G., Parent And Next Friend Of K., A Disabled: Fill & Download for Free

Prepare yourselves for an epic answer. I seem to be more complicated than I can handle. Maybe someone else can figure me out. (If you do, I'll give you a cookie.)I won't hold it against you if you don't finish this. I promise.My childhood verged on joyous, but still proved unusual.No dramatic story of world-trekking parents or political oppression here. I was born in Syracuse, New York to parents who'd immigrated from Brazil a few years previously. (My dad in the early 70s, my mom in 1979.) We lived, along with my older sister, in a nice little blue house near Syracuse University, where my dad researched and taught EE/CS.Everyone thought me as a normal (albeit abnormally cute) baby until I was four months old. One day, my mother scolded my sister for banging around. "You'll wake up your sister!" my mom said. My sister scrunched up her nose and shrugged. "She can't hear me, so I can be as loud as I want."These words took my mom aback. As a busy mom of two children, she'd thought that my inattentiveness was just a phase. Now, she had second thoughts. She banged a few pots behind me with no reaction from me. She took me to multiple audiologists and they all confirmed my older sister's wise words: I was profoundly deaf. I didn't have mere hearing loss; I could only feel slight vibrations—not real sound—in my left ear.I can't say how my parents felt after this news, but I can say that they reacted wonderfully. Even as non-native speakers, they immersed themselves in a third language: American Sign Language. They went to night classes at the University, hired private tutors (out of their limited budget) and sent me to special programs for kids like me.From six months old on, I became a member of the Deaf (the big D, not the little d) community of the Syracuse area. I remember going to parties where nobody spoke, people only signed. All of my friends went to the same program for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids.In many ways, I had a wonderful childhood. I had all the friends that I needed—young and old alike. One of my favorite people lived a street over. He was an older Deaf man who worked as a post office sorter. He lived in a small white house with his "roommate" (I didn't quite grasp the meaning of gay back then) who later died of AIDS. I had friends of all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.Things changed in 1991 when I became one of the first 500 children to receive a cochlear implant (CI). CIs are what one may call a "bionic ear" that enables a more direct stimulation of the auditory nerve, resulting in an approximation of hearing. Now, the doctors didn't expect much from me. I was six, well past the prime time for language acquisition.[1]My family and numerous therapists threw me into a regimen of Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) training sessions.[2] I'd devote two to four hours a day, five days a week to speech training. I had to learn how to listen and speak from scratch. My family stopped signing at home so I could practice my barely-scraping-by speech skills.I won't pretend that I started speaking in Shakespearean prose overnight. I didn't even have the confidence to speak in public until age 13 (out of necessity more than confidence). Even today, my tongue trips over any word that's more than three syllables long. I regularly mispronounce the word gum since I have difficulties with the hard G and K sounds. (You don't want to know what I actually say.)Moving from a Deaf way of life to the hearing world.When I was eight or nine, my parents moved to an outer-lying suburb of Syracuse for the better schools for my sister. (We lived in an "inner city" school district.) For the first year or two, I bussed 1.5 hours each way to attend a small deaf program at the other side of the city.The bus didn't just hold deaf kids, it had kids with behavioral problems and other disabilities that required special programs. Let's just say that I remember getting into a lot of fights. I'm fairly sure I came home with my fair share of bruises.My parents had enough of the long commute (I had to get up at 5 AM to catch the bus), distant friends (all my friends lived in the faraway school district), and the bumpy bus rides. They transferred me to the local school district and I became the only deaf student in the entire district.I experienced severe culture shock in my own community, my own country. In the Deaf Community, the words "politeness" and "personal space" have very different meanings. I had to learn how to soften my facial expressions, calm my hand motions and approach conversations in a gentler way.