It's probably a Hollywood expectation - "it's not a movie without a flat out terrifying villain"!
Kids that I take to see Pixar movies quake in fear - that's not good kids entertainment.
I stopped worshiping Pixar storytelling when I realized this.
So don't go learn from khan academy how to emulate Pixar, learn to tell kids stories without fear and violence.
There are some mildly scary or tense scenes in many Pixar movies but I think children are more receptive to that kind of experience than you think they are. There is definitely a question of age appropriateness / maturity that you would want to think about before showing one to a very young child, but that's the responsibility of you as the adult, not Pixar. Kids movies aren't one size fits all. And it certainly doesn't feel like a valid criticism of the quality of the storytelling to say that some children are scared by them; tension and investment in the outcome by the viewer are hallmarks of good storytelling, not bad.
Pixar is following a tradition that goes back to the origins of story telling. Ever read Grimm's fairytales? They're even worse. Scare the kids! Teach them to overcome their fears in a safe environment so they don't grow up to be irrational and superstitious. They need to be innoculated against these things so they don't grow up with allergies that stunt them later in life.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032910/synopsis?ref_=tt_stry_pl
To prepare them for life in the magical unicorn fairy-land?
Besides, have you read the original Brothers Grimm stories and such?
Sure, good point. In the video where the story artist talks about simba talking to his dead father, she said that it traumatized her but that she grew up a little after that.
> Besides, have you read the original Brothers Grimm stories and such?
I know we don't know much about what's the best way to raise kids. But history doesn't always teach good lessons.
Yes, in a magical unicorn fairyland.
Sounds like you either don't have kids or you're prepping them for doomsday.
Yeah, let's produce more fragile snowflake adults that can't handle life, and can't understand movies and art either, unless it is merely "entertainment". Because that has worked so well in this past few generations.
>Sounds like you either don't have kids or you're prepping them for doomsday.
Or you know, am using millennia old best practices of preparing them for life, for which art, storytelling and (this last century) movies has been one of the best ways.
Instead of feeding them the art-equivalent of McDonalds, which is bad for their soul and for their upbringing.
Three little pigs: violence Little Red Riding Hood: violence with a hint of sex Sound of Music: sex with the fear of violence from the Nazis.
ALL good stories must have conflict. All conflict originates from sex or violence.
Here's the most basic story in the Aristotlian tradition:
Get a man in a tree Throw rocks at him Get him down again
One could argue about what level of explicitness is appropriate for kids -- but there's no such thing as a story without fear, violence or sex.
Look at Fox and the Hound or Bambi, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Snow White -- all varying degrees of sex and violence and the fear and anticipation of each.
What about The Big Short? No sex or violence there. Or what about Spirited Away? I'm sure there's some ostensible violence here and there, but the conflict in that film I think comes from things being out of place, not from overt danger.
Sex and violence are overrepresented in media because they are easy. A writer who has drank too much coffee and is out of ideas for the 10th day in a row can put some sex or violence up without thinking much and get a reaction. That doesn't mean these things are the only source of conflict in the world, or in storytelling. Just the easiest.
Hatred, for example is a form of violence. Sex and violence are the primary colors of a storyteller's palette.
Highly recommend Lew Hunter for a better explaination than I provided: https://books.google.fr/books?id=7VUihxcjzecC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA...
Disney/Pixar probably are just emulating European classical storytelling that we find in fairy stories?
When you see the child in absolute terror, ask yourself "is this the right way to entertain a child, through pure terror?"
Or do the same thing with the Pixar movie "Up", a fabulous and gentle movie until it gets the mandatory part where they go all out to scare the living shit out of the kids watching with attack dogs.
Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister kidnapped by a cannibalistic witch living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children save their lives by outwitting her.
I don't think I was older than 5 when it's been first read to me.
One might think that one is an exception rather than the norm, so here's the beginning of another one[1] (more a ballad than a fairly tale, but no one would think it's weird if an 8 years old read it).
A king is hunting in a forest and encounters a house. He asks for water and a beautiful girl opens the door. He asks to marry her, but she says she needs to ask the step mother, who's in town at the moment.
The king returns later, asks the step mother, she offers him her own daughter, but the king orders her to bring the step daughter to the castle the next day.
The next day the step mother and her daughter take the step daughter to the forest, where they kill her, take out her eyes, and cut off her limbs.
The daughter then impersonates the step daughter and marries the king.
And so on. It ends relatively "well", with the step daughter being brought to life again, and the murderers "blinded, their limbs cut off and thrown to the wolves".
When the tales are adapted for the kids, the violent themes are often tempered down. The story themselves are often changed. Just visit a book store to see the numerous adaptations are 'Little Red Riding Hood'.
Also, for young kids, the book is filtered through the interpretation of parents. So they can mellow down certain parts based on their kid's sensitivities. Also, in books, the really gory parts are often left to the imagination and not every scene is pictorially represented. Fortunately or unfortunately, each and every fact has to be shown in some form in the movie. Movies tend to be more visually stimulating than books and tend to pull in the kids more.
On the other hand, books have the luxury of being able to provide stories tailored to each age group. Movies have no such luxury if they are to be financially viable.
Also each movie wants to have a villain more scarier than all the ones before and visuals (earthquakes, huge torrents of water anyone) much grander. You invariably endup with something frightening for kids.
But above all, kids' imagination are more volatile and fertile than ours. Their view of the world is incomplete and hence their interpretations of the same scenes could be radically different and unpredictable. Case in point, My four-year-old was frightened of 'My Neighbour Totoro', especially, the scene of Totoro on the tree at night and the catbus :) .
Maybe instead of reaching all kinds of dubious conclusions based on anecdotal evidence on how children look like during certain parts of the movie, you should instead ask the child, after the movie is over, whether he liked it or not. I think you will find that the vast majority of children greatly enjoy most Pixar movies.
The claim that Pixar movies, or the levels of violence depicted in them, are harmful to children or to society, has zero evidence in support of it.
But in one of the video, one story artist is talking about her first experience with the lion king and how traumatized she was by simba trying to talk to his dead father. And then I understood one thing:
I always thought that for you to make a long lasting mark into the world, you had to build a castle. But there are other ways: make cute animations targeting kids, but sneakily insert traumatizing sequences.