Cryogenically Frozen 80-Year-Olds Who Can Bench 500

Before I get into it, let me apologize (a rare occurrence, better take this in) for being gone for so long. I was on vacation, during which point I was at Busch Gardens for a bit. In addition to taking away a lot of wonderful things over the years, they've now added something awful. It's still the best theme park, in my opinion (and thus irrevocably true). However, they now have the "Forest of Fun," which is a section of the park devoted to Sesame Street (the air still lacks its former sweetness, in case you were wondering). The section is nice in that it's where all the little kids congregate, but it's also quite out of place. The whole park is set up to be like Europe. Each section is a different country. Now, maybe my European History is a little off, but I'm pretty sure that Elmo wasn't sticking his/her commie head into the picture when they were excavating the remains of Pompeii. Does that thing have to be everywhere? They replaced the Pirates 4-D show, starring Leslie Nielsen, with a 4-D Elmo show. 2 Ds of Elmo is plenty. Double that would be grounds for insanity. But I got a sweet Godfather painting at the park, so it's all good.

Or is it? The painting still hasn't arrived, and it was shipped by UPS, the only mail carrier I trust. (Interlude: the USPS stole my idea that they should have one flat rate for everything. Nice to know they read the blog/my mind, but would getting a royalty check be so much to ask? I got DHL out of the picture for them, and yet still they sent me season 2 of a show I just started watching before sending season 1. They think I'm kidding when I say I'll destroy their industry.) If UPS fails in bringing me my Godfather painting, which is actually cool enough to fill the empty space in my soul/apartment left by my fish tank, then there won't be any mail carriers left. Let's hope that doesn't happen, but we'll talk about that later. For now, I invite you to this special, deluxe-y edition of the blog (or at least it felt like it when I wrote it) that's extra rant-esque, probably even less coherent than usual, and that still manages to make more sense than the so-called "studies" that are so fond of "saying" things. So let's take a walk down memory lane.

And what lanes my memories more than Disney? Don't tell me that you don't feel a tingling sensation every time you hear "When You Wish Upon A Star," especially when it's the wonderful 15-second instrumental version that was the prelude to your childhood memories. It reminds us of a simpler time, those sunshine days when animals could sing, heroes weren't conflicted alcoholics, and Cookie Monster ate cookies. A time when we didn't say anything if we couldn't say anything nice (even me). And now they want to ruin those days for us too. They just couldn't let it go.

Recently there's been a lot of talk concerning Disney's possibly nefarious influence on children. Such as the naughty hidden message in Aladdin, which happens when you play it backwards, or play it at a certain frequency, or play it while intoxicated (one of those). My question is, who spends their time doing that? How bored do you have to be to say to yourself, "well, I've rewatched all the old episodes of Hawaii Five-O so now what? Well it's a few months before the next season of Magnum P.I. comes out, so I guess I'll watch all of the Disney movies at a high frequency and see if strange voices tell me to do bad things." There's plenty of other examples that I won't get into (hard as this may be to believe, I actually hold back a TON on my blog, just ask my roommates: two people who have heard the real internal workings of the greatest mind alive today and have curiously not had me taken away by the men in white coats) but suffice it to say that 99.9% of people won't notice these things unless it was revealed to them by people who have the uncanny ability to be that much of a jerk.

But it doesn't stop at the subliminal and the certain-angular, there's also plenty of talk concerning the overall themes of the films, artwork, etc. Because it wasn't enough to tell us that George Washington may or may not have cut down the cherry tree and that if Santa does exist, he's probably Canadian. They have to attack Disney too, because it's something that's not harming you until someone tells you it is, like global warming and engrams. Well, it was all revealed to us in Sociology 101. And now we know the truth: that Disney is an evil organization whose rise to power began with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the first feature-length animated film (this was in 1937, about the time Hitler was starting to take over, coincidence? That's what they wanted you to believe). Its seemingly innocent plot must be seen for what it is: a movie about a floozie who lived with seven different men, taking advantage of their poor self-image that was due to small stature and cutesy nicknames. Then when the heroic (likely German) woman tried to poison this awful spinstress, while simultaneously being clever by symbolizing Snow's consumption of the forbidden fruit, the stupid WASP prince comes and saves her. Those pesky Allies huh?

Well, though the video we watched was obviously nowhere near this ridiculous, I bet (nay, I declare as truth) that there are plenty of people out there who see the movie that way. What the documentary did have was a bunch of little kids reading cue cards, trying to make us feel guilty for subjecting them to Disney movies. There were plenty of racial controversies that the documentary pointed out, but I won't get into those (although I will say that the documentary was a bit like a Michael Moore movie: it made a handful of interesting points, but threw so much ridiculous crap in there with it that the whole thing seems ridiculous). Then there are the hidden images that have since been taken off of the shelves which I also won't discuss (because it was probably just some intern or an executive in a mid-life crisis that sneaked them by the censors). However, what I will speak about is the large portion of the documentary that was devoted to the idea that the characters in the films aren't portrayed like real people.

