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Top 5 Reasons Why "Robin Hood" Is a Great Movie For Kids
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by Josh
Disney’s “Robin Hood” is responsible for two things.. One being a fueling of the furry subculture, which I cannot forgive. Something about a man bigger than I am decked out in a ten thousand dollar fursuit scares me wholly.
The other? Straight up gangsta violence, and that’s pretty awesome.
Much like how Bambi brought death straight to your house as an innocent five-year old on VHS, “Robin Hood” threatened to jack your memories up with images of how to go all Tony Montana in your posh little suburbia – and effectively, too. I provide five points of evidence for your viewing pleasure:
5. Gather Your Merry Men and Kick Some Ass
While kids aren’t gonna be familiar with the Robin Hood legend completely, adults will know that Prince John stole the throne from King Richard as he was away on the Crusades. As we all know, the Crusades were a Christian revolution to drive all non-Christians out of England and other English-controlled areas of the world. Disney tried playing it off like Sir Hiss hypnotized King Richard into doing this, but honestly, would a lion-hearted king really fall prey to such a parlor trick? But I digress.
And Robin Hood himself follows a similar method in the cartoon film. Upon his success as a bandit, he finds allies in Little John, Friar Tuck, and other animals/citizens in Nottingham, and they all hang out in Sherwood Forest.. SPOILER ALERT: Robin Hood succeeds in freeing Nottingham for King Richard, but with a little help from his friends. Anyone with even a hint of charisma (or the latest Bieber CD nowadays) can pull this off effortlessly. This, of course, leads to other things as you get older, like turf wars, cliques, neighborhood formations, hair-trigger militias, etc,…
4. Mind-Rape
Speaking of Sir Hiss…
While hypnotism might be a disputable topic to some, the effectiveness of coercion isn’t. Sir Hiss is effectively the main catalyst for all the drama in this entire movie, from the Crusades to calming Prince John down when he’s on a tirade about his Mommy. Without him, King Richard wouldn’t have left Nottingham.
At some point, someone might add Freudian reads into Prince John’s obsession over his Mom; Oedipus complexes need not be mentioned. Wait, too late. But I wonder how many people started trying to adopt odd habits like sucking thumbs and trying to learn hypnotism at a young age. Imagine the hijinks in your first grade class! If that doesn’t work…well, bullying still exists in schools. However, cameras and such have increased law enforcement to the point where even 10 year olds can have restraining orders placed on them! Revisiting the charisma factor to keep Merry Men around, you’ll need more for eloquently placing demands and failures to comply.
3. Viva La Revolution
While this might be an overlap of #5, the concepts behind it are reversed.
Robin Hood is a counter-revolutionary, and in the film, aims to restore order for King Richard and reverse the tyranny of Prince John blah blah blah. The main point here is that Robin Hood effectively initiates an underdog battle against the domineering Prince John, who’s holding all the cards. And what American doesn’t love that story? If Sylvester Stallone can do it, then surely an English legend can reiterate an “American” identity of ours, right?
Rewind to your first grade year. I don’t know about you, but every day in elementary school we had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Our teacher was like a god in the classroom; his/her word was law, and there was nothing we could do about it. Or was there? If enough kids complained and stalled the lesson plans, the teacher’s power was effectively destroyed. I can only remember one instance in my school days when a substitute teacher fought fire with fire and sent every kid that disrupted her to the principal’s office. Our class was cut from 32 kids to 10 that day.
But when the teacher crumbled under the weight of a few dozen snot-nosed brats…if there was one that could orchestrate such a movement on command, imagine how this kid could grow up. T.J. Dettweiler from Recess comes to mind; no one messes with this kid. Even Principal Prickley has an understanding with this 4th grade kid. Today, the school systems blame the teachers for everything that goes wrong with the little bastards, so…for those of you who are reading this and are going into education, know that you have my utmost respect for putting yourself out there against those cretins.
2. Money Makes the World Go Round
I can still hear Prince John’s line from the recesses of 1995: “Taxes, ah-ha! BEAUTIFUL…LOVELY…TAXES!”
If kids from my generation on up have been taught anything during birthdays, holidays, graduations, and eventually paychecks, it’s that money is vital for status. Gifts and material goods are one thing, but money is a symbol of freedom – something kids don’t have a lot of when they’re young. Not that they’re wholly aware of this, but when they’re told that “yes, they CAN buy that super secret awesome chocolate fudge covered super toy”, the possibilities are endless.
Now I’m left wondering how many young children of today stumble on their parents arguing and worrying about bills and finance. I’m certain it happens all the time. And I’m also equally certain that kids are much smarter and craftier than we give them credit for. While I’ll spare the “parents should watch their words” speech (because we all know that hiding things from kids is useless), I wonder if this has any connection to, say, lunch room deals? Selling toys/video games? At my elementary school, we had a “school stuff store”, where pencils and such were sold to kids during recess. Gotta get the money somehow…and how do we get the money?
Well, kids, ask Robin Hood. (cue clip of Mr. Hood stealing money from Prince John).
1. Kill It With Fire
The climactic scene where Robin Hood fights a psychotic Prince John is amped to 11 (again, from a child’s perspective) as the entire fight takes place in a burning castle.
When I was a young child, it wasn’t long before I watched the Robin Hood movie, and from there, Beavis and Butthead. Anyone who’s familiar with the Mike Judge film knows that Beavis is somewhat of a pyromaniac: “FIRE!!!!!” In this case, the promise of planting seed of pyromania and destruction at such a young age is as horrific as it is seductive. Action-packed fights in a burning castle? Swords? Shooting arrows at a presumably-deceased anthropomorphic fox? Thank you, Disney, for taking away our innocence while you claim to hand it to us in a neat movie bundle.
- Josh
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