The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => The Arts => Silver Screen => Topic started by: LittlefootAndAliTogether on January 30, 2015, 03:24:07 AM
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I mean, yes, we have even had an entire movie series where practically every character is a carnivore, omnivore, or insectovore (Lion King, where I think Raifiki was the only exception as any major type of character, for example.).
I guess what I'm saying, if Nala, Kiara, Alex (Madagascar), Diego (Ice Age) or whoever were to hunt someone or something on screen, no I don't mean rip them apart (heck, I only did that partially in a Rikki-tikki-tavi 3 book where a teenage female mongoose who had been a vegetarian her whole life and she was eating a mouse and I said that she got blood spattering her snout when she tore at a piece of meat, animal already dead of course, and she commented that it sure wasn't like eating plants. However, that was a book and was as far as I went along those lines.) but give enough to know that they DID get something?
On the flip side, is our culture so "plant eater conditioned" that if Nala, Kiara, Diego, Alex, etc, were to do that, that the audience of kids would believe them to be villains, even if they clearly are not?
I know that Chomper has crossed the line, so to speak, with bugs, as has Guido, again with bugs, and so have Simba, Timon, and Pumba, but other than them, has anyone else?
What place would you draw the line of them being, well, carnivores, without having to send kids into therapy or getting a major parent backlash?
I especially am interested with this as I had a Bothtooth named Ptero, who thinks he's a Sharptooth, hunt on screen in my LBT 15 and am trying to remain true to the cartoon and LBT spirit in writing my stories (that plus other stories) and am wondering what is or isn't permissalbe when having a character that could, in nature, be a predator, possibly even a deadly one.
I get that you can have a villain hunt and even kill someone as a carnvore, and, as long as it's not too graphic, the audience will let it slide, but, on the flip side, maybe I'm just imagining it, if you do a hero doing that, the audience will tend to think less of the hero for it. (Maybe I'm wrong.)
I admit, I have been herbivore conditioned so that I believed that Mo, Rinkus, and Sierra must be a Flatteeth and that everyone was a Flatooth in LBT unless it was stated that they were an Egg Stealer or a Sharptooht (or actually showed fangs and them trying to eat the kids). Even Ruby we knew was a Bothtooht as she was eating that clam in "Cave of Many Voices" yet ate Sweet Bubbles later.
Also, who said Meat Eaters even had to eat Leaf Eaters? I mean, arguably, an Older Chomper might find it easier to hunt a Fast Biter or a Belly Dragger (other Sharpteeth) or an Egg Stealer than to hunt a Threehorn, where he'd really have to work hard to beat and make into a meal.
I think a crocodile would have better luck eating a meat eating fish than taking on a hippo!
:lol
Please tell me I'm not imaging this bias against carnivores in cartoons (at least, a bias against nice ones. Scar and Zira probably could get away with hunting on screen as long as they didn't make it too graphic and Sharptooth got away with a bunch in the first LBT film biting Littlefoot's mother in the back.)
Also, the ironic thing is that I'm sure that, even though, in many other areas, the "anything goes" mentality is taking off, even in the kids's cartoons level. However, I am wondering if, perhaps due to political correctness, that the opposite is true for the predator thing.
For instance, in The Great Mouse Detective, they actually had Radigan feed one of his mouse servants that he got mad at alive to his pet cat!!!! I highly doubt, had they made that movie today, that any producer would have the cajones to do it without fear of offending someone!
I admit, in LBT 5, I'm not sure what Chomper was up to, but, then again, they never stated it and left that open. We always wonder. :unsure: :unsure: :unsure:
Also, as for my OC Ptero, he does hunt on screen, though, from a song he sings, it's quite clear that:
1.) He is unable to find plants to eat and this is his last resort to not having to go to bed having eaten nothing the entire day.
2.) That he is not normally this way and only is vicious, for the most part, when hunting and, in fact, is very kind and good natured otherwise.
3.) That he is only doing it for food and nothing mean and actually hates having to kill to get food.
4.) That he wishes it weren't so (that his prey would get away, though, of course, his hunger is making him act otherwise.)
5.) That he is actually, in his song, at one point, actually begging the animal he is hunting to forgive him and that he is only doing it for food and means no il-will whatsoever.
6.) He actually cries right before he takes the animal's life (not shown, only the part leading up to the actual death of the animal is shown.)
7.) The chorus of the song "It's a hard and cruel world out there" shows that nature is making him do this and nothing more.
Admittedly, in the case of Ptero, he actually would have shown a lot less pity had he actually gotten Ducky for his breakfast, but that can be forgiven as he is under the mistaken belief that herbivores murdered his father merely for being a Sharptooht, which actually wasn't true, as his dad was actually a plant eater, but his lying mother had tricked him for years.)
On the flip side, there is a scene where the animal, now shaking pretty much with an "I'm going to die!" look, is reflected in Ptero's red eyes and then it shows him holding the animal against a canyon wall, a claw raised, about to end the creature's life. Would that EVER be allowed in LBT (even if Don Bluth were directing again)????
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Belongs to the "Silver Screen" forum rather than "The Party Room". It's for games and not for polls about animated characters..