As a self-proclaimed "woman-child", it's probably easy to imagine how much I squeed yesterday when I saw Pan with a friend. Even though I was much more into the princess and talking animal/anthropomorphic Disney movies as a wee Ari, I still thoroughly enjoyed the Peter Pan Disney cartoon, and even really liked Hook (With the beloved Robin Williams *RIP*, Rufio's badassery, and the funny boy who could roll himself up into a human bowling ball, what's not to love?!). I'll try to refrain from spoilers, while trying not to launch into a full blown movie review (as much as I love reviewing things).
This new spin on an old classic seemed promising, very much like Maleficent, and in that respect, I was correct. This movie was a lot like Maleficent, though it was much more upbeat than Maleficent and I cried a lot less during this movie (until the end) but that's another story for another entry. There were a few decisions made that I didn't necessarily like, such as the decision to incorporate modern songs into a movie that's supposed to take place ages before Nirvana, The Ramones, etc. although I will say that the inclusion of Blitzkrieg Bop made sense in a way, since Pan takes place during WWII. When it comes to this fairly unanimous pet peeve, I will concede that it was a lot less obnoxious than in movies like Moulin Rouge and Book of Life.
The story of Peter Pan is definitely thought provoking and Pan is no exception. Like most fairy tales, it's watered down from the original tale that was supposed to be dark and gruesome at times. Some people find it a little disconcerting to change a character who is childlike yet a psychotic serial killer into an archetype of sorts for youth and everyone's inner child. Even when it comes to psychology, they've coined the term "Peter Pan Syndrome" when there's an adult who doesn't want to grow up. This leads me back to the subject at hand: Is growing up the worst thing ever?
There is no easy answer for this. In this modern world, and with the way things are, childhood can be easily squelched before it has run its course. I'm not going to go full Ned Flanders and say that we should live in a quasi-Utopian village based entirely upon Berta Hummel figurines in order to protect childhood innocence, but I also don't want to go to the extremes that I've heard some people express how they feel that children should be exposed to sex, violence, and all the depravity of the world as soon as possible. One of my ex-boyfriends and I used to get into horrific fights about how we wanted to raise our children if we had them. He felt that childhood innocence was just sugar-coating ignorance and he was a firm believer that ignorance was not bliss and that it was a plague that should be exterminated at all costs. Another ex-significant other of mine felt that children are fully capable of having a fulfilling sex life, another notion that made my mind get a figurative Blue Screen of Death and made my nervous system want to run out of my body like a frightened Chihuahua, it was that unnerving to me. Frankly, I believe there should be a happy medium (And for crying out loud, I firmly believe sex shouldn't even be a concern until puberty, because life if complicated enough without throwing that mess into it when you're trying to learn basic things like your ABC's and how to cross the road without getting turned into road pizza). Sheltering kids the way that conservative folks like CWA (Concerned Women for America) want us to do could have just as much negative backlash as sitting little Timmy down and having him watch the Playboy channel, Quentin Tarantino movies, and Requiem for a Dream back to back. Every child is different, as every person and creature is different, but I feel that in general, since a child's brain is still developing, they shouldn't be overwhelmed with things they cannot fully comprehend. Not to mention opinions like my ex-significant others' are coming from the perspective of well-seasoned adults, and as adults, it's hard for us to be able to remember and relate to things from when we were children. As Blackbeard, the character in Pan who's kind of a precursor to Captain Hook, points out, childhood isn't all peaches and cream. Childhood has its own set of problems, but once we are introduced to the grown up world of taxes, bills, child support, etc., the childhood problems look so small in comparison. For example: I remember a particular incident from when I was a member