Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Robin Hood and Little John

As I celebrated MLKJ Day I watched Disney's Robin Hood. And as I watched I realized that I can use the teachings of BYU anywhere and in anything. As I watched I commented to my roommie how the hierarchy of the positions matched the food chain of the animals. Darwinism was right there disguised as a fun child's movie for all to love.
As I continued to watch and listen I found the words to be quite witty, so witty that a child would have missed the context completely. As I watched I thought of all the underlined morals, themes and messages that were being poured onto the screen. I started analyzing every little thing and realized that here I was Monday night picking apart and critically thinking about a Disney movie. What has happened? Sure I still enjoyed it for what it was and for the laughter, the songs, and the little rabbits with their adorable accents, but now I was seeing it in a new light.
Is this what BYU does to us? And now that I think of it, I was analyzing other movies, and books and stories that I read and watched in the past few days. It seemed as though I was taking our class activity of Dancing Through the Decades to another level, which included movies, scriptures and books. Will I ever be able to enjoy just reading a book or watching a movie for sheer pleasure? Of course, but now I can peel away the layers of what has been written and use some critical theory to broaden my horizons.

2 comments:

  1. I too have noticed that more and more often I find myself critically analyzing things that I never would have before. This is something that has happend gradually as I have taken various courses at this university that have required me to analyze on a level deeper then I had previously been acustomed to . Whether or not this affects my enjoyment, I am still unsure about.

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  2. When all of these different underlying attributes of a text or a movie jump out at me like that I almost want to tell myself that it just means I'm actually applying school to everyday life. But, nonetheless, I will join you in saying it does provoke very mixed feelings. Who would have thought that a animated movie was so heavily packed with underlying messages or political implications.

    And, by the way, I now have the introductory music that plays at the beginning of Robin Hood stuck in my head!

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