Bambi was the beta test for the cinematic emotional blitzkrieg visited upon children to this very day. It created a vicious cycle, in which the psychological damage visited upon one generation leads to the infliction of said damage on the next. Because you know who made The Lion King? The people who grew up watching Bambi. Eventually you get to a point where you start to think, "If I had to go through it, then these little b*stards are gonna go through it too!" But in a lot of ways, Bambi was so much worse than The Lion King. The latter was made in the 90s, with fifty years of Disney history to prepare us for the way sh*t was probably going to go down. And it was based on Hamlet, so you knew it probably wasn't going to be all sunshine and rainbows. But Bambi was just so idyllic. It's about this adorable little deer who's learning how to walk and makes a bunch of new woodland friends. Even the animation style is so soft and gentle you can't imagine anything bad is going to happen in this film. And then all of a sudden, Bambi's mother is shot by a hunter, and Bambi's world falls apart. It was a sneak attack, and we still haven't recovered fully. Hell, I still don't trust hunters.
Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.
