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| Disney's The Jungle Book | | (And The Limits of Sanitisation) | | 01 November 2006 | | For as long as there have been people telling stories, there have been other people looking to re-tell them to better fit with their concept of morality. Disney are the masters of this, but this time they've gone too far.
FairgroundTown is not a libertarian extremist. When The Clash (or, we guess, their record company) removed the drugs references from the "Greatest Hits' version of Complete Control the historian in us was saddened, but the rock fan just shrugged.
And lately, we've actually found ourselves wishing that digital radio station, Planet Rock - our three-year-old's breakfast station of choice - would exercise a little more of what the Daily Mail would call restraint at 7AM. We have visions of our son dancing merrily down the street, playing air-guitar along with the Pete Townsend in his head, and singing "Who are you?... Who the fuck are you?" What would the neighbours think ;) Especially as there is an official sanitised version, with the offending word replaced by "hell".
So, what have Disney done to offend us? Well, we love the movie The Jungle Book - it might not bear much more than a passing resemblance to the original novel, but it has great characters, wonderful songs, and a very interesting ending.
For those who haven't seen it recently, the story concerns Mowgi's attempts to avoid being taken back to the human village by Baloo and Baghera, who have reluctantly decided he will be better-off there. However, at the end of the movie, Mowgli sees another human for the first time - a young girl, gathering water at the river. Hypnotised by her beauty, he follows her back to her home in the human village he has long been avoiding. Turning back once to look at his animal friends for the final time, he just shrugs - he doesn't say 'goodbye', because is not making a concious decision to leave the jungle - he is just following his innate, human instincts.
Loving the movie, then, we bought the book-of-the-movie for our son; only to discover to our horror that someone at Disney felt this ending need changing. So now, in 2006, Mowgli waves goodbye to Baloo and Baghera. They've even manipulated the stills from the movie, to show him doing so! Why? Was their original ending offensive to anyone? Was it in any way inappropriate? We really don't get it - they've taken their own art, and stripped it of its central resonance. And we are not amused! |
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The point is we are all connected... through love... through loneliness... through one lamentable lapse in judgment!
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