Friday, August 24, 2012

Satanic images


So, Addison and I were watching Fantasia yesterday. My favorite scene in the movie is also one that makes my toddler shriek and drop her toys and come running to me shouting, "'Cary, 'cary monster!" She's still working on her "s" sounds.

You can guess which one it is. It's Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain (what a great piece of music!), and it's the big finale for this fun, sweet little children's film. It was so much more innocent back then, before the dark, sexualized era that we live in today.

The dead rise up out of the ground, skeletons and wights and ghosts. There's a Satan-esque devil the size of a mountain with massive wings and horns and burning eyes and sharp teeth that emerge from a leering mouth (if I did my mouth the way the devil does it, my wife would slap me). Also, there are naked fire-dancing sprites, and harpies that dive-bomb the screen with huge, melon-sized bare breasts and prominent nipples.



But really, I like the scene. For the music.

And Addison likes it too; she won't let me turn it off, but just wants to be held really tight while watching it. I can live with that (though when I just showed it to Lindsay, she said, "you let our daughter watch that?").

The announcer for the piece explains in a very matter-of-fact instructional voice that the cartoon depicts "the gathering place of Satan and his followers," and that here "the creatures of evil gather to worship their master." Awesome. Can't wait for my daughter to start repeating this stuff back to us. I'm serious. It would be very funny.

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure: