Dispute with Film Critic

BAMBI 

'Bambi' is one of the world's most emetic films and a typical Walt Disney production.

The protagonist, Bambi, is a cervine version of Fotherington-Thomas i.e. utterly wet and a weed. The word "Bambi" itself is ridiculous and pronounced 'Bay-um-bee' and what hope was there for him saddled with a name like that? It makes him sound like a call-girl or trapeze artiste and is not appropriate for someone who aspires to be Monarch o' the Glen.

The film is peppered with phrases like "Man was in the forest" (pronounced 'May-un was in the far-rest' - explanation for a forest fire, or some such catastrophe) from which we are supposed to infer that Walt Disney was a lovely, kind, politically-correct person of great compassion who unlike the horrid men in the film would never have started a far-rest fire, dear me no. He was too busy making stomach-turning films and propping up the price of shares in the Maxolon factory.

Here is what Barry Norman, a deluded film critic, had to say about 'The Darkness of Disney's re-released Classic'. I have put in a few pointers for him for next time, in red writing.
 



Bambi - an insult to proper deers everywhere.

The most tragic sequence in cinema is, without doubt, the death of Bambi's mother. This is A LIE. Even the scene when Withnail has run out of wine is tragicker than this feeble bit of 1-dimensional emotion-tweaking. Good riddance to Bambi's sickening mother. Remember the scene? The meadow; Bambi and Mother grazing on fresh spring grass; the hint of danger; her urgent call - "Run, Bayumbee, run!"; the shots ringing out; Bambi looking for his mother, only to be told by his father, the Great Prince of the Forest, "your mother cannot be with you any more." Once seen, never forgotten. I first saw the film when I was about 8, and never before or after have I wept so copiously in a cinema. Well then Mr Norman you are a total wimp. I hope your mother quickly sent you off to one of our rougher boarding schools to be made a man of. Having read the rest of this article, though, I fear she did not.

For me, and for generations of children since, it brought the first realisation - unwelcome, perhaps, but necessary - that tragedy as well as happiness can lurk around any corner. Until that moment it had been the charming, charming? superbly animated, superbly animated? story of a deer from his birth to his first gawky steps, his friendship with cute cute? woodland creatures such as the shy skunk Flower Anthropomorphism Overload. You should not condone this, Norman. and the toothy rabbit Thumper, and his attraction (ugh) to the young doe Faline. Oh spare us the maudlin sentiments... Admit it, man - the whole thing is NAUSEATING. Bambi is an absolute SISSY and so are all the other inhabitants of the forest.

And then this horror. Too much? I don't think so. Not enough, more like. One of the great strengths of many of Disney's animated features is an insistence on telling it like it is, "as it is" please, in not talking down to children. In Bambi this means showing the relentlessness of the human hunters, the perils of living in the wild - a horrifying forest fire - and Nature itself, red in tooth and claw.

At one point Bambi has to confront another young buck for Faline's favours and this, unambiguously, is shown as a fight to the death. There's no copping out, no humorous conclusion with the rival buck slinking off, tail between his legs. This is for real, Do not use the phrase "for real". Do not use it EVER. You mean "this is serious". Anyway it isn't real it's a cartoon. as is a later scene in which Bambi and Faline are pursued by terrifying, salivating hunting dogs, the hounds from hell, in fact you could hunt a milksop like Bambi with a pack of effeminate lapdogs. 'Ware STAG! Let us call in the Devon and Somerset Stag Chihuahuas! and he has to round on and confront them, again to the death.

This may not sound like an ideal film for kids "children". They are CHILDREN. Allow them some dignity. and yet that is what it is. The fear and the tears of grief Dear oh dear what sort of namby-pamby crowd do you run with? are soon replaced by tears of mirth as Disney works his comic magic. Oh yeah? Not on MY turf he doesn't. MY children have senses of humour. But, as I know from my experience, the youthful audience leaves the film contented, yes, but a little shaken and somehow wiser about the ways of the world. Only the pathetic ones. Any decent child would leave the film in paroxysms of disgust and outrage. And that is no bad thing.

Of course there's a happy ending. One would expect no less from a Disney feature. But there is still the memory of Bambi's mother and her death and that, as anyone will tell you, is always with us. Yes! Like the Death of Little Nell! Thank heavens! It brightens many a dark hour; it cheers the afflicted, strengthens the faint-hearted and supports the weak. Sorry B Norman but YOU ARE A FOOL.

 

Copyright B Norman (black bits) and G-AHLK (red bits)

 

A proper deer