2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
Probably, everyone watched the beautiful and sad cartoon "Up": about an elderly man who turned into a grumpy old man, having lost the most precious thing - his beloved wife, and began to commit rash acts (otherwise the decision to fly away in the house in balloons cannot be named). Read about death and how screenwriters of popular cartoons try to tell about the most delicate to their young viewers (and what scientists think about this) - read in this blog. Spoiler alert!
Some topics, such as puberty, sex life, or conflicting moral standards, are difficult (and even uncomfortable for parents) to discuss with children: they may not understand or, worse, misunderstand; parents, in turn, are not always able to find the right words. Therefore, more often than not, everything ends with storks, children in cabbage and "girls cannot be beaten" (and what to do if they were the first to start?).
Of these, the most difficult is the topic of death. You can tell the child that his beloved dog, who died of old age, ran away - and the child will spend a long time in anxious search and in vain waiting in order to realize the bitter truth only with age. You can tell him that a close relative has gone to a "special place" - but why can't you visit him there? Why doesn't he call or even write? It would be good to learn to tell children about what death is, as early as possible, but how to choose the right words for this?
In January of this year, American scientists published a study, the main purpose of which was to analyze the topic of death using the example of popular cartoons. Scientists have suggested that this topic is fully disclosed in the pictures in order to help parents, if necessary, to go out with their children in a delicate conversation. Skeptics (or rather, those who, having reached a conscious age, have ceased to be interested in cartoons) may think that they have nothing but a love story between a handsome prince and a virgin in trouble, magic and humor, understandable only to five-year-old children. This, however, is not the case: the creators of the paintings know how much their works contribute to the lives of children, and they do their best to put important information into cartoons in a form that does not traumatize the child's psyche.
Scientists watched 57 full-length cartoons from Disney and Pixar, from 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Puzzle, released in 2015.
Researchers have collected information about the number of dead characters, reactions to the death of other characters close to them, their plot function (protagonist, antagonist or secondary character), the reason and type of their death: explicit (shown on the screen - as in the case of Mufasa in King Leo "or Nemo's mother) or implicit (the one that the viewer learns about exclusively from the context, as in the case of the death of Cinderella's mother). It turned out that 71 characters died in just 57 films.
In addition, the authors also collected information about the return of a previously deceased character back to the plot: after resurrection (as in the case of Snow White) or in the form of a spirit or ghost (like Mufasa). The last point, by the way, can also provide an opportunity for religious parents to discuss the topic of life after death with their children (and for non-religious parents - to tell children that this happens only in cartoons).
The authors found that the death of characters in cartoons is more often implicit: viewers are simply told about the death of a character (in 68, 4 percent of all deaths). That is, in most cases, screenwriters avoid explicitly showing the death of a character on the screen. This is quite understandable: most likely, this is done for less negativity (no matter what topic the scriptwriters raise, you will not make the box office on some depressive cartoons).
Cartoon death sometimes comes suddenly and unreasonably - just like in real life. For example, it is worth remembering the death of the parents of Elsa and Anna from "Frozen": the king and queen die at sea, leaving the youngest daughter in search of support in the face of the older sister who has closed in herself. In total, the proportion of sudden death cases in the pictures viewed by the researchers was 59.4 percent.
Another good example of loss and (no matter how bold it may sound) further struggle with PTSD is the cartoon "City of Heroes". At the beginning of the film, the beloved older brother of the protagonist dies - and dies, in the words of the authors of the article, quite explicitly. The inflatable medical robot Baymax comes to the aid of the main character, suffering from depression, who understands the boy's suffering and tries to help him. This cartoon, by the way, also raises another important topic: depression is as serious an ailment as the flu or a broken leg, and it also needs to be treated. Especially with bereavement.
True, the problem of Disney cartoons, from the point of view of their ability to serve as guides to the world of adult themes, lies in magic, which often plays an important role in plots. Therefore, characters in films are able to come to life: according to researchers, this happened in 19.1 percent of deaths in the films they watched.
Nevertheless, in the end, the authors conclude that discussing taboo topics with children using the example of popular and beloved cartoons is a very logical and good decision. Hollywood scriptwriters, once again, do manage to raise important questions about life (like the issue of adolescence and emotional crisis in Puzzle) and society (like the issue of racial discrimination in Zootopia). Parents have only to get rid of prejudices - and they will find help where it is waiting for them.
