Illustration by Tiffy Thompson
In the original Hans Christian Anderson version of The Little Mermaid, things don’t end well for ‘Ariel’. After refusing to stab the prince to death, she is cast into the sea, disintegrates into foam, then is forced into limbo until she does 300 years worth of good deeds.
The Disney version sees her marrying the prince after receiving her father’s blessing for the union: he graciously swaps her monofin for a pair of sturdy legs.
The last century has birthed the lame ‘disneyfication’ of childhood. Parents who want to postpone the grim realities of adulthood opt for the gentle inanities of Dora the Explorer and her ilk.
In traditional children’s lore, the macabre was not shied away from. Children were seen as miniature adults that needed conditioning to withstand rough circumstances. Fairy tales and cautionary tales conveyed harsh truths and rebuked bad behavior. In Struwwelpeter, a classic German children’s book, children playing with matches are burned to death, and thumbsuckers have their digits sliced off with enormous scissors. The folktales of the Brothers Grimm are replete with evil stepmothers, abuse and death.
This unflinching attitude towards children is significantly less patronizing than the putrid drivel of the Teletubbies. When I was young I hated to be talked down to. It’s bad enough when you are a kid and have no say over what to eat, what you learn in school, when to go to bed and what you’re allowed to watch (I always perched on the upstairs landing, trying to catch a glimpse of the forbidden ‘Knot’s Landing’). I love a good subversive children’s film. Here are a few gems that highlight the subconscious fears of childhood and knock adults off their pedestal, all while embracing a hearty sense of the absurd.
5000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)
Dr. Seuss wrote the script and lyrics for this Dali-esque feature film, but was still horrified with the final result. While practicing his for his dreaded piano recital, Bart falls asleep and is plunged into a hallucinogenic nightmare. He is imprisoned in the gitmo of piano academies, lorded over by a maniacal dictator, Dr. Terwilliker (his real life piano teacher). He is forced to practice incessantly on a magnificent super piano along with 499 other little boys, constituting the “5000 fingers”. Any kid who has been forced to take piano lessons can identify with this hellish scenario. They are eventually saved by enlisting the help of a plumber who builds a “VERY atomic” noise-sucker, thus destroying the piano recital and causing an open riot. The surreal sets are reminiscent of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and it is filled distinctly Seussian touches, like interpretive ‘dance-off’ sequences and Siamese twins joined at the beard who travel on rollerskates.
Matilda (1996)
“I’m smart – you’re dumb, I’m big – you’re little, I’m right and you’re wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
This refrain is constantly repeated to 7-year-old Matilda by her moronic parents. To make matters worse, her headmistress, Ms. Trunchbull, is a psychopathic former Olympic shot putter who routinely throws children into the “Chokey”, a solitary confinement chamber covered in spikes. The tiniest infraction spurs her to pick up little girls by their pigtails and hurl them hundreds of yards through the air. Matilda is a tiny Carrie who uses her newfound telekinetic powers to impersonate Trunchbull’s deceased father, putting the ‘writing on the wall’ (or chalkboard in this case). Matilda thwarts the evil reign of the headmistress and is granted autonomy from her own stupid parents.
Unico (1981)
This terrifying apparition put me off anime for the rest of my life. Unico, a baby unicorn, is banished to the ‘hill of oblivion’ by gods who hate him for making people happy. He is picked up by the wind and ferried along, encountering in the process a witch-cat that he turns into a human girl. Out of nowhere, a mysterious dark lord with glowing red eyes appears: the Baron de Ghost. He attempts to get the girl drunk, presumably in order to sexually assault her. Demonic forces, rape and reincarnation are presented as commonplace. Before the assault can occur, Unico incinerates the dark Lord. He is again ferried away by the wind – never permitted to stick around long enough to make friends. The resounding message appears to be to watch your drink (also, we are ultimately alone in the universe).
Pippi Longstocking (1974)
Pippi, the ultimate proto-feminist, is a wiry-haired buccaneer’s daughter with superhuman strength. She shares a house with her pet monkey and horse (that she carries around occasionally). She survives on assortment of gold coins that her father had pilfered, going on all manner of hilarious adventures around the world. She has a sense of righteous anger towards injustice, and outwits certain nefarious adults who cross her path.
The Hand (1965)
Jiri Trnka’s last short film was a thinly veiled analogy about the annihilation of creative freedom under totalitarianism. This damning indictment of Soviet rule in Czechoslovakia was banned outright for twenty years following Trnka’s death. The stop-motion puppet animation depicts an artist who constructs a tiny sculpture: then an enormous, oppressive hand appears and smashes it. The hand tries to control what the artist creates. The artist tries to escape from the tyranny of the hand and kills himself in the process. He is given a state funeral as the screen fades to black. Touted as a ‘children’s film’, it is a critical analysis of the state manipulating individual creativity to pursue its own ends.
The New Adventures of Tom Sawyer: The Mysterious Stranger (1982)
Lifted from Mark Twain’s final unfinished novel, The Mysterious Stranger, this short claymation sequence is a critique of organized religion that documents the adventures of Satan. Satan, a mask on a stick, appears to Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher. He guides them to construct small clay people which he then infuses with life. The clay people begin a miniature society which quickly devolves into famine, pestilence, war and fighting. Satan muses; “I find you humans quite interesting, although you are a useless, greedy lot.” He causes a storm, then an earthquake. “Nevermind them, people are of no value,” he says. “We can make more sometime, if we need them. Life itself is only a vision, a dream, nothing exists save empty space and you. And you are but a thought.”
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
This musical adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel is crammed with fantastical and slightly horrifying scenes. Charlie Bucket is a poor little boy who lives in a one-room house with his parents and both sets of grandparents. They subsist on cabbage soup and weak tea. When Charlie finds money on the street he buys a Wonka chocolate bar, winning the golden ticket that lands him a tour of Willy Wonka’s magnificent chocolate factory. Four other children are chosen for the tour but their bratty and entitled behavior sees them systematically eliminated: transformed into enormous blueberries and rolled away, shrunken-down and neutralized, or sucked into garbage chute to be incinerated. Charlie ultimately passes Wonka’s morality test: he resists the opportunity to sell Wonka’s ‘everlasting gobstopper’ recipe to his competitors. As a result, he is made heir to the chocolate empire.
Kids are more astute than most people acknowledge. Early exposure to hellraisers who disrupt the natural order for the greater good can only help them grow into better people. Just as soon as the PTSD subsides.
Tiffy Thompson is a writer and illustrator for the Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at @tiffyjthompson
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