If you can “spoil” a Pooh movie, then this post contains spoilers. @Klout gave me free movie passes to a preview and I enjoyed it with my 6-year-old this morning.
It’s interesting to me how many Christian themes run through the new movie, Winnie the Pooh. Like many 2011 children’s movies, the themes are simple and there is a lot of disjointed action and intertwined plots, geared mostly for laughs, but the underlying themes are there all the same.
As the movie opens, Pooh is hungry, but finds that he’s out of HUNY (as it is written). As he’s looking for more, he finds that Eyeore is missing his TAEL. There is a contest to find a new tail for Eyeore, including a small reward – a jar of honey – and the animals try pinning all sorts of tails on the donkey, thinking that they have succeeded every time. However, no tail is without its problems. Toward the end of the movie Eyeore tries an anchor and chain as a tail, which he drags along mournfully.
As they are searching for the true tail, Pooh finds that Christopher Robin has gone away, but left a note behind. The animals misread the note and think a monster has kidnapped Christopher Robin. Of course they spin a wild tale of a scary monster who is the source of all bad things, including holes in socks.
So far, the Christian themes are quiet but clear – the idea that nothing but Eyeore’s real tail will fully satisfy him and that all the “false tails” that he tries are not only unsatisfactory, but they come with their own problems. Pooh’s “inner hunger” won’t go away, nothing seems to satisfy it, and is becoming more and more all-consuming.
The animals then set out to subdue the monster and rescue their boy. Rabbit (the voice of secular humanism) concocts a plan that they will spread out all of their stuff along a path to a pit they have dug. Then, as the monster comes to steal or break their stuff, he will fall into the pit and they will rescue Christopher Robin. Owl (the voice of academia) validates the plan and everyone runs off to execute their plan to save the day. It’s obvious to the viewer that the plan is foolish, since Christopher Robin has only gone away for a time and left a note that he will be back soon, but the animals are convinced that the “Backson” is a real threat, and run around causing all sorts of havoc. Eventually, they all fall into the pit that they created. There you have it, the futility of our own efforts to save ourselves in kid-friendly detail.
Along the way of this chase, Tigger tries to convince Eyeore to become “Tigger 2″ including painted on stripes and a spring for a tail – all with disastrous results. His hypocrisy is laughable, and eventually Eyeore decides to stop pretending to be something he is not, just as Jesus says we should.
In a reference to the story of the prodigal son, Pooh’s hunger for honey becomes all-consuming, and in a honey-daze he ends up in a mud pit eating mud before he snaps out of it. He decides that he has to focus on thinking about Christopher Robin and not about honey. Christopher here becomes a sort of Christ / Spirit reference, and by focusing on Christopher Robin, Pooh is able to overcome his fixation on honey, help his friends out of the pit, be reunited with his boy, and find Eyeore’s tail.
The movie ends with Christopher Robin rewarding Pooh with a gigantic jar of honey – big enough that Pooh climbs in to swim. Afterward, they walk off and Christopher Robin tells Pooh how proud he is that today he did “a really important thing” by thinking of his friends needs instead of thinking about his tummy. Lovely child-friendly references to heaven, and Jesus’ reward for those who not only hear his words but do them also.
Now, don’t get me wrong – this is not a Christian movie, it’s a children’s movie. There is no overt Christianity in it. The themes are buried in a story geared for 3 to 6 year olds and couched as a “positive message” by the movie makers.
Maybe it’s just that I saw the biblical parallels. What do you think?
