15. Old Yeller
Watching this movie for the very first time had an incredible impact on your friend. Old Yeller both planted the seeds for his future love of giving away movie endings while also putting your friend squarely on the path to regular fits of temporarily irreversible gloominess as well. To your friend's credit, this otherwise cheerful and heartwarming movie about life does have a horrifically dreary ending that's tough to swallow for anyone. Not only does the dog die at the end and make everyone bawl their eyes out, but then the dad conveniently steps in and tells Travis that they should forget about the whole thing! Well, not quite like that, but when you're five that's all that you want to hear at that point in the movie. But your friend has taken these things to a place all his own. "This movie did wonders for me as a kid," he said as you watched the movie for the third time that year, munching on some blue popcorn. "Not only has it dissuaded me"yes, he used the word dissuaded in a casual conversation"from getting any kind of pet after my hamster died, but it really showed me how much we objectify the animals we take as pets in our culture. They're slaves! Things! It comes from religious origins where we're better than animalswe have souls and they don't." "I dunno," you replied, "I can see that, but even though the filmmakers may have thought of it that way, I think it can be taken as just about life having hardships sometimes. Plus some animals would die if they weren't given homes." Your friend continued undaunted. "They talk about forgetting 'a thing like that,' like 'THAT,' as if Old Yeller dying was some kind of an inconvenient traumatic event rather than the death of a loved one. Our culture sucks." Your friend shook his head sagely and benevolently as he reached for more nachos. Fortunately, his weekly viewing of Beethoven the next day cheered him right up.