Bambi in
Boyland: How Disney’s Fawn Reflects American Morals
Part One:
A
boy is introduced to movies and Disney’s Bambi, and the initiation teaches fear.
In my
memory, the parts of the movie skip about, blur together. Bambi is practicing words: “Bird. Bird. Bird.”
Thumper laughs at him. But then the gunshot and the father’s voice:
“Your mother can’t be with you anymore.”
I think it was Bambi’s first year of life—but for me he was five.
I don’t
remember feeling any fear that evening. My own mother tells me that I cried.
And looking back on that scene today, more than 40 years later, I wonder at
it. What was Disney up to? Ralph Lutts, in Forest and Conservation History, reports that Disney initially
considered putting the death on screen. He set up details so that the audience
would feel Bambi was
“more helpless and everything.”
Did he know about me, squeezed between the two front seats of my
father’s Galaxy, 25 years later, inscribed by this horror? Did he know about
the millions of children who would watch it? Think about the millions of
dollars it might make? Or did he have some other idea about writing the
American culture?
While
Bambi is now culturally responsible
for so much of our thinking—everything from Smokey the Bear (“Bambi or Bear?”) to Ann Curry’s scandalous firing in “Operation
Bambi” (Markinson) —it may also echo some of our national
trauma. Rated by Time as one of the
Greatest Horror Movies of All Time (“Top
25 Horror Movies”), it’s a hell of a movie to put in front of your
first-born child. And if I was terrified
by the .
forest fire, the loss, the vulnerability of Bambi, so too might we all
be compensating for those same terrors. In the end we are destined to become
Prince of the Forest, resolute and proud Americans. Just like Simba about 50 years later
I guess
I’ve always felt that an abundant show of strength is too often a narcissistic
mask for our insecurities. Behind every Forest Prince is a lonely and
helpless fawn. That night in 1968 I didn’t need Bambi to tell me that I was afraid of fire, afraid of losing my
mother, afraid of gun violence, perhaps even afraid of growing up. Detroit was
on fire in ways I did not understand, and my parents spoke in whispers and
half-sentences with anxiety. Batman was on most weekdays, and Walt
Disney’s Wonderful World would give
me hours of nature movies and cartoons every Sunday night after grilled cheese
sandwich dinners. Bambi was different from the Sunday night Walt. I could watch my
parents laugh at Carol Burnett and not feel afraid. I could watch Disney’s The Ugly Dachshund or Pablo
and the Dancing Chihuahua and not worry too much about adult ideas.
The Commerce
Drive-In is gone now, and my initiation into Bambi is over 40 years ago. My mother lives gently on a farm in southern Michigan. But as that child in the back seat that night, Bambi reminded me of how fragile my
innocence was, and it taught me how sternly as an adult I would need to defend
it.
NEXT WEEK:
How Bambi’s lessons might have helped a hip-hop idol .
Works Cited
"Bambi's Mom Dies." YouTube. YouTube, 13 Feb.
2008 .
27 Mar. 2014.
Lutts: "The Trouble with Bambi." Lutts: "The Trouble with
Bambi" 27 Mar. 2014.
Mirkinson, Jack. "Ann Curry Firing
Plot Called 'Operation Bambi': NYT." The
Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPo. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/ann-curry-today-firing-bambi-stelter_n_3108302.htmlst.com,
18 Apr. 2013. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
"Top 25 Horror Movies." Entertainment Top 25 Horror Movies
Comments. Time.com 27 Mar. 2014.
