Anyone Else Find Children's Films As An Adult Disturbing?; Is This Normal?

[Timothy Hunter]

I just watched My Neighbor Totoro and came out of the film with a rather uneasy feeling. This is pretty weird because I can watch plenty of films geared towards adults that show the horrors of the real world and get no reaction.

Children's films feel like alternate universes, because they only show a sanitized view of the world when in reality, life is far more vulgar and cynical.This leads me to thinking while watching the movie, does My Neighbor Totoro take place in a more innocent world than we do or is it supposed to take place in a reality exactly like our own, where everything terrible about real life happens off camera?

Do I sound insane? Probably.

[marshal88]

on the surface , my neighbour tororo seemed like an innocent children's movie like pan's labyrinth and there's nothing wrong about it. a child's views is always innocent even if the real world falls apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHc8aa13ZSE

[MyriVerse]

That time the horse got stuck in NeverEnding Story. I never even remembered that happening until I rewatched it with my daughter in my 30s. I must have blocked it out.

[Kirby101]

Totoro has the mother sick with tuberculosis, so it's not so innocent. But how vulgar and cynical do you want kids' movies to be? Maybe it's more about your world view than the movies.
I find movies about serial killers and "horror porn" movies deeply disturbing.

[PCN24454]

I honestly thought this thread was going to be about disturbing moments that somehow made it into kids movies like when Clayton accidentally hanged him in Tarzan.

Totoro has the mother sick with tuberculosis, so it's not so innocent. But how vulgar and cynical do you want kids' movies to be? Maybe it's more about your world view than the movies.
I find movies about serial killers and "horror porn" movies deeply disturbing.

Yeah, a lot of it comes down to mindset. It's why alien invasion movies are so weird to me now. Either, the alien invasion causes me to have an existential crisis, or I worry the possible allegories to immigration.

[Jim Kelly]

I think many stories for children are deliberately meant to scare them. THE WIZARD OF OZ and THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR. T. fuelled a lot of my childhood nightmares.

Adults want to scare children straight. So they make up cautionary tales so we grow up with these innate fears that stop us from transgressing certain social rules. I don't know that any movie for kids became more disturbing when I was all growed up. All of my fears were already fully developed as a child.

[Timothy Hunter]

Totoro has the mother sick with tuberculosis, so it's not so innocent. But how vulgar and cynical do you want kids' movies to be? Maybe it's more about your world view than the movies.
I find movies about serial killers and "horror porn" movies deeply disturbing.

I don't want children's movies to change at all, I'm just saying they're kind of strange how they show a cherrypicked view of reality.

[Cyke]

I don't want children's movies to change at all, I'm just saying they're kind of strange how they show a cherrypicked view of reality.

I mean, you could really say the same thing about any of Aesop's Fables and all those magical creatures; many of them seem messed up by today's standards, but the bigger picture is the lessons and morals they try to teach, and that's what tends to remain timeless.

For films, though, if you're reassessing things differently as an adult than when you were a child, it's only proof that you're adding in what you've learned in life since you were a kid, and that's natural. Moreso, if a movie intentionally creates those layers and themes, then that definitely adds to a film's rewatchability factor. Those more surreal or alternate universes help to highlight the discrepancies we face in real life, because in real life those struggles and pains are monotonized and get lost in the background noise of daily life.

I'm glad Wizard of Oz was mentioned above -- as bright and colorful and almost utopian as Oz seemed initially, the final scene when Dorothy wakes up and points out there had a counterpart in Oz, showed how fantasy really highlighted the things that were in front of her all along, making her see them in a different light. As sweet and picturesque as Oz may have been, her adventures and all those encounters with evil (so no, not quite as idyllic or sanitized at first glance) her appreciate her real life that much more because she didn't notice those things *in* her real life before.

Not a film per se, but I keep rewatching X-Men: TAS partly because I pick up on things that I didn't notice as a kid, partly because those layers mean both adults and their kids can have a good time watching it for different reasons, and partly because even 30 years later many of its themes are *still* relevant, even if they were coded differently (for example, as a kid I thought it was messed up that Beast put up his best defense in court and still not found innocent -- these days, adults see courtroom injustice *so* much in the news and moreso, Beast showed that, just like in real life, respectability politics are ultimately pointless if the court of law sees you as less than human).

[Kirby101]

I don't want children's movies to change at all, I'm just saying they're kind of strange how they show a cherrypicked view of reality.

ALL movies show a cherrypicked view of reality.

[AnakinFlair]

That time the horse got stuck in NeverEnding Story. I never even remembered that happening until I rewatched it with my daughter in my 30s. I must have blocked it out.

The horse in the swamp? Is that what that's from?

I know I saw that movie as a kid, and I have no memory of that. Then again, all I remember about The Never Ending Story is the flying dog and the fact that I hated the movie.

[Alan2099]

Do I sound insane? Probably.

You don't sound insane. You just sound incredibly bitter and cynical.

[BlackClaw]

I just watched My Neighbor Totoro and came out of the film with a rather uneasy feeling. This is pretty weird because I can watch plenty of films geared towards adults that show the horrors of the real world and get no reaction.

Children's films feel like alternate universes, because they only show a sanitized view of the world when in reality, life is far more vulgar and cynical.This leads me to thinking while watching the movie, does My Neighbor Totoro take place in a more innocent world than we do or is it supposed to take place in a reality exactly like our own, where everything terrible about real life happens off camera?

Do I sound insane? Probably.

Not every film has to be dark, gritty, and reflect the real world. As another person said, you just sound way too damn cynical for your own good.