Dear Mr. Disney,<\/p>\n
My name is Kelvin and I\u2019m 10 years old (in my head). I\u2019m writing to you about the choices you have made regarding what I believe are called \u201cre-makes\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the past 70 years, you have made two movies of Cinderella<\/em>.<\/p>\n In the past 50 years, you have made two movies of The Jungle Boo<\/em>k.<\/p>\n In the past 30 years, you have made two movies of Beauty and the Beast<\/em>.<\/p>\n Bambi<\/em> was made in 1942, and is still part of our cultural fabric. For example, in Scrubs<\/em>, Carla calls JD \u201cBambi\u201d. People who live among urbanized deer refer to the fawns as \u201cbambis\u201d. I know of people who eschew venison because they \u201cdon\u2019t want to eat Bambi\u201d. (I\u2019ve also heard of exotic dancers who call themselves \u201cBambi\u201d. But I digress.)<\/p>\n None of your re-made films enjoy that kind of widespread, cross-generation popularity and cultural integration, yet there has been no Bambi<\/em> re-make. I\u2019m hoping that this letter will start the process of changing that.<\/p>\n Bambi<\/em> is one of the best-known of your films. It\u2019s a wonderful movie that gives young children a good (if somewhat overly-anthropomorphic) grounding in nature study. It provides good life lessons\u2014for example, animals go hungry in winter; papas aren\u2019t always around; children get (SPOILER!<\/strong>) orphaned; deer can be dangerous dudes. It’s inclusive in that it doesn\u2019t stigmatize skunks. It mixes real life with sugar-candy life.<\/p>\n But there is room for improvement.<\/p>\n I saw Bambi<\/em> in a cinema in east London in approximately 1959. Actually, I didn\u2019t see the whole film. I howled so loud and hard when (SPOILER!<\/strong>) Bambi\u2019s mum died that my dad had no choice but to gag me and carry me out under his arm. I clearly remember the occasion, right up to the point at which my head hit the seventh seat-back on the way out.<\/p>\n So in order that I could write this letter to you from a position of knowledge, I made myself watch Bambi<\/em> again. By the way, I now weigh 185lbs and am therefore too big for my father to carry under his arm. (Not that he\u2019s in any condition to try; he passed away twenty-five years ago.)<\/p>\n Times have changed since Bambi was first released. In your re-make, you might have to portray (SPOILER!<\/strong>) the death of Bambi\u2019s mother differently. You could go for the full blood spatter treatment, thus making the movie popular among pre-pubescent first-person gamers. Or you could go whole-hog in the opposite direction and appease the bubble-wrap mommas. Irrespective, many of today\u2019s children just wouldn\u2019t understand the subtlety of, \u201cYour mother cannot be with you anymore.\u201d They would assume she\u2019d run off with the pool maintenance guy or ski instructor.<\/p>\n Thumper really isn\u2019t a good role model for kids. He\u2019s mean to the young Bambi. He falls into that double-negative trap; \u201cdon\u2019t say nothing\u2026\u201d And he uses the word \u201cgood\u201d where \u201cwell\u201d is required.<\/p>\n Speaking of words, Mr. Disney, and bearing in mind the advent of social media, the word \u201ctwitterpate\u201d is known by far too few people. You should \u201cown\u201d that word.<\/p>\n Twitterpate\u2122.<\/p>\n The love scenes are a little syrupy and subtle. We see so much of Bambi\u2019s \u201crudder\u201d at the beginning, but during the courtship scenes, there\u2019s no such behaviour among any of the creatures. Why not add some rudder waggling? (But please\u2014no twerking.)<\/p>\n In retrospect, I\u2019m pretty sure I wouldn\u2019t have made it to the end of the movie back in 1959, even if I\u2019d toughed out the (SPOILER!<\/strong>) death of Bambi\u2019s mum. That whole hunting scene near the end was a bit too close to my schoolboy experiences as quarry to Frankie O\u2019Flaherty\u2019s gang for my liking. So please tone that down.<\/p>\n A re-make would be an ideal opportunity to right these and other wrongs.<\/p>\n In the seventy-plus years since Bambi was made, a new concept \u2013 mash-ups\u2014has come about. Mr. Disney, I\u2019d like to suggest that you get together with the Misters Warner to discuss combining one of their characters with your Bambi<\/em> re-make. I refer to Elmer Fudd. It strikes me that if he was the hunter in Bambi<\/em>, then Bambi\u2019s mother would never have been (SPOILER!<\/strong>) shot.<\/p>\n I look forward to receiving your reply, Mr. Disney. Despite categorical denials from your descendants, I count myself among those who believe that you are currently cryonically frozen, and that you will be revived when technology and medicine have reached the stage where the damage done to your body by cancer can be repaired, and you can grow a new lung. I very much hope that this will occur soon, otherwise I may have to have myself cryonically frozen, and revived when your letter arrives.<\/p>\n Yours truly,<\/p>\n Kelvin D. Hatch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Mr. Disney, My name is Kelvin and I\u2019m 10 years old (in my head). I\u2019m writing to you about the choices you have made regarding what I believe are called \u201cre-makes\u201d. In the past 70 years, you have made two movies of Cinderella. In the past 50 years, you have made two movies of The Jungle Book. In the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[488,181,490],"tags":[322,326,325,327,323,324],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbs","category-fake","category-the-commentaries","tag-bambi","tag-cryonic","tag-disney","tag-mash-up","tag-re-makes","tag-twitterpate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1560,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}