#media for children

[moniquill]

Watership Down - first the film, then the book, is one of the most formative media influences in my life. I’ve written about it briefly, here https://i-blame.tumblr.com/post/69030937937/moniquill-moniquill-kucala-moniquill

but having watched the above video essay, I want to say more.

The first time I saw a deer up close was in my grandfather’s back yard; I was about four years old. I don’t remember the reason that my mom dropped me off at my grandfather’s house for an afternoon, but I know that it was unplanned - because he was in the middle of processing a deer. It had been field dressed, organs already removed, and was hanging by its ankle tendons from the t-shaped steel pole at one end of the backyard clothesline. I was startled, worried, concerned that the animal was hurt. There was blood! There was flesh!

My grandfather responded by calmly explaining what he was doing, step by step. Explaining why he was skinning the deer, and quartering it, taking it from this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_deer to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venison

He talked about hunting, and about gratitude, and about humans and our proper place in the world - what meant to live in a good way.

By the time my grandfather was cooking tenderloin medallions and plating them up to me with grape jelly (don’t knock grape jelly on meat until you’ve tried it!) and instant mashed potatoes, I wasn’t startled or concerned anymore. I had a deeper understanding of the way the world worked, of my role as a consumer, a predator. Of the responsibilities that entailed. I couldn’t have explained it then, of course, with my 4-year-old mind and vocabulary - but Philosophy had been set into motion. This is a core memory for me. 

I did not have nightmares about the butchered deer. 

I was six when I first saw Disney’s Bambi. I DID have nightmares about that; between Bambi and The Land Before Time, I was absolutely convinced that my mother was going to die. That I was being presented with these media themes to educate and prepare me for that eventuality. I am the youngest daughter of a youngest daughter, and I have an extended tribal family. My grandfather died when I was six. His was one of many funerals I attended at that age; his generation succumbing to age and illness. I was aware of mortality. 

I wasn’t a ‘normal’ child, by the standard of the community that I went to school in. I was too poor, too indigenous, too very obviously autistic (without being diagnosed). I had very different media influences and interests than the other kids at my public school. No one else was deeply obsessed with David Attenborough’s documentaries (Life on Earth 1979, The Living Planet 1984, Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives 1989). No one else had even heard of Dot and the Whale. No one else in my class had Lifeways Lessons classes, because they didn’t have tribes.  

I wasn’t terribly interested in most media intended for children; it was boring because it was simple. I didn’t feel motivated to watch Disney movies over and over. Don Bleuth films had more staying power in my mind; An American Tale, All Dogs Go To Heaven, The Land Before Time. More complex stories, stories that confront suffering and death. My mom read me CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein, Jack London and EB White - lots of other stories that were not ‘age appropriate’, stories that were written for People, not Children.

I watched Watership Down for the first time when I was about five, and my mom read the book to me when I was about six. I was not disturbed by the violence, being far more interested in the themes explored in the video essay above. I had, by this time, seen a rabbit skinned IRL. I’d eaten rabbit stew. 

I did not have nightmares about Watership Down. 

I failed to make friends with the kids at school, for the most part - I primarily socialized with my cousins. In fourth grade (age 9), my class did a unit on tropical rainforests, and I brought in this video: I did not think that there was anything at all controversial about it, but at about 32 minutes in David Attenborough talks about the Guarani people and their traditional ways of life. There’s footage of an unclothed man climbing a tree. His penis is briefly visible. THE CLASS WENT WILD, and the teacher rushed to turn the video off, and I was sent to the office. It caused a school-wide incident, and bringing in videos was thereafter banned. I was deeply, deeply confused by this series of events. The video had come from the public library - how could it possible be offensive? But the incident became a vector of bullying that followed me until middle school - the adults had confirmed to the kids that I had done something taboo, that I was fundamentally wrong in some way. I quietly came to the conclusion that Most People(™) are very stupid and very reactionary, that one has to carefully coddle and explain things to them. 

It took me many years to only mostly overcome that conclusion.

Later that same year, I had my first real success in making a childhood friend - someone who came to my house after school and had sleepovers and such. She had transferred from another school and didn’t know I was THE WEIRD GIRL the way my other classmates did. I remember trying to introduce my favorite movies to her, as she introduced her favorites to me. She was a Horse Girl(™) and much more interested in Age Appropriate Girl Things than I was, but we shared a love of My Little Pony - I had a bunch of episodes on VHS, recorded off TV. She thought that https://mylittleponyg1.fandom.com/wiki/Rescue_at_Midnight_Castle was ‘too scary’ and preferred https://mylittleponyg1.fandom.com/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_The_Movie. 

I showed her Watership Down. She freaked out about it. It gave her nightmares.

She was, as many people, deeply disturbed by the violence of the film. She had not, at the age of nine, seen animals butchered. She didn’t seem to care about the deeper meanings and philosophical treatises presented; the fact that there was violence and death was too shocking.

I’m not sure how to conclude this essay, except with this: Watership Down is now a litmus test, for me. If a person is aware of it and appreciates it, we’re intellectual compatible. If a person’s whole reaction is shock and disgust and cries of ‘nightmare fuel!’ then we are not.

[sayruq]

If you, for some reason, still have a subscription to the Atlantic, cancel it

[fanaticalthings]

Bruce Wayne except he texts like an ominous boomer

wdym you can't tell if he's threatening them?