[3]Slowly, I figured out the rules of the hearing world. I'd spend the week with my hearing friends, the weekends with my deaf friends. I became two very different Cristinas with the different groups.Neither group proved an easy fit. With my hearing friends, I never understood everything they said. I remained different, separate. With my Deaf friends, they saw me as suffering from "hearing-think": the curse of thinking the hearing world or ways as better than the Deaf way. I never quite fit into either world.I took solace in books. They never judged me or found me wanting. They asked nothing but to be read. I'd read relentlessly: in-between classes, during lunches, even at the dinner table (to my parents' dismay).My love of books served me well at school. I never scored perfect "A"s, but I did well enough. I even got bored with my ordinary suburban public high school and applied to a prep school. The said prep school (Phillips Academy Andover) actually accepted me and gave me a scholarship. I said, "Why not?" and went—yet another culture shock (I felt like a total hick).After attending Andover for two years, I traipsed off to Cornell as a history undergrad and Penn as a law student.Growing up proves crappier than one would think.My three years at Penn were probably the worst in my life. Nobody really mistreated me there, but I fit in even less than anywhere else. I felt as if I strove for something—I'm not even sure what—and kept failing. Unlike at Cornell or any of my previous schools, I was a middling student at Penn, only barely above average.Still, I scored a fancy big law firm job for my second summer at a major D.C. firm. I thought I was all set. I'd made it. I'd proven everyone wrong. Looking back, I realize now that I wanted a big fancy corporate job not because I liked the job, but to spite everyone that told me that I couldn't.I didn't fit in at all. People at the firm were nice enough, but buttoned-up to the very top button. I'd wear my suits every day with pantyhose and heels, afraid that they could see beyond the suit and see the truth. I wasn't one of them. I didn't come from an upper middle class Irish Catholic background like everyone. I didn't even hear the same way they did.I still thought that if I delivered good work, it'd work out. It had to. Merit floats to the top, right?Well, what I'd forgotten was that it was 2009, in the mess of the financial crisis that we call the United States. A few typos in one of my memos got me a "thank you but no thank you" letter. I was left jobless and option-less in one of the worst job markets for young lawyers in decades.[4]I had no idea what to do with myself. I'd devoted three years to my life to a profession that didn't want me. I sent out hundreds and hundreds of resumes with no luck. In a strange way, the caliber of my school worked against me; people assumed I'd get a job so they didn't bother to give me one.I'd been heading north, but my compass was broken the entire time.Enter Quora, stage left.As I fiddled with my broken compass, someone told me about Quora. He'd known me for years and I've bored him to death by my chatter about books that he hadn't read. He told me, "You're a knowledge hoarder. Stop it."He was right.I joined Quora and did nothing for the first few months. I wrote a few answers that got barely any up votes. The books and literature sections contained little, if any, real analysis at that time.One day, bored, I started to answer real questions about writing and The Hunger Games. All of a sudden, people cared about what I said. User-11567716934911258437, Kat Li, Jennifer Miller and Marc Bodnick commented and upvoted my answers. Little by little, I eked out some pride in my work. Most have thought my ideas about books, writing and fiction out-dated, irrelevant or just "too out-there." Not Quora.I started contributing more and more, both questions and answers. One day, I looked up and I was the top answerer in books, literature, young-adult fiction, and many other related topics. I also found myself interacting with other members of the Quora community, a first. I've been a bad Generation Yer: socially shy, both online and offline.It felt strange. I've never been a top dog in anything before. I've always been "good," but never the tippy-top. I realized that I have one talent in life: writing. I still don't completely understand what draws some people to my writing, but I'll take it.I realized that I'm a decent lawyer, but I'd never be great. I have a shot at greatness as a writer. I'll take that shot.With my compass pointing north again. I've rediscovered my passion: writing. [5] With Quora backing me up—psychologically speaking—I started to write a book. Not just one book, but two.As I embark on the foolish journey of becoming a writer, all I can hope is that I don't end up scribbling on a cardboard box next to a highway.Random Facts: to end things with a bit more levity, here are some cute and not-so-cute facts about me.My hands are so small that I buy gloves and mittens