The 5 Biggest Dick Moves By Beloved Children's Characters
Violence and sex are awesome, but sometimes your stupid nephews are in town and they cry when you put on Reservoir Dogs. People used to get married at 10, Bobby -- you can handle the ear scene at 6 you little wuss. So whatever, you put on some nice wholesome kids' videos. And, hey look, you're pleasantly surprised: Some of these things are seriously messed up. Like ...
Inside Out's Joy Murders Countless Imaginary Friends
Inside Out finally answered the dire question that stoners have been asking for, like, however long it's been: "What if feelings had feelings?"
In the film, two of heroine Riley's emotions, Joy and Sadness, get lost deep in the recesses of her brain and need to work their way back to thought headquarters. Unfortunately, there's a giant abyss in the middle of Riley's head where everything that falls into it is forgotten and erased from existence, because Pixar's thing is emotional health, not biology. The effects of this abyss are demonstrated by Bing Bong, Riley's old imaginary friend. Bing Bong may be make-believe, but he displays ingenuity and a wide range of emotions, making him as sentient as anything in Pixar's world. Bing Bong sacrifices his life to help Joy escape the pit, but that's fine -- he does it voluntarily and knows the risks.
Not imaginary: your tears.
Less fine is how Joy then crosses the abyss with the help of Riley's latest imaginary pal, her boyfriend from Canada. The unnamed beau isn't the deepest thinker in Riley's head, but he follows all the same rules as Bing Bong and is thus very much alive. And when he says, "I would die for Riley!" Joy ominously declares, "Time to prove it."
Joy uses an imagination cloning machine to produce a giant stack of boyfriends. She stands on top of the stack, which tips over and carries her to the other side of the abyss ... while the boyfriends plummet straight into it and their inevitable demises while shouting, "For Riley!" like hormonal suicide bombers.
Joy is crushed by Bing Bong's sacrifice, but her only response to creating and then immediately murdering enough heartthrobs to staff The CW for generations is mild amusement. In the span of a couple of minutes she racks up a higher body count than every Disney villain combined, and no one cares. We guess it's like Stalin said: One wacky elephant creature dead is a tragedy, but a million Canadian boyfriends dead is just a statistic.
The Powerpuff Girls Beat The Shit Out Of An Innocent Clown
The Powerpuff Girls perfectly illustrate how scary Superman would have been as a child. Like that time they beat the ever-loving shit out of a sick clown. The episode in question stars a friendly clown who suddenly becomes an evil mime after an accident involving bleach washes away all of his color. He proceeds to steal the color and joy out of everyone in Townsville, but the girls are able to stop him and return everything to normal. With the clown back to his senses, he enthusiastically thanks the girls for saving him. As the gathered crowd cheers the clown's return, the girls -- saviors of the innocent -- beat the very concept of joy out of him and throw him in jail. Note that this comes immediately after they save the day with a musical number called "Love Makes The World Go 'Round."
This is despite the fact that the episode makes it abundantly clear the clown isn't in control of his actions, and it also establishes that he's a beloved children's entertainer who's making the city a better place. But in the Powerpuff Girls' defense: Is there really such a thing as an innocent clown?
Look at that face and try to tell us that he's not drinking away the shame and guilt of something.
Kung Fu Panda's Po is a cheerful, charming underdog whose greatest weapons are his body fat and his ability to forgive his enemies. So it's a bit of a shift in tone when the goofy, adorable, kung fu fanboy is called upon to stop the villain Tai Lung and he does so by casually murdering him.
During their climactic battle, we see Po smugly preparing to use the Wuxi Finger Hold on the enemy whose ass he's already thoroughly kicked. When the previously unflappable Tai Lung sees Po preparing the move, he panics and accuses Po of bluffing, arguing that his master would never teach Po such a brutal maneuver. Po casually responds, "Nope, I figured it out. Skadoosh!" before setting off what looks like the kung fu equivalent of an atomic bomb explosion. Po's a hero, true power comes from believing in yourself, roll credits.
While we're never explicitly told what the hold does, Po's master mentions, "The hardest part is cleaning up afterwards." It's basically the PG-13 equivalent of the Five-Point-Palm-Exploding-Heart Technique.
From a distance. Up close it looks like the X-rated equivalent.
While the original movie is happy to leave Po's disregard for ancient anthropomorphic China's judicial process ambiguous, supplementary materials make the act more and more explicit. In Kung Fu Panda Holiday, the Christmas special we know you watch every year, Tai Lung appears in Po's nightmare, prompting him to exclaim, "I thought you were dead!" He leaves out, "because I turbo-murdered you," but it's implied.