Based on this post by @mysterycitrus :)

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Bonus:

Happy birthday, Tim 🥰

[apollos-boyfriend]

“it’s a good thing that the minecraft movie isn’t about the intense loneliness of minecraft’s world and finding growth and hope in a post-apocalyptic society because it’s for children” Have You Ever Spoken To A Child

[vanessagillings]

Since the show's been announced, here's my piece for Gallery Nucleus' Over the Garden Wall Tribute show, opening in LA November 2nd!

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

[i-am-aprl]

For the humans that still have a heart, humans are burning and children are being beheaded from airstrikes in a sea of burning tents in Rafah. 40 fake beheaded babies got more sympathy and care then real Palestinian babies who have been beheaded for the past 8 months from brutual airstrikes. No words left.

Screenshot from @u.h.gaza video

[peterparkersnose]

WHO DID THIS 😭

[productofaritual]

It's always "omg how have you not grown up with [insert incredibly popular AMERICAN media]" maybe because I didn't fucking understand english at that time like I might not have known what Sesame Street was but have you ever seen Kouzelá školka? Huh? Cvrček55 ring any bells? No? Exactly. Piss off

[hypertechnica]

happy 9th undertale anniversary, everyone. :)

[fabcreature]

you know what, since we've been talking about how annoying it is when people react like "what drugs were they on when they wrote this 🤪" when someone is creative, i just wanna say

everyone who says "HOW IS THIS A KIDS' MOVIE 😱😱", when a kids' movie is a little bit out of the box and features dark or deep imagery and meanings, owes me one thousand euros

[charlesoberonn]

A story or piece of media being for children necessarily affects the tone, content, subject matter, and approachability of it (and a bunch of other stuff I can't recall right now).

It does not necessarily affect its writing quality. A story being for children is not an excuse for it being bad. Kids deserve good stories, too.

[sayruq]

[fanaticalthings]

next thing you're gonna tell me is that the butts match 🙄

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[mychapel-004]

FNAF SPOILERS! SCROLL! TALKING ABOUT THE SPRINGLOCK SCENE!

i’ve seen so many people discussing the springlock scene in both negative and positive ways and i think it brings up really cool points about how matthew played that scene and balanced fan expectations with his own characterisation.

i think the discussions around this movie have rlly exposed the disconnect between fanon and canon in fnaf, especially talking abt the core games in isolation, bc frankly in the game universe (ignoring the books) we get Very Little characterisation for William other than the obvious, but Matthew managed to add so much in the way he talks and his body language.

in the reveal scene, we see afton at arguably his peak. in his first scene, he comes off as somewhat demeaning and judgemental until he recognises mike’s name, at which point he seems to have this nervous energy, rushing to cover it up but stumbling slightly, his reaction to the tables being turned even slightly is massive.

this is a man who committed multiple mrdrs in essentially broad daylight, hid the bodies in the most obvious place, and still got away with it, and then kept the crime scene as a trophy of his actions, and an ongoing prison sentence for his victims. he has been in complete control for decades, and is confident that he can deal with any kind of threat quickly. his confidence in his reveal is palpable

it changes when vanessa shoots him. the whole parallel with vanessa and the animatronics is hugely interesting too- how william refers to the animatronics almost endearingly as “kids” when he wants them to obey, how both vanny and the animatronics have an unearned loyalty to him, almost a pseudo-adoption through what he did to them, taking them from their parents and keeping them under his thumb, forever stuck as naive, forgiving, obedient children. vanessa breaking from that control shakes him, but the mask slips back into place almost immediately.

then, he’s outsmarted by the brother of one of his victims, and the child he planned to end next. his pseudo-children turn on him and he can no longer manipulate his appearance or shed his skin to escape. he explodes on them, and his language is incredibly telling that he is being dishonest.

he calls them small, trying to belittle them into submission, even though they are ten feet tall metal animatronics powered by rage. he is grasping at straws to regain control, and failing miserably.

finally, the springlocks go off. the locks in the movie look more like a ribcage, so the first two likely puncture his lungs. they’re slow, and painful, but he doesn’t scream or beg or sob. he grunts and groans, gritting his teeth and only letting out sounds of pain that sound almost involuntary. there is no way in hell he would visibly let himself show weakness or pain in front of these creatures that he believes he has control over. he isn’t brought to his knees until there are eight metal spikes embedded in his abdomen. he doesn’t let the mask fall for even a second, until he literally PUTS THE ACTUAL MASK ON and finally collapses. even then, he’s fighting for consciousness, twitching and writhing with no control over his body. william afton thrives on control, and his soul will not rest until he gets it back.

it’s why he keeps the pizzeria- he always comes back. he can’t help but return to the scene of the crime, putting on his old costume, continuing his killings. he revels in being a constant threat on the horizon. and now, he knows he is going to die, and he knows the suit will bring him back, and noone will be able to get rid of him then. so he puts the mask back on, and waits.

in terms of the sfx- they’re pretty accurate. with stab wounds, you need to leave the knife in the wound as long as possible for best chance of survival, as it stops the blood from escaping. in terms of the springlocks, there wouldn’t be copious amounts of blood as the locks are keeping the wounds filled- which is good because it means a slower, more painful death.

[vanessagillings]

Apothecaries -- another piece from my solo show at Nucleus Portland. Prints and originals available here