“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” a slasher film that features the beloved A.A. Milne characters of Disney fame, is a bad movie predicated on a worse idea.
In the film, which is Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s directorial debut and already slated to be followed by a sequel, the once cuddly Winnie the Pooh and Piglet have become feral and ferocious, enraged that their former playmate, Christopher Robin, abandoned them to attend college.
After avoiding starvation by consuming Eeyore (whose unrelenting pessimism was apparently prophetic), Pooh and Piglet amuse themselves by murdering everyone that enters the Hundred Acre Wood. Their unyielding rage at all humankind leads them to slay 13 people by the end of the film. One of these is Christopher Robin’s fiancée, with whom he had returned to the Hundred Acre Wood to show her the “enchanted neighborhood” of his “childhood days” (as the Disney song puts it).
Meanwhile, Piglet meets his doom at the end of a sledgehammer, wielded by one of the young women he and Pooh have kidnapped.
This all seems too absurd to believe — because, at first glance, it is. Why would anyone want this beloved childhood classic made into a slasher movie? Moreover, why would so many people want to see it, and others the director plans to make? (It’s been reported that “Bambi” and “Peter Pan” are up next.)
Here’s a proposition: this twisted spectacle of murderous Pooh and Piglet, filled with rage because their erstwhile pal had the temerity to transform from a boy into a man, accurately (if stupidly and histrionically) reflects the deep strain of anti-adulthood plaguing today’s culture. It is merely the latest manifestation of the unwillingness of many adults to think and act like grown-ups by grafting pseudo-mature themes onto the things of childhood.
Take “Velma,” the HBO spin-off of “Scooby-Doo” that garners a TV-MA rating and has been almost universally panned but is returning for a second season. In the show, the titular character, voiced by Mindy Kaling, is bisexual, South Asian and pole-dances for her own father. It also features copious nudity and violence. The show is premised on the idea that the introduction of these mature themes to a children’s show should render the now Scooby-less “Scooby-Doo” of interest to adults.
Also of enduring interest to today’s young adults, it seems, is Disney themed lingerie — because what 30-something wouldn’t want Mickey Mouse underwear and a Snow White bustier?
Meanwhile, a growing numbers of adults are actually playing with children’s toys — without children — as a way to relieve stress. This “kidult” segment of the retail market is booming, as increasing numbers of adults find solace not in the leisure-time habits of their parents and grandparents — fostering intimate friendships and relationships, cultivating religious or other purposeful community, appreciating nature — but in immersive reversion to a time before responsibility.
The loss of distinction between childhood and adulthood reflected in the projection of pseudo-maturity onto children’s entertainment and the adult reliance on children’s pastimes reflects a culture that rejects the virtues of adulthood itself. In much of today’s public discourse, the rationality, perspective and wisdom that were once the prized property of adults have given way to the emotionalism, myopia and presentism that were once considered the limitations of children.
Such a society is inevitably going to produce people fundamentally unfit for the grown-up business of political citizenship, partnered sexuality and adult responsibility.
And, of course, the more that adults want to be children, the less likely they are to have children — because having children means you’re supposed to grow up.
Admittedly, nostalgia for the carefree innocence of childhood has always been part of “Winnie the Pooh.” Even as a child, I found Christopher Robin’s animal friends preemptively haunting. I am sentimental in this way, and empathetic to the desire to look at the world through a child’s eyes — with endless potential to shape the future, no understanding of limitations, and no regrets.
And so I became a mother. That’s part of why I can’t take Velma — or sexy Cinderella, or a stress-relief stuffed animal — seriously, and struggle to take seriously those who do.
“Scooby-Doo” is still in my life because my 7- and 6-year-old sons love it. Disney, too — I just ran my 2-year-old son’s beloved stuffed Simba through the washer because he threw up on it.
Adults are supposed to engage with the things of childhood by becoming parents, not by twisting and remaking those things to serve the stunted needs of childish adults.
As my older children grow past Pooh and friends, my nostalgia for their fascination with the Hundred Acre Wood runs strong and deep. But just as it was once my job to become a grownup and gracefully accept increasing responsibility to serve the world, it is now my responsibility to raise adults that will do the same.
That’s why, once my children have moved on from Pooh, I pray that they feel no desire to engage him again.
Until, God willing, it’s time for my grandchildren’s “childhood days.”
Elizabeth Grace Matthew (@ElizabethGMat on Twitter) is a freelance writer and editor, an America’s Future Foundation Writing Fellowship alumna and a Young Voices contributor. Her work has appeared in America Magazine, The Hill, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Philadelphia Inquirer.