154 Kids’ Movie Revisited – Fern Gully: Objectification, the Absent Referent, Robin Williams, and a Great Message about Nature = a Mixed Bag!

Posted on December 19, 2017 by Nichole

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In our last installment of this series of Kids Movies Revisited, we watched Fern Gully, which was a total mixed bag for us. Overall, we walked away with warm feelings and were happy that we were able to end this series on a good note.

In This Episode

SO MANY THINGS. This movie kicked up a lot of different thoughts. There were definitely weak points, the “romance” and sexualized representation of the main character being the most notable, but it also had some beautiful moments. Robin Williams performance was touching and funny, of course, and the overall message that all living creatures have the ability to create or destroy was really moving and very effective. The representations of deforestation and animal testing were important but missed the opportunity to explain the driving forces behind them – leaving children with the message that these things are bad but without any direction on why humans do these things and therefore where to direct their energies to fight them. Overall, we felt like it was a sweet movie that kinda holds up and would be a great movie for children, especially vegan kids or environmentally-conscious kids, to watch and then have follow-up conversations with adults about. Jokes in the Middle: Christmas Roundup Edition
– Why is it getting harder to buy advent calendars?
– What do you get if you have a bunch of chess players bragging about their skills in a hotel lobby?
– What do you call someone who is afraid of Santa?
– Why does Santa go down the chimney?
– What do you get if Santa goes down a hot chimney?