10 frightening theories about the true meaning of children's cartoons and films

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Take a fresh look at Winnie the Pooh, Tarzan and Kevin McCallister.

1. The killing spell is known to Muggles for a reason

In the Harry Potter film series and in J. K. Rowling's novels, the Death Eaters use the Avada Kedavra spell to kill. It is suspiciously similar to the word "abracadabra", which in reality has been known to people since at least the end of the 2nd century.

Most likely, Rowling simply modified the lexeme familiar to her, combining "abracadabra" and "cadaver" (cadaver, which means "corpse"). However, fans of the wizarding universe have suggested that the reason for the existence of the word "abracadabra" is much more sinister.

Perhaps wizards in the past centuries have exterminated Muggles with this spell just for fun. Over time, ordinary people forgot about the existence of sorcerers, but the killing curse was deposited in their memory as "abracadabra".

2. Homer Simpson - comatose

The animated series about the yellow family has been going on for more than three decades. And some of his fans believe that most of this time the main character, Homer Simpson … lies in a coma. And the events taking place in the series are only in his dreams.

Proponents of the theory believe that Homer never came out of the coma, which he fell into in the episode shown on April 1, 1993.

Before that, the plots of The Simpsons were quite realistic: the head of the family tries to quit drinking, Marge thinks that he is cheating on her, Lisa is in love with her teacher … But after the April Fool's episode, all kinds of wild things began to happen: Homer flies into space and gets a Grammy, creatures like the Loch Ness monster, supervillains and real-life celebrities appear on the screen.

And the age of the characters during this time does not change at all. The head of the family remembered Bart, Lisa and Maggie when they were 10, 8 and 1 years old, so they are always the way we used to know them. So everything that you saw in the animated series is just a delusional dream of Homer Simpson in a vegetative state, connected to a life support apparatus for decades.

The producer of the series Al Jean, however, heard about this theory and says that this is all nonsense. But after all, what could he possibly know about The Simpsons?

3. Winnie the Pooh - Christopher Robin's delusional fantasy

A team of researchers from the Department of Pediatrics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, studied "Winnie the Pooh" by Alan Alexander Milne. They wrote a humorous article about the hidden images in this tale and provoked an avalanche of letters from readers who took the information at face value. Although, as they say, there is some truth in every joke.

The article claims that the main character of the tale is not the teddy bear Pooh, but its owner, the boy Christopher Robin. He has schizophrenia, so he believes that he lives in a magical forest. And he takes the toys around him for living beings.

And since he invents personalities for them himself, he subconsciously endows them with his own features.

So, the character Winnie the Pooh with "some sawdust in his head" hints at the possibility of microcephaly in a child. The bear also shows signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Piglet suffers from generalized anxiety disorder, Eeyore from clinical depression and passive-aggressive personality disorder, Owl is dyslexic, Rabbit is a psychopath with obsessive control mania, and Tigger is simply prone to self-destruction and risk-taking to recklessness.

All of these creatures are part of Christopher's personality. And the boy obviously needs qualified help.

4. Aladdin's adventures take place in a post-apocalyptic world

The cartoon "Aladdin" is set in the fictional eastern city of Agrabah. In theory, the events took place a long time ago. But there are a couple of inconsistencies.

First, Genie constantly makes references to 20th century celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Groucho Marks, and Jack Nicholson. He also uses objects that could not have appeared in the Ancient East: sunglasses, a top hat, a tuxedo and modern playing cards.

Secondly, in one of the scenes, the Djinn mockingly calls Aladdin's unfashionable clothes “the third century”. The genie has been trapped in a lamp for 10,000 years, and it is unlikely that he was planted there in the Paleolithic. If the last time he got acquainted with the fashion industry was in the 3rd century, it means that the cartoon takes place in about 10300.

The only explanation why mankind at this time does not colonize other planets, but lives in sand-covered cities in the style of the Eastern Middle Ages, is post-apocalypse.

