs heavy on me.
The world is becoming a shitty enough place without having to take the gentle things, and turn them into something evil, something inside out of its original purpose. I feel like Eeyore in the book on the right of that photograph.
I don't know what direction we're headed in anymore, but if film violence is needed, perhaps we need to lean on Jason Statham's character in The Beekeeper.
Someone out there who feels the need to be the armour, the muscle, when those with strength are victimizing the normal of us, the ones who hold onto Piglet every night? There's a lot of money being made from this desecration, there's a lot of money being made by destroying norms these days in general.
Who's protecting the hive? Now that Winnie's been made to leave it and go hack people up?
No comments:
Post a Comment