After our class discussions, I noticed that I’ve been analyzing children’s literature and movies in a whole new light. I recently watched Disney’s Frozen with my roommate, and while she was laughing and loving it, I was asking questions such as “How would a child understand that?” and “Does that not sound like it has underlying sexual context?” In the Case Of Peter Pan, the reader gets a glimpse into what truly motivated the author the write Peter Pan. Though the authors perverse love for little boys is enough to make your skin crawl, is it really surprising? Almost all Disney movies have some level of perversion in it. Even today, while watching Frozen I noticed sexual puns! Typically children as associated with innocence, so why add sexual puns into stories meant for innocent children? Perhaps it is because children’s stories are not just meant for children. Who reads the children their bed time stories? Adults. Who watches these movies with the children? Adults. The perversion that is sometimes weeded into these Disney movies are not meant to corrupt the children, but to merely entertain the adults. Maybe the need to add perversion into something so innocent says more about our society than it does about children’s literature as a genre.
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Peter Pan: A Beloved Children’s Story For Adults
Growing up obsessed with Disney movies I have seen Peter Pan more times than I can count, but I never thought of it as an adult themed story until reading The Case of Peter Pan. The more I read the more it made sense. How would a child truly appreciate the fear Peter has of growing up? They would not have faced the same problems that adults have faced and they have not wished they could go back in time and be a child again. That is the premise of Peter Pan; a boy that doesn’t want to grow up. Most children I know wish they were older, and most adults I know wish they could be a child again. An adult could relate to Peter’s feeling more than any child ever could. Not only was the main story point better suited for adults, but also the history of the author is definitely not fit for children. It bothered me when I realized the author was more than just interested in writing a story about young boys, but that he was attracted to little boys. There is clearly so much wrong with that statement in today’s society, and to discover that a story I grew up adoring had such a twisted background history really affected me. Would the incredible story of Peter in Neverland have ever existed if the author didn’t have a strange obsession with children? As a reader we will never know, but this has made me look at all of my favorite childhood stories in a new light and begin to wonder, are any of these really just for children?