of an...err...specialty forum...around age 15, maybe 16. Granted, I was a very precocious and mature 15 year old whom physically and mentally could pass as at least 18, but I still had the problems of a 15 year old and had to try to cope with the stress from these issues, which at times made me a snotty little bitch. One of the female admins on this forum, a very nice but somewhat stern 36 year old woman named Tina, was actually nice enough to reach out and ask me what was wrong. She noticed that I had gone from being mature and witty to scathing, moody, and acting my age, which made the fellow forum members very annoyed. I don't remember exactly what was wrong at the time, but I'm sure it was family issues, high school issues, or boyfriend issues. Being a 36 year old woman, she tried to be sympathetic as much as possible, but flat out said, "I'm sorry, but when I think back to that point in my life, my problems then seem so insignificant and minuscule compared to my problems now". This was fairly disappointing and made me feel kind of small and insignificant. As a result, I've always tried to not belittle the problems of others, regardless of age or predicament. One of the best ways to overcome and cope with grief that I have found is to not try to measure your grief like a penis, and definitely not try to have a pissing contest over whose grief is the worst. After all, even if you do have the most grief and you can, without blinking an eye, go up to (for instance) Jesus Christ, hanging bloody, beaten, and dying on the cross and say, "Suck it up, buttercup, I have it worse than you do!" what really is that going to accomplish or prove? There is no trophy or award for having the most grief. It suffices to say we all have problems. Some people like the Lone Wolf approach of, "No one can fix your problems but you", which holds true, but I also like pointing out that people who work together can accomplish things faster and easier, solving a multitude of problems in the process. True cooperation is a rare and beautiful thing.
Now that we have gone over childhood innocence and relating to children, I'd like to point out some ways in which growing up, is indeed, a necessary evil that's imposed upon us by society. As much as I love ranking on this modern age, it seems that in retrospect, childhood can potentially last a lot longer nowadays than it did in the past, mainly because we live a lot longer as a whole than we used to. I remember reading a YA fiction novel, I believe it was called Anna of Byzantium, in which Anna points out that at the age of 11, she is considered an adult and could have potentially been in a position of power, being a Byzantine princess and all. Comparatively, at the age of 11, I was having great inner turmoil about whether I should continue to play with my Barbie dolls or not (I came to the conclusion that I needed to stop at age 13 when my Barbie role plays were turning entirely too much into the plots for cheap porn films). However, at the same time, at least in the United States, we're kind of given a Honey Do List from birth that goes a little something like this:
This new spin on an old classic seemed promising, very much like Maleficent, and in that respect, I was correct. This movie was a lot like Maleficent, though it was much more upbeat than Maleficent and I cried a lot less during this movie (until the end) but that's another story for another entry. There were a few decisions made that I didn't necessarily like, such as the decision to incorporate modern songs into a movie that's supposed to take place ages before Nirvana, The Ramones, etc. although I will say that the inclusion of Blitzkrieg Bop made sense in a way, since Pan takes place during WWII. When it comes to this fairly unanimous pet peeve, I will concede that it was a lot less obnoxious than in movies like Moulin Rouge and Book of Life.
The story of Peter Pan is definitely thought provoking and Pan is no exception. Like most fairy tales, it's watered down from the original tale that was supposed to be dark and gruesome at times. Some people find it a little disconcerting to change a character who is childlike yet a psychotic serial killer into an archetype of sorts for youth and everyone's inner child. Even when it comes to psychology, they've coined the term "Peter Pan Syndrome" when there's an adult who doesn't want to grow up. This leads me back to the subject at hand: Is growing up the worst thing ever?