for four- to six-year-olds. (No, seriously.) One upside is that they're cheap, but it's hard to find ones that don't have fairy princesses or Spider-Man (creative franchise) on them.I'm quite small, body-wise. I top out at 5'1 and wear XS in most stores. Yet, I have a size L head. So, I resemble a bobblehead toy. Yay.I have hobbit-like feet. Someone once described them as "the shape of a bar of soap." I don't care—I still wear flip-flops.When I was in middle school, I developed a fear of public toilets. So, I wouldn't go to the bathroom at all during school hours. My sister was in high school then so she got home before I did. She, in her infinite wisdom as an older sister, decided to terrorize me by chasing me around the house, barring entry to the bathroom. To preempt her, I'd go to the bathroom in the forest behind my house. Not entirely sure I "won" that one.________________________________________[1] A bit of a side note on the background of the ASL/CI debate that I lived in during the 90s: my answer to Why are some parents against cochlear implants for their children?[2] Auditory-Verbal Therapy (Wikipedia article): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory-verbal_therapy[3] This was, unfortunately, also the time of my worst deed: my answer to What's the worst thing you've ever done?[4] This is a depressing, but accurate description of how I felt during that time (and sometimes feel now): my answer to What does it feel like to be lost and adrift in your career?[5] My answer to Has Quora rekindled the love of writing among its users?

I am an Aspie and my ten year old son is also an Aspie. I’ll give you the short answer first, raising him is a complete joy and looking back upon my life, I always wanted to raise an Aspie child. If I had to choose between an NT and an Aspie, I’d choose an Aspie every single time. Hands down.Now, for the long answer……my son was born in 2006. I didn’t know I was an Aspie at the time. For the first two years, everything seemed normal. During a medical check-up at around 2.5 years of age, our son (we’ll call him Alex to protect his privacy) was playing with a complicated toy. It didn’t strike me as odd because he always played with toys like this…he was analyzing it, trying to take it apart, figuring out how the pieces inside this globe-like mind-bender of a puzzle worked. He was completely engrossed. And what struck me was “Wow, I wish I could play with that toy!” It was cool.His pediatrician had a different take. “You might want to have your son checked for Autism. He’s showing symptoms.” She was that blunt. And then she changed the subject.I stopped her “Why do you think he HAS Autism?”“Oh, I don’t know for sure. But the manner in which he is obsessed with that toy is an indication. That’s not normal behavior.”Both my wife and I felt we’d been punched in the gut. This was the height of the anti-science, anti-vaxer paranoia. We’re both science literate and so we had given him his vaccinations on schedule…but there was so much Jenny McCarthy/Celebrity/Pseudoscience BS floating through the ether that we couldn’t help but wonder…had we broken our child? Had we infected him with a terrible disease? Had we ruined him for life?I was in denial. “Alex is fine! He’s a bit shy but he’s fine!”He stacked his toys in tall towers. So what? That’s what blocks are for. He lined all his toy cars into perfectly symmetrical lines from one end of our home to the other. Nothing wrong with that; a kid should be able to play how a kid wants to play. He can’t talk……wait……he can’t talk. As he approached three years of age, he had a high, thin voice and only spoke a few words. Other kids already spoke dozens of words, perhaps as many as one hundred. Alex spoke three words and only we could understand him. He was delayed in toilet training. He walked clumsily. The signs were starting to add up.I called the Albuquerque School District’s Special Education Department. They agreed to have him evaluated. We took him in and a battery of tests were performed. They tested hearing and sight so they could rule out any physical challenges. Three different “experts” tested his gross motor skills, fine motor skills, cognitive skills and social skills. They asked us hundreds of questions. We filled out questionnaires. An observer was sent to our home. And two weeks later, I received a phone call.“Is this Mr. Kern?”