17 Jul Happiness (or otherwise) in Disneyland!
Check out this interesting article about Disneyland, kid’s movies, happiness and positive psychology…
by David Lundberg Kenrick for Psychology Today
When I was in film school, I remember a teacher told me that the reason Indiana Jones was never up for best picture was because we didn_ã_t love the Nazis _ã_ the bad guys were too inhumanly bad. It certainly would have been a different movie if the bad guys learned the errors of their ways, and made amends with the good guys. But I don_ã_t know if that particular movie really would have been improved if we had seen the bad guys acting like regular people, or we had learned some tragic back-story for how the muscle-bound Nazi mechanic had wound up on the wrong side of the fight. In that case, I_ã_m not sure I could have enjoyed seeing him get chopped up by a propeller.
In Toy Story 2, though, the antagonist has a very sympathetic backstory. He is a Prospector Pete toy, who spent a lifetime on a dimestore shelf watching all the other toys get sold. He never really becomes friends with the heroes Woody and Buzz Lightyear, but in the end, he_ã_s not thrown in a pit of lava, he_ã_s simply given to a girl who is going to give him a crayon makeover. In a sense, he will be ruined, but at the same time it_ã_s clear that he is actually getting what he has always wanted _ã_ a kid to play with him.
Because I_ã_m so fond of Toy Story 2, I was incredibly excited for Toy Story 3. For the most part, Toy Story 3 was another excellent movie. But it had one major problem _ã_ in the end, the bad guy, Lots-O_ã_ Huggin_ã_ Bear, seemed to get an unfair sentence. And this aroused even more dissonance because Lots-O_ã_ had a very sympathetic backstory. He had been lost by the girl he loved, and after struggling to return, discovered that he had been replaced by another teddy bear. It_ã_s a major flaw for such a strong movie. And it_ã_s a particular flaw for a movie from Disney-Pixar, from whom we expect a pure uplifting happy ending, and a clear moral message for Junior.
The Psychology of Revenge and Forgiveness…want to read more? These issues and constructs are, I believe, very relevant and important for our happiness and the health and happiness of our children.
To read more JUST CLICK HERE