So I went and saw ?Brother Bear.’? Again I plead
the job as the only reason that I run right out to the theatre and
sample what Disney’s finest animators have for us.? Yeah, it’s got some
funny parts.? Not hysterical beyond all reckoning, but enough to keep an
adult sane during the mindless tittering of small children.? On the
surface, it’s a story of an Alaskan/Native American tribe sometime
during the Ice Age and three brothers in particular.? The eldest has the
totem of the Eagle, which indicates his inherent leadership and guidance
gifts.? The middle has the totem of? some animal.? Wisdom, basically.?
Anyway the youngest was just granted his totem from the tribal shaman.?
Or shawoman in this case.? He has the totem of (surprise!) a bear.? This
indicates love.? Naturally he is somewhat put-off at having been given a
totem representing such a wussy girly trait, so he’s always pulling off
some fool stunt to prove his iron-clad manliness.

So anyway, the great spirits (in the form of the
northern lights) see fit to transform him into a bear through a series
of circumstances that I haven’t the patience nor the wit to relate to
you.? Go see the movie if you really want to know.

My thoughts on the movie are that Disney has done
much in the last few decades to relate the prevalent post modern idea
that all ways of life and belief systems are equally valid and provide
meaningful lives for those who buy into them.? I can’t buy into that.? I
would say that belief systems and ways of life only provide useful
segues to the next stage of development.

It’s kind of like the animals spoken of with such
firm conviction in the movie.? Now I can say with conviction that we
should never willfully contribute to the destruction of a type of life
from the planet.? But, hey, extinction happens.? And the reason WHY it
happens is that the life forms in question are not able to adapt and
handle the rigorous changes they are forced to endure.? Now we like to
think that the strong and noble creatures of the world are the eagles,
the lions, the bears, and the tigers?. (the tin man? the straw man?
Dorothy? somebody smack me).? But the sad truth of the matter is that it
is not the complex and powerful creatures that cling to life despite all
odds, but rather the simple, filthy ones.? Long after the eagle has
plummeted from the sky and the Kodak goes belly-up, the vulture, the
wild dogs, and yes, the cockroaches will be feeding on their corpses.?

My point in all this is that the ancient ways died
out, and they died out for a good reason.? Cool as the concept of totem
worship and the nobel savages of the American Indians may SEEM, the fact
is that these ideals and ways of life could not adapt to the changes
that ravaged their lands.? If their faith and beliefs systems had
credence to them they would have survived the changes, or at least
adapted thereto.

I am not writing these ideas off altogether,
understand.? They worked for their time period, and they preserved their
people through those times.? Nor am I saying that our idea systems are
necessarily evolving.? Like I mentioned before, the things that survive
will be the simplest things.? In the end, it may turn out that the best
idea system for the human race is rote stupidity.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2003 at 9:39 am and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.