“Yes.”The woman cleared her throat and then emotionally unloaded on me. “We need you to come in so we can discuss your son’s Autism. He’s definitely Autistic. I have an Autistic child myself. You need to prepare yourself. You need to start setting realistic goals. Maybe he’ll work at a grocery store someday. Maybe he’ll be independent enough to get an apartment near your home. But, the childhood you thought he was going to have is not going to happen. He probably will never fall in love, he may never really know who you are, he won’t go to college…but he’s still your son and if you modify your expectations you can find a way to make the best of what you have.”Snot ran down my face and my chest heaved up and down as I sobbed uncontrollably. My wife came running into the room as I hung up the phone. I collapsed against the wall and sobbed. “We ruined our son! WE RUINED OUR SON! HE’S AUTISTIC AND ITS OUR FUCKING FAULT!”But something about this still didn’t click for me. Because in the other room was a happy three year old, smiling as he played with his alphabet blocks and a set of red alphabet cookie cutters. And he wasn’t merely babbling or stacking them up randomly. He was spelling words. He was three, and he was spelling. And when I looked closer at the numbers on his blocks, he was laying out simple math. And it was correct. Every. Damn. Time.We went into the Albuquerque Special Education Department and sat down with his examiners. One by one, they rattled off why Alex was “severely developmental delayed” and “had a severe form of PDD-NOS.”“When testing his gross motor skills, we noticed he can’t skip.”“Excuse me?”“He doesn’t know how to skip.”“Does that mean he won’t ever skip?”“Its doubtful. If he can’t skip by three years old there is no clinical proof he’ll ever know how to skip.”“Why is skipping so important? I don’t know many adults who still skip. Do you skip to work? Anyone here go to the mall and skip from store to store?”“Mr. Kern, we need you to take this seriously. He has multiple gross motor challenges, fine motor challenges, he is significantly speech delayed, his voice is abnormally high and thin, he doesn’t hold my eye contact, he doesn’t respond to our voices, he doesn’t engage in mirror play or mimicry. Your son needs immediate therapy. He has serious problems.”“But, Alex is incredibly smart…”“All parents think that…”“No, Alex spells. Alex understands addition and subtraction.”“Ohhhhhhhh…that’s bad. That’s a form of echolalia. That’s not real knowledge your seeing. That’s just further proof of how severely delayed he is.”From that moment, a switch flipped in me. No FUCKING way was someone going to dismiss him so casually. And no FUCKING way was every amazing thing he did going to be written off as a genetic defect.We left. My wife called a state agency and they assigned a case worker to begin gross motor and fine motor therapy with our son. And I began doing research. Lots of it.I sucked down every bit of good data I could find online while my wife sifted through dozens of books at the library. She’d hand me her favorite books and I’d show her my favorite articles.I could write an entire book about our next ten years; his Lutheran Day Care having no tolerance for his differences, his struggles in Pre K, the school’s special education teacher who obsessed over “his disobedience when forming a line with the other four year olds.” The intolerance of the YMCA’s summer camp for five year olds; “Your son just won’t OBEY.” The school district’s decision to place Alex in a “remedial classroom “ with Down’s Syndrome children for his second year of Pre-K. (and I have all the love in the world for a Down’s child, but the educational needs are completely different. More importantly, it was further proof that the school district saw Alex as disabled, not different.)That for us was the last straw. We researched which states had the best reputation in Autistic education. Wisconsin was in the top two. So, we shut down my business and my wife took a demotion so she could move across the country. We took a 30K pay cut and rebuilt our lives 1,200 miles Northeast. Goodbye, New Mexico! No wonder you’re pretty much dead last in about everything. You’d be a lovely state except for the 1.2 million negative, fixed-mindset Eeyores that populate your lovely mountains and deserts!We downsized from a four bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2 car garage in one of the most expensive suburbs in Albuquerque to a tiny apartment on the outskirts of New Berlin. I sold my plasma so I could juggle starting a new company, taking care of Alex and contributing financially in some way to the family. My wife pulled the belt in tight and put us on a serious budget. And we enrolled Alex in New Berlin’s Pre-K program, holding our breath.And then we exhaled. Because everything was different. His teachers LOVED him. They UNDERSTOOD him. “Alex isn’t broken. He’s incredibly bright! He just processes things in a different way.”Every year has been better. He was happy, he was engaged and everything we were told he’d never do…he did. One of his instructors diagnosed me as having Aspergers and it felt like all the pieces of my life suddenly made sense. I also realized I had a purpose; I was an Aspie father who could raise an Aspie son with love and respect. I