Animation Nation

I was an adult, already moved out of my parents' house, when I first saw Disney's Beauty and the Beast in the theater. So how is it that it already seems like a relic from another time?

It's not just becuase of the advent of Pixar, although that's part of it. Nor is it the fact that half of the recognizable voice cast was best known for Murder, She Wrote. But given M. Edium's recent fascination with his BatB storybook, his mom and I figured, what the heck, why not dig out the DVD?

We'd forgotten how violent this movie is. Sure, we remembered the climactic battle and the scenes with the wolves, so of course we skipped those parts. But it's more pervasive than that. Gaston's smacking or threatening somebody in nearly every shot of every scene he's in, and even Belle's father gets brained by a flying log for no other reason than people were just supposed to get brained as often as possible in cartoons, even as late as the nineties. Seeing that brought the whole Popeye/Tom & Jerry visual vernacular rushing back. You don't see those cartoons on afternoon TV any more like you did when I was a kid. The Parents Television Council would freak the hell out.

Is it becuase our culture has changed that you can't confidently plunk a three-year-old down in front of a Disney cartoon any more? Or was that always a bad idea? I've been considering trying out some other classics, but my vague memories of, like, The Fox and the Hound and The Rescuers have me wondering if that's advisable.

Bambi, obviously, is right out.

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