Breeding Stupid
This post is sort of a “Part 2″ if you will of my rant about Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs a while back. I titled that Ice Age 3: Timeline Goes Awry because of the sheer idiocy of the premise of the movie. To think that someone with a computer can just make stuff up as they see fit. It’s a bit infuriating to me to say the least, even now, to think about the fact that the movie made it past an editor, let alone conception and reason.
But this is a “Part 2″ because last night, I was out with my wife at a popular Disney restaurant called Rainforest Cafe and had a similar encounter there. Amidst a whole, benefit-of-the-doubt mentality, I tried hard not to say something to anyone that worked there. But since we’re on the internet, where everyone can complain about anything, let’s complain for the sake of intelligence and hopefully, one day, we’ll stop the world from breeding stupidity. And maybe, just maybe, my kids won’t turn out to be idiots. It’s a prayer of mine, and the world’s fighting hard against it.
So, with that, let’s take a look at a rainforest. Smell the moist, humid air. Look around, the area surrounding you is teeming with vegetation. Maybe some monkeys squealing in the trees, some birds squawking above and around you. Maybe a river runs wildly in the distance. It’s hard to hear over the animals chattering and the bugs scurrying. Right?
This seems like an all-around normal depiction of a rainforest. It’s safe. I’m not claiming any particular species or animals other than monkeys. And, I’m not stating location.
Okay, now picture this restaurant. Dense “vegetation” covering the walls and ceiling. Looks really cool with the monkeys swinging from trees. Then there’s… coral and salt water fish? Okay, whatever, it’s a cool aquarium… We’ll look over the fact that rainforests do not, in fact, house coral reefs and salt water fish… The music is… Latin-esque? Mardi Gras even? What? It seems right though… I guess… rainforests are only in Latin America, right? No?
What the heck? A ZEBRA? An elephant? A rhino?
Somewhere in the world, a kid is failing a test on animals in a rainforest, or even animals that live in the plains, because Disney decided to put whatever animals they wanted to into their rainforest themed restaurant.
The problem isn’t Disney’s rampant apathy for rainforest realism or their utter lack of trying to make a believable rainforest experience, and it isn’t Dreamworks’ complete disregard for HOW HISTORY HAPPENED. The problem lies more in the fact that these are the people that children listen to. They’re the ones creating the movies and the memories that children will remember forever. And, they’re stupid.
Am I the only one not wanting to breed stupidity? Cause lately, it seems like I’m up to my neck in a pile of it.