could undo all the terrible things that had happened to me as a child; the physical abuse, the bullying, the screaming “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST BE NORMAL!”I could ensure Alex never experienced that kind of pain and isolation.Alex thrived. He became friends with other kids. He excelled in all his classes. He’s now a spelling bee whiz, preparing for Regionals as a ten year old, beating out kids four years older than him. He has the vocabulary of an adult, he studies electrical engineering and the history of famous inventors as a past-time. He is obsessed with stand-up comedy. He’s considering studying electric guitar. He’s a phenomenal illustrator, spending up to ten hours each weekend studying videos on youtube and then practicing hand anatomy, facial expressions and drawing in perspective.And one day…as we were walking to the park…he began to skip. Just naturally. No one taught him. No one ever mentioned it to him. In fact, my wife and I had completely forgotten about the prediction he would never skip.The sun was out. He was happy and so…he…skipped. He skips everywhere now. Absolutely. Every. Where.I read once that raising an Aspie is a bit like buying plane tickets to Jamaica only to find the plane landed in Hong Kong. Its not your intended destination. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t have an amazing time. Everything about the journey will be different than you intended…but not wrong, broken, sad, lonely or damaged. Just different.Now, I assume that’s what it must be like for an NT. For me? I WANTED TO GO TO HONG KONG!David is slightly different than other kids. He finishes his homework at school because its simply too easy for him and he’s hell bent on maximizing his play time when he comes home. “Why do math at home when I can finish it while the teacher is handing it out to the other kids and explaining it?” Sometimes, this results in him rushing a bit. We have to slow him down. He’s furious that he has to show his work because “can’t everyone just do it in their head???” He’s always in the top reading group. He’s always doing more than is asked of him. If science has a project on the digestive system, he talks his teacher into giving him old board games so he can spend a week on designing a fully functional “Humanopoly” game of every single system in the human body. That’s TEN TIMES the work that was asked of him.He doesn’t enjoy dodge ball, baseball, football or soccer. He loves to swim, run and jump. He isn’t a social butterfly. But, he has two good friends and all the children say hello to him when we take him to school. He loves Star Trek, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Pokemon, Doctor Who and Legos. He describes himself as “you know, an indoor kid.” He doesn’t volunteer hugs but when we hug him, he hugs back. And if he’s feeling particularly overcome with feelings of love, he mimics the sound of a heart beating. It sounds a bit like “g-guhn-g-guhn-guhn-g-guhn.” He does it deep in the back of his throat. Its quiet and you’d miss it if you weren’t listening for it. Its his way of saying he loves us. “I prefer sounds to words, Dad.” Sounds fine by me.G-guhn. G-guhn. G-guhn. He does it every day.Our evenings are spent studying spelling before we cuddle up on the couch and watch Star Trek: TNG or Voltron as a family. He then races off to his room so he can pretend. “I need my alone time, Mom and Dad. Got stuff to plan.” And when we ask him what he’s pretending? “You know, inventions. Things that will change the world.”He’s immune to peer pressure. He lectures us about eating healthy. He gave up sugar after watching Jamie Oliver’s “Sugar Rush.” He helps me clean the house every Sunday morning. He talks about the cute girls at school and Pokemon cards in the same breath.He’s the son I always wanted to have; you might call him a nerd or a geek. But, that was me at his age. And it was my wife. She calls him “Dad’s Clone.” I see her in him.We know NTs who cannot fathom that we are simply a happy family. “You are sooooo brave. Life must be sooooooo hard for you.” What the hell are you talking about? There’s no sacrifice here. We’re not missionaries or saints. We aren’t tired, beleaguered or worn out. In fact, when our son step’s off the bus at 3:55 PM each day, its as if the clouds part and the day becomes a little brighter. What adventure will we have today? What science will we discuss? Will he build a spaceship with his Legos or animate a short film on the iPad? And how many times will I get to hear g-Guhn g-Guhn g-Guhn?If there were no NTs to judge us, having an Aspie would simply be raising a happy, healthy child. Period. Yes, there were challenges but we overcame all of them just like NT parents overcome the challenges of raising NT kids. It was at different windows in time but the results are the same. No