The Most Relevant Winnie the Pooh Song in Today’s world
The world is so scary, even with joyful Disney characters like Winnie the Pooh and Baymax. I will be looking forward to the day when the news will not make me feel anxious or exhausted. What’s more, I worry about my responsibility as a creator to keep readers safe, if it ever gets to that point.
The reason why I worry is that people it seems cannot tell fiction from reality. We had the Slenderman girls incident a few years back, and this year an ARG creator had to tell her audience that her character may be in danger but she isn’t, and stop trying to find her in real life because she’s a college student who is doing this in her free time.
I wish people would remember there is a fine line between fiction and reality. Alternate Reality Games toy with that line, but they are games. Despite that, the boundary at time seems to blur, and we get tragedies in the paper as a result, and people whose personal lives bleed into their fun projects. Disney managed to establish that when we seek horror stories, movies and games, that we go in with the expectation that the monsters won’t follow us. Why? Because, in the song in question, “It’s Make Believe”.
Best Pooh Bear Incarnation Ever
For context, this episode was the pilot for The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Christopher Robin takes his friends out to a monster movie. Piglet freaks out, so Tigger and Christopher Robin reassure him that the monsters are just special effects. To prove it further, they decide to film their own monster movie, and at the end let Piglet be the hero to face his fears and know what is and isn’t real. Do not argue that the toys are Christopher Robin’s imaginary friends; they are real enough to Christopher Robin, and to us.
When we enter a fictional world, we tacitly agree that the world is not real by default. It’s an unspoken contract. This applies even when the real world comes into play, say through an alternate reality game that functions as a scavenger hunt. Breaking this contract can lead to devastating consequences.
Let’s remember what is and isn’t real, especially as we are fed propaganda, and fear of our world drastically changing. Because, when we know it’s make believe, we can have more fun.