Painting Unrealistic Perceptions of Animals
I was again reminded this morning, while watching cartoons with my kids, of what an unrealistic picture they paint of animals. During a song on one show, they were singing about polar bears and part of the lyrics went: “big, white, gentle, and fluffy” (maybe not in that order). Yes, they are big, white, and fluffy, but gentle isn’t a word that comes to mind when I think of them.
No wonder so many children find the idea of hunting so appalling when they are bombarded by such skewered views at every turn. In real life, animals may be as cute and cuddly looking as they are portrayed in cartoons and other children’s programming, but they are by no means gentle and friendly. They may not be man-eaters, but they can still be dangerous.
Is there a direct link between these unrealistic views of animals and anti-hunting sentiments in children? That is debatable and hard to prove one way or the other. Children that hunt, or grow up to hunt, watch the same cartoons as the kids who don’t, so the blame can’t be placed solely on the shows.
That being said, I do believe that there is a huge difference in the cartoons, movies, and shows that my kids watch than what I watched as a kid. It seems many of them are deliberately geared toward an anti-hunting message. Although, as a hunter, I am rather biased in my opinion when I say that.
Still, not factoring in the effect they have on hunting, there is no denying the fact they fail miserably in showing what animals are truly like in real life.
hunting, anti-hunting, cartoons, childrens movies, animals
February 8th, 2007 at 1:36 am
I really couldn’t agree with you more on this. It’s nice to have cute cartoon characters, but a lot of kids grow up with an impression that most animals are harmless, which really can’t be further from the truth.
February 8th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
You hit the proverbial nail on head with that post. As an animal behaviorist working with, and study wild animals, I couldn’t agree more with the negative effect such cartoons but also classics like “Flipper”, “Lassie” and “Ben the Bear” have on peoples perception of animals as human like creatures that wont harm a person. One of the biggest problems we see now is that visitors in zoo’s, parks and even in the wild walk right up to dangerous animals and if they are made aware of that huge mistakes the answer come invariably something lie that. “But I have seen on TV that (such and such) plays with (such and such wild animal)”. It’s scary to think that children not only see such garbage on TV but that most of them are raised by parents that have been subjected in their youth to the same garbage. Walt Disney, one of the early avid animal rights activists, has started this dangerous trend of humanizing animals, where they lion sits with the gazelle on the campfire and sings happy tunes. It’s tragic really and often ends deadly for many gullible people having an encounter with a “cuddly” bear, lion, tiger or elephant.
-Othmar Vohringer-