one had to teach my son to read. Yours needed schooling for that. No one needed to teach your child what facial expressions mean. My son needed schooling for that.Most NTs cannot fathom a different existence and so our existence to you must be barren, lonely, devoid of love……man, does the NT world have it wrong.Do you know what the world would be like if it was filled with Aspies? Devoid of racism, sexism, peer pressure, bullying, rape, cruelty and laziness. There would be no teenage smoking or drinking. There would be no political corruption, no Wall Street banksters and no police brutality. We’d have achieved the 20th century in the 10th. We’d have music, movies, books and standup comics…only it would all be damn good stuff. Only an NT would make a crappy sitcom or second-rate sci-fi film. It takes Aspies like Aaron Sorkin, Mozart, Lewis Carol, Mark Twain and Jerry Seinfeld to show us what art can really be. We’d have less BS scientific studies that exist only to justify their government grants and more real science. We’d already have colonies on Mars.Our son isn’t gifted. He’s just Alex. He isn’t broken. He’s just Alex. And while its our job to help Alex be the best version of himself possible, Alex was always going to be a happy, healthy, productive member of society……as long as the NT experts got out of his way.Now, scroll to the top again. Read what the Albuquerque Special Education Department told us was inevitable. Is it fair to say they don’t know a damn thing about Autism Spectrum Disorder? In our family, the moment we hear that an NT calls themselves an Autism expert, we roll our eyes. I email Autism experts across the country and I try to educate them about the truth. They don’t want to hear it. They gotta getta grant. They need funding. And that’s only possible if there is a disease to solve.But, there is no disease to solve. What we need is your unconditional acceptance. We need you to stop talking about what we have and start talking about who we are. We need a fucking better name! Aspie? That’s some German’s last name. I’m not his property. Autistic? That term was chosen to imply we lack a soul, that we’re just an empty shell with no executive function or higher reasoning! It comes from the Greek word “Auto” just like Automata. We’re not your fucking robots.Freedom cannot be given. It can only be taken. We need to take control of the conversation and we need a better name for ourselves. Personally, I believe there are two branches of Homo Sapien alive today and we are merely a minority sub species. Therefore, my suggestion would be Homo Sapiens Socialis (for the NTs) and Homo Sapiens Rationalis (for us Aspies.) Human 2.0 isn’t bad but it will make the older model feel obsolete. So, how about we settle for something that isn’t designed to make either group, NT or ASD, feel bad about itself?I suggest we’re the Back Beat. While most of society is playing 4/4 time on the one, we’re the syncopated response on the 2 and 4. Ba-BUM. Its what makes rockabilly so damn cool. We’re the Back Beat. We’re still playing by 4/4 time, but in our own way.Now, forgive me…my son will be home in 20 minutes. My day is about to get better!

Here are a few films that I think are darker than they actually are:1)From the Hugga Bunch, a movie for VERY young children. Never mind the scene with one of the dolls accidentally in the washer with it on (unfortunate implications there?), the fiery behemoth (elephants are beautiful and noble creatures, but they are enormous and this one can breathe fire like a dragon, and dragons are fearsome), but the shrugs, the green monster you see here. We have a scene where the queen/witch turns the girl into a statue, into a statue, and not only is that scary in itself, but as are the monsters, heck the entire scene is, and the fear the girl has when the monsters surround her. After the queen berates her, the girl has a “oh crap” expression on her face, and the queen then gives her minions a command. We then see the monsters swarming the girl. Obviously, the girl is terrified, but we can see and feel just how terrified she is, not just of her fate, but of the monsters, something she was afraid of from the moment she and her friends started into the castle, and we knew that certain moment was coming. How the queen and the shrugs devilishly were pleased with what they were doing did not help matters. Imagine all of this, but you are a helpless individual and a group of other people surround you and start doing this to you (take away the monsters, the witch/queen, the statue transformation), and you have quite a scary concept.2)From Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, remember this is a Disney movie for kids, we have Riley’s backstory as told by his girlfriend Delilah to Chance. It is brief, thankfully, but what occurs in it actually occurs in real