Civilization fell, and only Arab and, to a lesser extent, Greek and Indian cultures survived. Islam has changed so that now Muslims do not pray regularly, but remember the name of Allah only in happy moments. There are no prayer rugs, mosques and imams either. Agrabah is a distorted word for "Arabia".

Perhaps flying carpets, and genetically engineered parrots that can understand human speech, and not just imitate it, and semi-intelligent monkeys are artifacts of a lost civilization that the Agrabans consider magic.

More evidence of this theory can be found in the 1993 Sega Genesis game Aladdin. There are two items that do not belong to the Ancient East: an unexploded nuclear bomb and a stop sign lost in the sands. Apparently, humanity survived a monstrous atomic war and degraded until the Middle Ages.

And the merchant at the beginning of the cartoon is a Genie who took on a human form. The creators confirm.

5. Nemo doesn't really exist

At the beginning of the cartoon, the clownfish Marlin loses his wife named Coral. It perishes in the teeth of the barracuda, and with it all their caviar. A single father carefully raises his only son, Nemo, and when he gets lost, he goes in search of him. But it is quite possible that Marlin was chasing a figment of his imagination, because, according to the theory of a Reddit user, Nemo does not exist.

In fact, the Marlin family perishes entirely. Left alone, he cannot cope with grief and goes mad.

Trying to find some consolation, Marlene imagines that one of his children has survived. The film is an allegory of the father's passage through five stages.

Denial: Marlene does not let Nemo go to school, believing that it is unsafe. Anger: Father scolds his son for his disobedience. Bargaining: The hero teams up with amnesiac Dory, who helps him find Nemo. Despair: Marlene sees his son being washed down the drain. Acceptance: He learns to “let go” of the past.

The cartoon ends with the father saying goodbye to his son and he hides behind the horizon … in the sense of the seabed. Plus, the very name Nemo is translated from Latin as "nobody" (not an accidental reference to the novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea").

6. Nemo exists, and the father is looking for him with very specific intentions

There is another theory about the painting "Finding Nemo". It was nominated by North Carolina ichthyologist Patrick Cooney. It is unlikely that the creators of the cartoon really put such a meaning into it … But who knows? Patrick in his blog describes what the scenario should be if the animators knew the biology of fish:

Clownfish groom their eggs by the sea anemone as their mother eats the barracuda. Nemo hatches from its eggs as an undifferentiated hermaphrodite, as befits all clownfish. At the same time, his father naturally changes his sex, having lost his mate, and becomes a female.

Since Nemo is the only clownfish in the film besides Marlin, he will become a male and mate with his father to continue the race. If his father dies, Nemo will change sex, become a female and mate with any other male.

Patrick Cooney ichthyologist

This is how all clown fish behave: they are protandric hermaphrodites and can reproduce even with closely related crosses. Juveniles are males, but they change sex throughout life. The impetus for this is the death of the female.

It turns out that Nemo's father is now his mother. And the future girl.

7. Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are not dinosaurs

When Jurassic Park came out in 1993, viewers were impressed by how cool the dinosaurs were. Steven Spielberg and his team, using animatronics and breakthrough computer graphics at the time, created memorable prehistoric reptiles that look spectacular today.

But while they looked quite scientifically realistic at the time of the film's release, paleontology has made great strides since then. Scientists now know that dinosaurs have much more in common with their bird descendants. And therefore, their modern, more authentic look is different from what we saw in the film.

According to paleontologist Steve Brusatte, a real tyrannosaurus, for example, would look like a huge, fanged, wingless bird the size of a bus. And Velociraptors were actually about the size of a poodle.

It is now known that almost all prehistoric reptiles had plumage in one form or another. So the 2015 film Jurassic World has been criticized for showing outdated dinosaur imagery.

But fans of the classic Jurassic Park have found an explanation for the discrepancy between the appearance of real dinosaurs and those creatures that were kept on the island of Isla Nublar. In fact, John Hammond came up with a story about extracting dinosaur DNA from amber. Dr. Susie Maidment of the UK Natural History Museum confirms Could scientists bring dinosaurs back to life? that no DNA will be preserved in blood-sucking insects frozen in amber.

