November 26, 2009
Pinocchio: One Fucked-Up Movie
It’s the night before Thanksgiving and my husband is out, so I decided to take it easy with Donovan and pop in a movie. Our options are limited, as we haven’t really started building up a library of kid flicks. I settled on Pinocchio even though I had vague misgivings; I remembered all too well the horror of seeing children spontaneously transform into donkeys from my childhood. But then, I was a hypersensitive kid, and Donovan seems a lot more resilient. I figured I’d give it a shot.
The movie started with that delightful, old timey Disney feel: the high-pitched singing backed by a warbling chorus, the distinctive painterly animation. Then the conniving fox came along – a bad guy, but hardly intimidating. Next came Stromboli – a masochistic, greedy, ham-handed son-of-a-bitch, but Donovan didn’t seem bothered, and the Blue Fairy saved Pinocchio’s ass from that predicament soon enough. So far, so good.
Soon the ominous gates of Pleasure Island loomed forth, and the tone turned decidedly darker. I felt a little uneasy with all the brawling, destruction and underage smoking and drinking, but figured it was in the name of teaching an important lesson. And then Jiminy discovered the donkeys. I had a sinking feeling when the nefarious man in red started rounding them up and throwing them into crates. At one point he appraises one little dressed-up donkey and discovers that he can still talk: “I want to go home to my mama!” The poor little jackass-boy hybrid sounded so scared and desperate and lonely, and it registered with Donovan immediately. His face crumpled and he started to wail, “Why he wants to go home to his mama?!” “Why the man in red threw him with the other donkeys?” I’ve never seen him get so upset by a work of fiction, and I felt horrible. It took a good half-hour of hugs and reassurances to really settle him down and get him smiling again before going to bed, but I’m now convinced he’ll be plagued with nightmares about that motherfucking donkey hustler.
Sometimes it seems like the only things I remember clearly from my own childhood are the things that frightened me, or just made me nervous. I was a worrisome child, and I don’t have many recollections of feeling pure, unbridled joy, or of just having lots of fun. To whatever extent this is within my power, I want to give Donovan a different experience. Of course, the rational part of me understands that being afraid of things and learning that bad things do happen is all a part of being human, and that for many children, that worldliness comes sooner than we might think. Just the other day my brother was telling me about some of the blood-chilling things he overhears from his neighbors, like teenage mothers calling their diaper-clad toddlers names like “shithead” and “dumbass.” And this is within earshot of other people – God knows what goes on before closed doors.
I think I, like many of the parents I know, live in a sort of bubble. We’re so determined to do right by our children – to give them a happy and fulfilling life experience and to, by example, teach them empathy and responsibility – that we often forget that the world is full of angry, damaged people who treat their kids like dirt, or who actively do things to hurt them. To me, the full impact of this knowledge is almost too much to bear, especially when it’s so far beyond my control.
Honestly, I don’t think I want to live outside of this bubble. I want to shield Donovan for as long as I can from the scary stuff. However, I realize as I write this that I may be a hypocrite. Tony and I certainly do our share of arguing in front of Donovan, and when all is said and done, that’s probably a lot more threatening to his sense of security than a bunch of donkeys. Something to keep in mind the next time we start bickering, I suppose. Then again, I’ve been told that it’s good for kids to witness a certain amount of conflict between their parents, or that at the very least, it’s better than keeping it hidden and essentially deceiving them about the nature of marriage. Of course, this might just be one of those things parents tell one another to make us feel better about ourselves.
My own parents divorced when I was very young, and from what I’ve pieced together, they didn’t exactly have a joyous union during the first few years of my life. My dad was preoccupied, a workaholic who would’ve been content to stop procreating after my second older brother (nine years my senior) was born. He left my mom for another woman, who may or may not have been the first of his mistresses. One of my memories from before he left was of sitting at the dinner table and wanting to ask to be excused, but not being able to get a word in edgewise to the very serious – and to my mind, boring – conversation he was having with my mother. I remember how I pictured it in my head: long blocks of typed text, like in a textbook, and I was just watching and waiting for the line breaks in between. My parents weren’t having screaming matches or making angry, accusatory outbursts, but sometimes I wonder if their depressingly subdued discussions did more of a number on me.
That said, I came out OK. And hopefully, with the self-knowledge and perspective to not repeat my parents’ mistakes. Tony and I will make our own, of course, although we might not realize it until we get a glimpse of Donovan’s 3-D “mind blog” 30 years from now.