life. Pets ARE abandoned and sometimes are left with nothing but death. Riley was saved, thankfully, and we do not know for sure if this actually happened to him, possibly a sob story, but Riley was given to a boy as a Christmas present by his parents, the boy was ungrateful and refused him, but instead of taking Riley to the shelter and giving him to people to take him in, what they did do, leave him in a box in the outside rain, sure he has a hole in it to breathe and possibly a covering, but what cruelty. The parents were just as bad as the boy was, and to think the boy did not even do at least that.Now, this is not that unlike another Disney film, yes the 2019 live action remake of Lady and the Tramp, of where Tramp has a backstory. In a brief sequence, we see this happy go lucky pup in a car with his owners who just had a baby, and the owner throws the ball outside the car window only to leave that poor dog out on the street abandoned, and poor dog thinks it was merely a game of fetch, but now knows the truth. Thankfully Tramp had a happy ending.3)From Dumbo (2019), now good movie and all, but what about the scene when adults and children actually threw peanuts, popcorn, etc., at a BABY elephant and laughed at him, and insulted him, when they first met him and found out about his very long ears. Yes, this actually took place in the film. Sure, they looked ashamed after his mother came to her baby boy’s rescue into the ring, and the crowd eventually came to love Dumbo, but compare this to the early film, we had a few kids laughing at Dumbo taunting him for his long ears, and it was the ringmaster and the clowns who picked on him, but now an audience of once again children AND adults laughing at him, and throwing things at him (some example you are setting for your kids, folks!), this time it was the audience not the ringmaster and the clowns (as the villains, well at least for the first part), who in contrast were quite nice to him. I love the film, but this is my least favorite scene in it.4)The Violet Beauregarde scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory certainly has its dark concepts. Violet Beauregarde inflates, her stomach gurgles, her cheeks and butt all swell up as well, ominous music plays, she inflates in height as well as in weight to elephantine proportions (she even screams when the oompa loompas roll her around even using her as a trampoline). However, the scene from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, probably one of the four demises that is truer to the book, to me has a much eerier vibe, for a few reasons. Violet handles her fate in a calmer fashion that is actually somewhat unnerving. She is the most pleasant of the naughty children. Her belt bursts off, after she says “I feel funny” Grandpa Joe responds, “I’m not surprised”, implying Violet meant it as if she IS funny or what she chose to do is funny, either way an insult to your kid. Not only that, another parent even suggested to stick her with a pin, quite possibly knowing in the process that, that will pop her, now if they thought it would actually help, that is unconfirmed, but they very well knew what it could end up doing, and imagine hearing someone saying while your child is going through a life threatening situation. Mike pokes her belly, yes he might just be curious, but no one chided him on this, not the other children and especially not the adults (not even his own mom), someone else doing another thing to your kid during their plight. We also have the oompa loompas who instead of rolling Violet to the juicing room at once, because she must be squeezed immediately, what do they do, they dance around her and sing. Additionally, the song has a creepy arrangement as opposed to the other oompa loompa songs, just the way it sounds and is sung to her all creepily go so well together, it is almost as if the song itself mocks her. A little after the start, Violet waddles briefly and then when she halts, the oompa loompas start touching her and she swats at them to stop, imagine so many touching you in such a plight, and this happening to your own kid, much stranger danger here.Now, unlike the book and the 2005 film, we do not see the other children leave the factory. Sure Willy Wonka rest assures Charlie that they are fine, when they leave the factory, they will be restored to their nasty old selves, but hopefully be wiser for the wearer, but how much can we trust this man, sure he would not lie to someone he endows his factory to, but still. In addition, contrast to the 2005 film, Augustus too is calmer about his punishment, Veruca does not even scream when the garbage chute she is standing on opens, and Mike also seems to enjoy his punishment, and mind you the children here are not even as bratty as their later portrayals are.5)Great film, so many classic cartoon characters, but