(GASP), (startled pause), and if I may add, (stunned silence). You mean to tell me that characters that are painted and drawn and can only move when pieces of paper are flipped really quickly don't look exactly like real human beings? That perhaps they look more like human ideals, much like the personalities that inhabit said bodies? See, apparently (I wish I was making this up) when kids watch a cartoon movie, which is obviously fake because it's...umm...a cartoon, they think that real people look like the people in the cartoon. Because instead of thinking that all the real people that they know in real life look like real people, they're going to think that real people actually look like the girl who was a mermaid at the beginning of the movie. I know I've spent the past 21 years saying to myself as I walk through the store, where are all the real people? Of course, they only tended to point out certain faults with the films, vis-à-vis the women (not sure if that's how you use the phrase, but I'm feeling daring today). And this is further proof of the Caucasia Syndrome (side note: firefox doesn't recognize the word: "Caucasia." I'd find this insulting, but I see that it also doesn't recognize the word: "firefox"). See, the documentary points out that none of the Disney princesses look like real women (let me again stress, could it be the fact that they were created by pencils?) and this contributes to the societal problem that standards for women to be skinny are too high, the women are submissive, so on and so forth. Well that's all well and good, and I think they have a point with regards to society as a whole (although they take it a bit far, I'd be the first one to tell you, and I usually am, how many stupid people are out there. However, very few of them are so impressionable as to base their entire body image on Belle or Sleeping Beauty). But what no one on the documentary seemed to recognize is the fact that: how many old guys do you know that look like Poseidon? Here's a man who is clearly ancient(he's been around since the beginning of time within this context) and yet he has all of his hair, his arms look like a gorilla's, and his chest is the size of my ego.

I know what you're thinking: "but Domenic! He's a Greek god! He's supposed to look like that!" You would, of course, be quite correct. But if a kid is impressionable enough to think that cartoons are representations of real life, then it's a bit odd that a thought process would go through their minds along the lines of: "Well, Poseidon looks incredible for his age, which is atypical of most human males, could it be perhaps because he is of the line of Cronos? The human representation of his persona must ergo reflect his divine lineage, concordantly his pectorals remain in tact." And Greek gods aside, no guys look like the Disney princes anyway. They're all slender like me, except they also have muscles somehow. Because they all manage to carry the princess away with no trouble. And no, I'm not calling the princesses fat. I'm saying that even if they all weighed eighty pounds, there's no way the princes could carry them off with so much ease (especially after combating a dragon or another such creature). And of course, the princes are masculine enough to have the fighting skills to kill any opposition. They're also sensitive enough to sing "Once Upon a Dream" in a meadow, in perfect harmony. They have those perfect teeth, that perfect skin tone, and usually an awesome horse that may or may not speak. And they're rich. What guy can compete with that exactly?

So, let's reiterate what we've learned so far: Disney creates impossibly high standards for each gender. And yet somehow society trudges on and people still get married and have children (despite the fact that they have to "settle" for people who aren't quite as good as the "real" people from cartoons). Conclusion: people don't take the films quite that seriously. Could it be perhaps that they all view fiction for what it is? (a clue: the answer is fiction. Synonyms include: "Non-non-fiction" and "stories that include magic spells and stuff.") In fact, the only problem with society that I see as related to Disney movies is that no one seems to care about the men. We all grew up watching any number of characters we could never become. BUT: something everyone seems to forget is that we try to be like them when we can. They're positive role models. And not just the cartoon ones, all of them. Sure, we'd all be lucky to complete even one of Hercules' 12 tasks and I'm not sure how many people can evade the palace guards while singing "One Jump Ahead" and feeding poor kids. But I would argue that every time a guy finds a full wallet and returns it to its rightful owner, helps carry something for an injured or elderly person, or any number of everyday activities that are minor acts of heroism, somewhere in the back of their mind (consciously or otherwise) they're thinking: "this might be the closest I'll ever come to being Superman." So we shouldn't criticize cartoons for setting impossibly high standards for children, that's what they're supposed to do. If they get even some of it right, they'll be in good shape.

Instead, we have a whole generation of kids who are kind to the earth and recycle, but who are incredibly rude to people. We have a generation of boys who are trying to live out their heroic fantasies through video games, but are told that if they play them too much they'll end up shooting people. We have a generation of girls who have one camp of women telling them that they need to be pretty, and another camp telling them that doing so would be "submitting to the patriarchal society." In addition, if their heart's desire is to stay at home with the kids then they're being submissive, and if they're working then they're ignoring their kids and being bad mothers. And of course, if a guy feels like staying at home with the kids then he's labeled as either not masculine or a bum for not making money for his family. When did things get so freaking complicated? How about this: let people do what they feel like (I'd go on with this point, but I already did in my blog about male nurses). And if you're so concerned that Disney isn't portraying the image you want, then make your own frigging Disney movie with the personalities you feel are best. I'm sure they'll leap at the positive PR. Then the kids can pick which one they like better. Or better yet, how about accepting the fact that kids are a lot smarter than the morons making the documentaries. They know that it's fake, they recognize the "morality tales" aspect of the films, they sing along with the catchy tunes, and that's it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fight a dragon on horseback and make out with a comatose princess.