Hammond's "dinosaurs" are artificially created genetic chimeras that have nothing in common with real prehistoric reptiles. They look the way visitors to the park expect them to be.

Hammond frowned again.

“But then the dinosaurs will be fake.

- Yes, they are not real even now! Wu sighed. - This is what I am trying to explain to you. There is nothing real here at all.

Michael Crichton "Jurassic Park"

It is noteworthy that Michael Crichton in the original novel was much more pedantic in scientific terms. He mentions that the park's dinosaurs are not identical to the real-life dinosaurs. And geneticist Henry Wu, when creating monsters, used a lot of foreign DNA from reptiles, amphibians and birds to restore missing fragments of the genome and "improve" his creations.

8. Willy Wonka - cannibal

When you were a child, you must have been amused by the antics of the insane but funny protagonist of the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. If you review the film as an adult, you will understand that this psycho is a dictator with delusions of grandeur, keeping the umpa-lumpa pygmies in slavery in his factory and having fun at the expense of child abuse.

There is a very logical-looking theory proving that Wonka is a serial killer who lures children into terrible traps.

For example, August Gloop got stuck in a chocolate pumping pipe and may have died from hypoxia. And Violet was poisoned with gum, from which she swelled and turned blue - reminiscent of necrosis. According to Willie Wonka, the girl will be punctured to drain the blueberry juice and return her to her normal shape. And a boy named Mike Wonka was mutilated in a butterscotch machine. Breaking off limbs is a torture known since the Middle Ages.

Everything in this workshop is edible. Even I [Willy Wonka] is edible, but this is called cannibalism, my dear children, and is discouraged in most societies.

Roald Dahl "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

And some especially attentive fans find confirmation that the owner of the factory not only kills his victims, but also eats them, and also uses them as ingredients.

Evidence for this is found in a cut-out chapter in Roald Dahl's original novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, entitled Spotted Powder. The London Times published it in 2005. In it, the umpa-loompas, on the orders of Wonka, send the girl Miranda Piker to the mixer to make powdered sugar from her.

9. Tarzan was bullied because of the size of his penis

If you've watched the cartoon "Tarzan", you might well have a question: why does the main character wear a loincloth? After all, he was raised by gorillas, and their clothes are not in use. And he could not find out in any way that walking completely naked in people is considered indecent.

One Reddit user has suggested that the reason for the psychological trauma suffered by young Tarzan.

You may be aware that of all primates, humans have the largest genitals. Take a look at this diagram if you don’t believe it (don’t worry, there’s nothing indecent in there). Scientists believe that the reason is people walking upright. In gorillas, everything is much more modest with this: the erect penis of an adult male has a length of about 4 centimeters. Moreover, it is hidden under thick fur. And Tarzan's hair is not so good.

Since childhood, the guy was surrounded by peer gorillas, and they could well mock him because of the disproportionate (from their point of view) the size of his genitals.

This made Tarzan complexes, and he began to hide behind, making himself a loincloth. And even when the gorillas truly accepted him into their clan, he could not get rid of his mental trauma and continued to wear it.

In addition, the primates may well have perceived Tarzan's larger penis as a sign of aggression. And given the fact that male gorillas often kill male cubs so that they do not compete with them for females in the future, the hero had much more compelling reasons to hide behind than banal shame.

10. Kevin McCallister - Death Designer

Finally, an unpretentious theory that Kevin McCallister is the real name of John Kramer, a maniac from the Saw horror series. How else to explain the little boy's tendency to brutally maim people in a variety of ways? He burns the robbers with a red-hot doorknob, hits them with an iron, electric shocks, uses a burner and throws people down the stairs …

True, this assumption was not confirmed among Reddit users, since the past of John Kramer was well covered in the "Saw" series and it is known for sure that he began to construct his terrible "tests" as an adult.

It's much more likely that McCallister is the Collector from the horror film of the same name. In the past, he filled his home with terrible traps, and when he grew up, he began to break into other people's houses and set sadistic traps already there.