what about these four main characters. We have Roger and Jessica Rabbit, yes Jessica’s last name is rabbit, but she is not a rabbit, she is a human, inter-species dating in a kids film (compare this to Howard the Duck). Just think, do they even have kids, and if so, what do they look like. We have Benny the Cab, nothing horrendous in his portrayal, but he is a talking car, where did he come from, why does he talk, makes you somewhat wonder. We also have Baby Herman, during his skits, he behaves like a normal happy crawling baby, but who is he actually, an ADULT stuck as an INFANT, makes you wonder what led him to be like that, and to add to that, he smokes (yikes). Did his parents excessively treat him like a baby? Did he even want to grow out of his infancy? All types of questions. To be honest, and not dissing these characters, I love this film, but the other cartoon characters, the ones we all know and love are actually much more “relaxing” in depth, because they do not require that much depth, that much understanding, we just know them for who they are, and they make us laugh, simple as that. We all know Mickey Mouse. We all know Bugs Bunny. They may have character, but it does not take much for us to understand who they are and why they act the way that they do, they are just who they are.6)O-k, last but not least, the sixth one. Remember the Brave Little Toaster? Of course, you do, well how much of it did you actually understand.Yes, this movie …First off, notice it was later owned by Disney (for kids)? Notice how similar it is to this film?O-k, not that important here, but I wanted to get that off my chest. I just noticed it. Both G, both Disney, pets/appliances set out to find their masters, only in the case of the appliances they MIGHT have been abandoned, rest assured they later are not. However, the Brave Little Toaster has much darker elements. Elements I think are necessary to share, first off let us start with this character -Remember him? Remember that scene? Well, of course the film is not only set around appliances finding their master, but borrows much from actual life. After being ridiculed, this air conditioner makes statements quite offended and nearly has a heart attack, not that different to offending the less advantaged, is it? Think of meeting someone who is less advantaged than you are, say an older person, say the disabled, and you tell him/her what he/she can and cannot do (if anymore), but you can, not that fair is it, not that nice is it, and that person is defended (as expected) and though by trying to put you down nearly has a heart attack in the process. Thankfully we have a heartwarming moment that the master returns to his old cottage and finds the air conditioner and fixes him, and the air conditioner cries a happy tear, but life does not always work out that way. Reimagined that entire scene for you, didn’t I? Well, here are the other goodies.You are near death. You must be operated on, but you have nowhere to go, or say you are in a prison or asylum, or even in your final days at a hospital, and you cannot escape. Not that different is it. Would it make you feel better to know that this scene parodied One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Probably not, huh? Oh by the way, this movie seems a musical in most instances, keep this scene and the next two in mind with that.Next scene -These appliances ARE replaced, by their own master. Say you have a pet or a child, and they felt replaced by your other pet/child, whether they are merely the unfavorite, or someone came later (a new baby, a puppy or a kitten). You can get a new pet, but you cannot always have a new child, but trust me, neither wants to feel replaced. It is not just that comparison. Say you hang out with your friends, and they have someone in their group who replaces you, someone stronger, someone more attractive, someone funnier, whatever - the better you, but the you that you once were. How ironic that these new appliances in real life would be replaced later, a chain of events, the circle of living.And this scene, the last climax -You are … worthless. Imagine this with people. You outlived your use. You have a terminal illness. You are injured. You are old. Whatever the situation, you just cannot go on anymore, whether the issue is that you want to but cannot, or merely you cannot.Alright, on all those bad notes of that film, thankfully the tension ends there, and the appliances are rejoined with their master. It all works out, but does it actually? After all I threw at you, I will leave you with this. Besides the fact that it is a movie and book (and yes, the book is darker, but good read), and that is just how it rolls, you find out that you have a place after all, we all have a reason for being here. We all only live once, so why not make the best of it.Enjoy!