Refusing to Clap for Tinkerbell

[ursulav]

It’s the 100th anniversary of the publication of Peter Pan, or something like it, and I spent an hour this morning listening to panelists on NPR sing its praises.

I would like to take a moment now to say that I hated Peter Pan as a child.

Still am not a big fan, honestly. I have mellowed and can appreciate it as a piece of literature of the era,

Comments

[zellion]

I never much cared for Peter Pan either. I thought he was a selfish idiot. I did love the movie "Hook" when it came out though I have since learned that I'm evidently alone in that. Apparently it's one of those horrible movies that you're not allowed to admit you like

[thanate]

Really? I was introduced to Hook by enthusiastic friends who couldn't figure out why I hadn't seen it yet.

[zellion]

*shrug*
My husband, my in laws, my friends, everyone I know except my sister hates it.

My husband at least I feel has a valid excuse. He worked at a video rental store for most of the 1990's and they couldn't put anything on the TV at work that was over a PG-13 rating, so pretty much every PG and PG-13 movie up until 1997 or so he's seen a hundred times.

[leanne_opaskar]

You're not allowed to admit that? Says who? I love that movie. (: Love it better than any other rendition of the Pan series I've seen.

I do, for what it's worth, own a Disney Captain Hook plushie. A small one. He lives in my car. It just killed me. The man who hates children is a lovable plushie toy intended for same. The irony, it is a pleasurable burn. (:

[thanate]

I quite enjoyed being a kid (though on the whole I can't think why, as school & things were pretty awful for a great deal of it) but I never understood the appeal of Peter Pan either. Possibly it just seemed like a bit of a cop-out so far as portal fantasies went; they didn't save the world or anything.

[ennepirate]

Yes! I was always Tiger Lily when we played Peter Pan stuff as kids. Interestingly, nobody every bothered playing Peter... we all thought he was annoying. But being a very quiet child meant that Tiger Lily's attitude and little snarky remarks to the pirates and to Hook greatly appealed to me.

[smurasaki]

I hated Peter Pan as a kid, too. I still don't particularly care for it. I mostly know of it from cultural osmosis, the Mary Martin play (though I may have seen the Disney animated one, too), and Hook, which I saw as an adult (though I've no idea why I saw it since I don't like the Peter Pan story). I thought the clapping for Tinkerbell was condescending and - rather as you took it - about kids performing for the adults, not really about kids at all. I thought the story was sexist. I thought Peter Pan himself was insuperable and the the entire set up was creepy rather than fun. Oh, great, a jackass who doesn't want to grow up who steals boys and sees women as only good for being mothers. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun.

And, as you point out, why would one not want to grow up? That seems more like the fantasy of an adult than of a kid: Ah, to go back to my childhood (which has gone all rosy with nostalgia) and not have the cares of adult life.

[hasu]

I never understood the appeal of it myself when I was a kid. But my go-to stories were by Robert Heinlein and Alan Dean Foster, not the childhood is magical stuff I was apparently /supposed/ to be reading. I had the run of the house bookwise and I wholeheartedly agree, dragons and space and amazing different worlds were way more interesting than forever childhood or happily ever afters.

Though I was a sucker for The Lion King. But only because I thought it would be cool to be a lion. Considering that now, I'm not too surprised given when I was five I wanted to grow up to be a pony. Not have a pony like most kids, BE a pony. XD

[sarkat]

I have a friend who tells a story about being asked, as a small child what he wanted to be when he grew up. He thought about it and said "The president of the United States. Or a whale."

[sillylilly_bird]

when I was little, my mom had the hardest time explaining to me why I couldn't be a snake or a lizard when I grew up...

[hasu]

My mum figured eventually I'd learn my limitations. I was given full encouragement to believe in my dream until the day I realised I couldn't grow hooves. XD