There is no easy answer for this. In this modern world, and with the way things are, childhood can be easily squelched before it has run its course. I'm not going to go full Ned Flanders and say that we should live in a quasi-Utopian village based entirely upon Berta Hummel figurines in order to protect childhood innocence, but I also don't want to go to the extremes that I've heard some people express how they feel that children should be exposed to sex, violence, and all the depravity of the world as soon as possible. One of my ex-boyfriends and I used to get into horrific fights about how we wanted to raise our children if we had them. He felt that childhood innocence was just sugar-coating ignorance and he was a firm believer that ignorance was not bliss and that it was a plague that should be exterminated at all costs. Another ex-significant other of mine felt that children are fully capable of having a fulfilling sex life, another notion that made my mind get a figurative Blue Screen of Death and made my nervous system want to run out of my body like a frightened Chihuahua, it was that unnerving to me. Frankly, I believe there should be a happy medium (And for crying out loud, I firmly believe sex shouldn't even be a concern until puberty, because life if complicated enough without throwing that mess into it when you're trying to learn basic things like your ABC's and how to cross the road without getting turned into road pizza). Sheltering kids the way that conservative folks like CWA (Concerned Women for America) want us to do could have just as much negative backlash as sitting little Timmy down and having him watch the Playboy channel, Quentin Tarantino movies, and Requiem for a Dream back to back. Every child is different, as every person and creature is different, but I feel that in general, since a child's brain is still developing, they shouldn't be overwhelmed with things they cannot fully comprehend. Not to mention opinions like my ex-significant others' are coming from the perspective of well-seasoned adults, and as adults, it's hard for us to be able to remember and relate to things from when we were children. As Blackbeard, the character in Pan who's kind of a precursor to Captain Hook, points out, childhood isn't all peaches and cream. Childhood has its own set of problems, but once we are introduced to the grown up world of taxes, bills, child support, etc., the childhood problems look so small in comparison. For example: I remember a particular incident from when I was a member of an...err...specialty forum...around age 15, maybe 16. Granted, I was a very precocious and mature 15 year old whom physically and mentally could pass as at least 18, but I still had the problems of a 15 year old and had to try to cope with the stress from these issues, which at times made me a snotty little bitch. One of the female admins on this forum, a very nice but somewhat stern 36 year old woman named Tina, was actually nice enough to reach out and ask me what was wrong. She noticed that I had gone from being mature and witty to scathing, moody, and acting my age, which made the fellow forum members very annoyed. I don't remember exactly what was wrong at the time, but I'm sure it was family issues, high school issues, or boyfriend issues. Being a 36 year old woman, she tried to be sympathetic as much as possible, but flat out said, "I'm sorry, but when I think back to that point in my life, my problems then seem so insignificant and minuscule compared to my problems now". This was fairly disappointing and made me feel kind of small and insignificant. As a result, I've always tried to not belittle the problems of others, regardless of age or predicament. One of the best ways to overcome and cope with grief that I have found is to not try to measure your grief like a penis, and definitely not try to have a pissing contest over whose grief is the worst. After all, even if you do have the most grief and you can, without blinking an eye, go up to (for instance) Jesus Christ, hanging bloody, beaten, and dying on the cross and say, "Suck it up, buttercup, I have it worse than you do!" what really is that going to accomplish or prove? There is no trophy or award for having the most grief. It suffices to say we all have problems. Some people like the Lone Wolf approach of, "No one can fix your problems but you", which holds true, but I also like pointing out that people who work together can accomplish things faster and easier, solving a multitude of problems in the process. True cooperation is a rare and beautiful thing.
Now that we have gone over childhood innocence and relating to children, I'd like to point out some ways in which growing up, is indeed, a necessary evil that's imposed upon us by society. As much as I love ranking on this modern age, it seems that in retrospect, childhood can potentially last a lot longer nowadays than it did in the past, mainly because we live a lot longer as a whole than we used to. I remember reading a YA fiction novel, I believe it was called Anna of Byzantium, in which Anna points out that at the age of 11, she is considered an adult and could have potentially been in a position of power, being a Byzantine princess and all. Comparatively, at the age of 11, I was having great inner turmoil about whether I should continue to play with my Barbie dolls or not (I came to the conclusion that I needed to stop at age 13 when my Barbie role plays were turning entirely too much into the plots for cheap porn films). However, at the same time, at least in the United States, we're kind of given a Honey Do List from birth that goes a little something like this:
- Be born.
- Be a kid and learn.
