Velveteen Rabbit Syndrome

[osprey_archer]

It's... snowing. In May.

Oh Wisconsin. Why do you tease us like this?

***

We had a Toy Story marathon last night - okay, so the two Toy Story movies are a very short marathon, but we're only midway through term and not capable of sustained mental effort.

I didn't much like the Toy Story movies as a kid. Sid scared me, I didn't like Jessie, and it hit pretty much the same guilt button as "The Velveteen Rabbit": I have stacks of toys that I don't love enough. They will never become Real Bunnies or feel good about themselves, and it's ALL MY FAULT because I am insufficiently affectionate toward them.

Actually, Toy Story still hits the velveteen rabbit guilt button. I spent the rest of the evening after the marathon cuddling the little stuffed dog I keep in my room, which doesn't even have a name. I once gave it a name and forgot it and renamed it and forgot that too. It probably cries itself to sleep when I'm in classes. I love it less than my cell phone, you guys. (My cell phone has been named Ariel, by the way. In a Shakespeare way, not a Little Mermaid way. I didn't mean for this name to stick, but I have very little control in these matters.)

This affection is totally wasted on a cell phone. What's it going to do, become a Real-er Cell Phone when it gets discarded?

...anyway. Now that I'm older the melancholy elements, all those kids growing up and forgetting their once-beloved toys, speak to me more. Not just in terms of toys, but old friends, old books, old opinions and self-definitions...

It seems to me that these really are grown-up movies with a kid-friendly wrapping, not kid's movies that adults can enjoy too - it's not just that as a kid you see one thing in it, and grow up and see more layers, but that the main and most important layers (especially in the second movie) are mostly accessible to adults - even if kids who are not me like the whiz-bang on the surface. What do you think?

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Your cell phone becomes a whole Communications Infrastructure when it gets discarded :D

It's funny about the guilt that these movies and similar inspire in people. My younger daughter was pointing out that there's an ad for some product on TV--and now I can't even remember the product, so this anecdote is going to be quite lame in the retelling, but--where you've got a discarded Something-or-other, begging the Dear Viewers for their love and attention, but it's no use, because the viewers have all adopted the new, wonderful, efficient product being advertised. My younger daughter always felt so bad and guilty about the Something-or-other.... and so, apparently, did many, many viewers, because in recent ads for the wonderful product that replaced it, they hasten to inform you that the Something-or-other went on to find love and fulfillment elsewhere, after the Dear Viewers abandoned it.

As I think about it, it seems like Toy Story could seem even more threatening to a child, because a child could worry about abandonment in exactly the way the toys do. In other words, rather than worrying that they're not loving their toys enough, some children might worry about losing the affection of the people they depend on--their parents. In that sense, the movies have a really scary undertone, saying that affection disappears as soon as interest disappears or mood changes.

...which brings up another problem with the movie paradigm, which is the notion that if your feelings don't stay exactly the same, it's BAD. In real life, with people or opinions or self-definitions, we do have changes and evolutions in how we feel... but it doesn't need to result in the complete discarding or devaluing of the past feelings. Another anecdote: I used to love L. Frank Baum's Oz books with a passion. When I then read the Narnia books and loved them, I had the first inkling that there might come a time when I no longer loved the Oz books with the passion that I did at that moment. I was terrified of that eventuality. I tried to make myself promise myself I wouldn't change. .... And eventually my feelings *did* change--but I still feel affection for the books because of their importance to me in the past.

[ooh, long-winded] ... So yeah. Thought-provoking post!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

How do the commercial makers come up with these things? You would think that "This new purchase will make your old electronic friends MISERABLE" would be an obvious no-go.

I tend to think the second problem with the Toy Story paradigm is a necessary corollary of the first - it's not bad to stop loving the Oz books, but to stop loving a child or a pet would be horrible.

Of course toys aren't a child or a pet, but as you noted, the movie in some ways makes them analogous to children. Maybe the film makers were so enamored of the analogy that they didn't realize that, taken at face value, "Changing your feelings about your toys is BAD" is a problematic message?

Although the first few times that one's feelings about something important change, it feels like a horrible thing. (To trade anecdotes: when I was a kid I was a terribly picky eater. I'm much less picky now, and I love food I'm mostly not sorry... but I was so picky that it made me unique, so there is a twinge that that aspect is gone.)

So it could be a reflection of that sort of subjective reality; but given the effects that the change in feelings has on the toys, it really seems like the idea is that changing feelings are just BAD.

Now I want to rewatch the other Pixar films and see if they also have this kind of weird baggage hanging out in the corners.

[inspirethoughts.livejournal.com]

I am in CT now, but I can almost feel the snow here too being in WI for past 8 years. *sigh*

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

IT WILL NEVER END.

Although actually it was nice enough today that I went for a long walk. So maybe - maybe - we can rest easy in a snowless summer?