idek

I like kids' movies a lot. Mostly because I'm somewhat childish and easily enthralled by simple stories of good versus evil. I like to think that I can still see the world through a child's perspective and I really like children's movie's because I think they carry that magic of childhood that you can sometimes forget.

I think some children's movie do a good job of reminding us that life isn't just a joke for kids. In Journalism last year I remember someone was talking about stress management for kindergartners and someone's response was, "they're kindergartners. What do they have to be stressed about?" But when you're in kindergarten your world is just as dynamic as it is when you're in high school. Maybe you don't have to worry about college apps or standardized tests yet but that doesn't mean you don't have social and emotional issues you have to work out. In my head I equate middle school with literal hell and I know many other people who feel the same way. But I think now that we're out of middle we tend to laugh at the problems and emotions of middle schoolers. We say they don't have real problems and brush them off as whiny preteens but I would rather eat a shoe than go back and have my middle school problems again. That's why I like movies like Coraline, Inside Out, and ParaNorman. Because they kinda remind me to get off of my high horse.

I'm also a fan of the classic unlikely-hero-saves-the-day kind of children's movie. The movies with the deep morals about believing in yourself or following your heart or whatnot. I mostly like these because I'm kinda sappy and I dig all that inspirational crap. Like I even wrote one of my essays about Kung Fu Panda and how it affects my life. I love character development. And while often times a clean cut dichotomy of good and evil doesn't lend itself to a lot of personal growth and discovery for characters, I think it works out in kids' movies anyways. Like in Kung Fu Panda. Each movie Po goes on a whole emotional journey and even if the movie is meant to be comedic and lighthearted, you really see him grow into himself. (I also love to read into things that aren't that deep.) In Whitney Houston's Cinderella, the best Cinderella movie ever made, we see Cinderella come into herself. And we see the same of Manolo in Book of Life. 

Barbie: Princess Charm School and High School Musical, to Kubo and the Two Strings and Charlotte's Web, I think there's a lot about kids' movies that if often overlooked and underappreciated. And while I like a lot of children's movies I do not support movies like Hoodwinked because they are just objectively bad.