- Sometime between birth and high school- Choose what you want to do with your life and do not deviate from the plan.
- High school- Take classes that mesh well with what you need to do credit-wise vs. the career path you've already been pressured to choose.
- Graduate from high school and go to college.
- College- Acquire knowledge and/or at least get a piece of paper that says you can do a thing.
- Graduate from college in your early twenties and spend the rest of your life doing the thing for someone else's benefit more than your own, preferably, because after all, in the Land of Opportunity that was built on entrepreneurship and creativity, if you try being an entrepreneur without taking out a $15,000 loan just to get started, you're a lazy slug who needs to get a "real job" by being an indentured servant to Corporate America or you'll meet the Salt Shaker of Crushing Poverty. Don't even think of being disabled either, because then the Salt Shaker of Crushing Poverty will be used upon you while people constantly dismiss that there is anything wrong with you.
- Retire around 65, move to Florida or somewhere with the savings and retirement you're supposed to have accrued, maybe come out of retirement if need be to be a greeter at Walmart to pay for your medications, and try to enjoy life and accomplish everything on your bucket list with 0 energy and very little time left.
This pre-prescribed future is, mercifully, not imposed upon children (well, at least not at first, depending on their parents). Children are born neutral, with a clean slate that's not blemished or tainted yet. It's easy to see how being that fresh and new is enviable. A lot of programming, books, and other things for children have the underlying tones of "You can do anything! You can be anything! Do what you want to do! Your imagination is your best tool and you should use it all the time!" Playing and having fun is seen as a way for them to learn and activities like reading, coloring, etc. is encouraged and seen as useful too. At age 26, if my mom asks me what I'm doing and I tell her I'm reading, I'm expected to put my book down and "do useful things". Again, what a difference a few years can make! Just talking about it honestly makes me want to use some Pixie Dust to make my car fly to Neverland so that I can have some peace and quiet.
Don't even get me started on how much fun it can be to have a pre-pubescent body, free from hormones that cause acne, lethargy, mood swings, etc. I mainly remember my childhood as a time of boundless energy, getting up at 6 am on a Saturday because I can't sleep any longer, and being able to do ALL the things without wanting to take a nap after 3 tasks. As much as it's fun to have boobs, hips, and being old enough to flaunt what my mama gave me, when my PCOS kicks in, I'm ready to either change sexes or take a magic Tardis ride back to my childhood and bring Baby Ari to Neverland right then and there to spare her from turning into me. Again, another topic for another blog.
Is growing up all bad though? Again, depends on the person, but in general, no. Some people really like working, some people like independence, some people like authority (can't help but read that as AUTHORITAHHH), some people really like being able to have sex, watch porn, and indulge in ALL the hedonism and sensuality, and some people like having their own family and kids of their own. Actually, if I could condense all of the reasoning behind children wanting to grow up too fast into one simple reason, it would probably be the yearning for independence. We want to zoom out of the nest because it's only natural to outgrow our parents, just sometimes it happens before we are really and truly ready. To be fair, it has just as much to do with the parents as the children. Even the nicest, most fun of parents seem to have a hard time taking their children seriously and admitting that sometimes their kids can be right and they can be wrong. Not that every parent is like an adult out of Matilda, but I can see how it's hard to transition from seeing the flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood as a helpless ball of squish that needs you to clean up its explosive diarrhea to being a sentient being that has a will of its own and its own path in life. Speaking from experience, I know how hard it is to feel like you can do anything right when you have someone tut tutting and doubting every move that you make. Sometimes the harder parents try to guide their children, the more it drives the child away and makes them want to grow up before their time. Not to mention kids/teens/young adults get mentally stunted and traumatized from things like divorce, parental death, etc. on a regular basis. If these drastic changes to their world aren't addressed properly, they can go from being a small cyst of an issue to a giant, festering carbuncle of an issue, causing them to grow up before their time, and then perhaps come regressing back later on, which as I know is incredibly inconvenient for all involved.