Finally, in the TV series Kung Fu Panda: Legends Of The Cash Cow, Tai Lung's nephew just flat-out asks Po if he "destroyed" his uncle. A guilt-ridden Po tries to dance around the question before finally admitting it, prompting the nephew to snap and attack Po.
"In my defense, it was really badass in the moment."
So, we go from an ambiguously wacky climax to a fat panda ruminating on the necessary darkness of combating evil and the negative consequences of being a hero. If this trend continues, Kung Fu Panda 3 will take place in Syria.
iCarly's Main Character Bullies People For Nontraditional Interests
The titular Irena Carly of teen sitcom iCarly is almost disgustingly nice. She's always the voice of reason and always tries to see the best in people ... except for that one time when she bullies a dude because of his girly hobby.
In one episode she falls in love with a boy named Griffin, whose name should make it clear that he's a stereotypical bad boy. Everyone freaks out because he might be a negative influence on our sweet and innocent protagonist, and indeed, he harbors a terrible secret that forces Carly to break up with him. It's so terrifying and soul-crushing that it defies all reason. He ... wait for it ... collects Pee Wee Babies, a parody of Beanie Babies.
How does Carly discover this dark secret? Because Griffin trusts Carly and is willing to show her a side of him that he rarely reveals. Griffin asks Carly for acceptance like he just revealed he's into golden showers, and Carly pretends to go along with it while secretly trying to man him up by buying him a power tool. When her attempts to wean Griffin off his hobby fail, she and her best friend openly ridicule him for his interests. Griffin overhears and confronts Carly, who's so distracted by a daydream of giant Pee Wee Babies floating around that she doesn't even do him the courtesy of properly breaking up with him. So he just walks out, and rather than realizing that she should apologize later, the show gives us the impression that Carly dodged a crazy bullet.
Half the adult men you know probably have a picture like this on Facebook.
Look, we realize this is no "mass murder of our Northern neighbors," but it's still an oddly dark moment in an otherwise sappy show. Seeing Carly judge someone for their nontraditionally gendered interests is like your sweet old grandma calling you a queer for watching figure skating.
Percy Jackson Murders His Stepfather
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is like the Cracked Magazine to Harry Potter's Mad Magazine. It revolves around a teenager learning that, despite being an average kid just like you, he's actually the secret son of Poseidon who needs to save the world, or whatever. So he's not just like you at all. He's special. His grandma doesn't even call him queer or anything.
Percy is unfortunately saddled with a dickhead of a stepdad named Gabe Ugliano. Ugliano is a selfish prick who constantly insults Percy, forces his mother, Sally, to do all of the housework, and is generally an awful person. Cut to Percy, in the course of his adventures, using his wits and the power of Apple product placement to behead Medusa. He then lugs her head around to use as a weapon, keeping a pair of stylin' sunglasses over its eyes to prevent anyone from turning to stone accidentally. It's the same strategy we use to avoid accidentally charming anyone out of their bathing suit at the beach.
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Once Percy is done heroing, he returns home and sticks the head in the fridge, because that stretches its expiration date. Ugly ol' Gabe decides to help himself to a beer and gets turned to stone when he opens the fridge.
Percy did put a warning note and a lock on the fridge, but not only are a vague note and a lock placed by a teen going to arouse more suspicion than caution, he explicitly left the sunglasses off and faced it straight at the door. Make no mistake -- Percy and his mom wanted Gabe fucking dead.
Damn lazy teenagers, not putting Medusa heads in the vegetable crisper where they belong.
Now, sure, Gabe is a horrible person, but he isn't a criminal. The message is essentially "It's OK to kill people for the crime of being a jerk to you." Now, that's all pretty close to the spirit of Greek mythology, and we're not even saying this is bad for kids or that they can't handle a little darkness. We're just saying: Flip on the kiddie shows when the nephews come over. Your twisted ass might actually enjoy them, and besides -- you wouldn't want to come across as a jerk, would you?
Abraham is a lawyer living in Mexico. You can say hi to him on Twitter here or follow his DeviantArt account here.
There's so much inappropriateness lurking in children's entertainment that we question the intentions of the people producing these things. For instance: Everybody is all cool and shit with the Iron Giant? But are they cool with the rest of his army that is no doubt on its way to Earth? See what we're talking about in 6 Disturbing Unanswered Questions From Children's Movies. Or check out The 7 Most Horrifying Moments From Children's Video Games and learn about Hyrule's dark, disturbing past.
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