brother bear

Disney’s animistic sermon??

Animism

•  “Animism is…about personhood, environment, and relational epistemology. It is … about a relational ontology in which the world is found to be, and treated as, a community of persons not all of whom are human.” Graham Harvey, “Animals, animists, and academics, p 11.

•  By this definition, would you say Brother Bear advocates an animistic worldview?"

Animism Lyrics: Through my eyes. Phil Collins, Brother Bear, 2003. There are things in life you'll learn and / In time you'll see / Cause out there somewhere / It's all waiting / If you keep believing / So don't run, don't hide / It will be all right / You'll see, trust me/ I‘ll be there watching over you. [chorus] Just take a look through my eyes / There's a better place / somewhere out there / Just take a look through my eyes / Everything changes / You'll be amazed what you'll find / If you look through my eyes. There will be times on this journey / All you'll see is darkness / Out there somewhere daylight finds you / If you keep believing / So don't run, don't hide/ It will be all right / You'll see, trust me / I'll be there watching over you. [chorus repeat] All the things that you can change / There's a meaning in everything / And you will find all you need / There's so much to understand. [chorus repeat] Take a look through my eyes

•  Who’s eyes are we being asked to look through?

•  What is “the better place” that is out there somewhere?

•  Who is watching over us?

Shamanism

•  What is the role of the religious specialist in this community?

•  What skills/knowledge does she have? •  Where does her “power” come from? •  How does Tanana compare to other religious specialists

portrayed by Disney? (Frollo, Rafiki, the shaman in Pocahontas) Does this represent a positive portrayal of spirituality?

Pantheism - divine nature

•  “In his films, Disney - while all but ignoring organized religion - emphasizes the spiritual side of life. Like Blake, Disney perceives ‘heaven in a wild flower’… For Disney, the work of a supreme being - a positive Force, as George Lucas would later tag it in Star Wars - is always in ample evidence around us.” Brode, p. 106.

•  “This is what Disney achieved… [his films] were conceived and executed by an artist desiring to express ‘the romantic deification of nature’ while proving that man and nature are ‘not only continuous, but emblematic of each other.’” Brode, p. 139.

•  Does Brother Bear present a message of a positive spiritual force, and that humans and nature are ‘continuous and emblematic of each other’? Is it even possible to see any other message in this film?

Ecological “Agenda”?

•  “Despite critical brickbats, Disney instinctively understood a concept that, in time, he allowed Mary Poppins to articulate: A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Here, his “medicine” - Walt asks a middlebrow audience to sympathize with Nemo as he blows up sailing ships, killing the innocent along with the guilty - would have been impossible to accept were the bitter pill not sugar-coated with ample entertainment.” Brode, p. 145

•  What “medicine” is Brother Bear asking us to swallow?

Christian responses •  “Absolutely wicked philosophy, subtly and beautifully presented. A few of its "truths:"

Animals are as valuable as people. Animals are related to people (the title). Animals can be transformed into people and visa versa. Spirits. Magick. Also, crudeness and vulgarity regarding bodily functions, etc, as so many films today. Disney continues to drop like a stone regarding its presentation of amorality, immorality and moral confusion. Nothing about Christ can be found in this film. My ratings: extremely offensive.

•  Brother Bear is a wonderful movie in the grand Disney tradition! This movie is filled with comedy, but is also a poignant movie that will touch the heart. Some may be concerned with the tribal religious nature of this film, but they need not be. First, it's important to realize that this film is set thousands of years ago, long before Christian missionaries began to spread the Good News to the indigenous tribes of North America. This fact makes it easy to explain to children that they are seeing mythology, not reality. The movie offers strong Christian values such as Love your enemy and vengeance is wrong. The over all theme of the movie "We ( humans and animals) are all brothers, is also an important biblical truth that man in this utilitarian society of ours often forget. Yes, God did give man dominion over the animals, but headship is NOT superiority: "There is an eventuality of man as there is an eventuality of animal. As one dies, so the other dies; they all have the same spirit, so there is no superiority of man over beast, for everything is vanity." Eccl. 3:19-21 Over all. I would highly recommend Brother Bear to one and all. My Ratings: SLIGHTLY Objectionable. (Jeff Kauffman, age 32)

Doing religious “work”?

•  One definition of religion that I use in my own research on religion and popular culture topics suggests that part of the “work” that religion does is to define what it means to be human, by contrasting that with what it means to be subhuman (monstrous, or animalistic), and superhuman (spiritual).

•  What does Brother Bear say about what it means to be human, what it means to be an animal, and what it means to be a spiritual being?

Other issues:Gender

•  The case of the missing mother… Disney’s anti-mother tradition continues?

•  The case of the mother who sacrifices herself for her child (has no identity outside that of “motherhood”)

•  Who needs a mother when you can have a brother?…

Race

•  Does Disney continue its purported representation of African Americans as animals in this film?

•  Is the representation of animals positive or negative?

•  Is this a film about race relations?

Anti-Canadian! (j/k!)

•  Should we be offended? Stereotypical representations of Canadians as dull-witted, cowardly beer-drinkers?