Anyway, it's time for me to piece these ramblings into a cohesive whole. Is growing up literally the worst thing ever? No, it's a part of life. Are some of the things associated with being an adult some of the most vile, foul, and abominable disgraces to this thing we call life? Absolutely! I mean hell, it's not like children are perfect and free of fault, but most of the problems we have as a society in general stem from the greed and vice of the powers that be and the people that enable these things to continue. Can we avoid adulthood? Perhaps, but that might make things harder in the long run and is a hard lifestyle to sustain. Again, no two people are alike or have the same path, but I like to think that if we, as people, can find a way to preserve our imagination, avoid becoming jaded assholes that feel like we've seen and done everything, treat each other as nicely as we were taught to in kindergarten when it comes to The Golden Rule, sharing, etc. and work together instead of flipping everyone the bird while being indifferent or going out of our way to make things harder for them, it would take the edge off of transitioning from childhood to adulthood.
Don't even get me started on how much fun it can be to have a pre-pubescent body, free from hormones that cause acne, lethargy, mood swings, etc. I mainly remember my childhood as a time of boundless energy, getting up at 6 am on a Saturday because I can't sleep any longer, and being able to do ALL the things without wanting to take a nap after 3 tasks. As much as it's fun to have boobs, hips, and being old enough to flaunt what my mama gave me, when my PCOS kicks in, I'm ready to either change sexes or take a magic Tardis ride back to my childhood and bring Baby Ari to Neverland right then and there to spare her from turning into me. Again, another topic for another blog.
Is growing up all bad though? Again, depends on the person, but in general, no. Some people really like working, some people like independence, some people like authority (can't help but read that as AUTHORITAHHH), some people really like being able to have sex, watch porn, and indulge in ALL the hedonism and sensuality, and some people like having their own family and kids of their own. Actually, if I could condense all of the reasoning behind children wanting to grow up too fast into one simple reason, it would probably be the yearning for independence. We want to zoom out of the nest because it's only natural to outgrow our parents, just sometimes it happens before we are really and truly ready. To be fair, it has just as much to do with the parents as the children. Even the nicest, most fun of parents seem to have a hard time taking their children seriously and admitting that sometimes their kids can be right and they can be wrong. Not that every parent is like an adult out of Matilda, but I can see how it's hard to transition from seeing the flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood as a helpless ball of squish that needs you to clean up its explosive diarrhea to being a sentient being that has a will of its own and its own path in life. Speaking from experience, I know how hard it is to feel like you can do anything right when you have someone tut tutting and doubting every move that you make. Sometimes the harder parents try to guide their children, the more it drives the child away and makes them want to grow up before their time. Not to mention kids/teens/young adults get mentally stunted and traumatized from things like divorce, parental death, etc. on a regular basis. If these drastic changes to their world aren't addressed properly, they can go from being a small cyst of an issue to a giant, festering carbuncle of an issue, causing them to grow up before their time, and then perhaps come regressing back later on, which as I know is incredibly inconvenient for all involved.
Anyway, it's time for me to piece these ramblings into a cohesive whole. Is growing up literally the worst thing ever? No, it's a part of life. Are some of the things associated with being an adult some of the most vile, foul, and abominable disgraces to this thing we call life? Absolutely! I mean hell, it's not like children are perfect and free of fault, but most of the problems we have as a society in general stem from the greed and vice of the powers that be and the people that enable these things to continue. Can we avoid adulthood? Perhaps, but that might make things harder in the long run and is a hard lifestyle to sustain. Again, no two people are alike or have the same path, but I like to think that if we, as people, can find a way to preserve our imagination, avoid becoming jaded assholes that feel like we've seen and done everything, treat each other as nicely as we were taught to in kindergarten when it comes to The Golden Rule, sharing, etc. and work together instead of flipping everyone the bird while being indifferent or going out of our way to make things harder for them, it would take the edge off of transitioning from childhood to adulthood.
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