Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh

Year: 2011

Directors: Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall

I chose to write about this movie not necessarily for the movie itself, although it was very good, but for the way it was advertised.  People are often drawn to movies from their previews and one can easily tell who the movie is geared to based upon the preview.  In recent years younger movies have been geared toward adults, and the preview for Winnie the Pooh is an excellent example.

When most people think about Winnie the Pooh and Toy Story 3, which came out several years ago, they see those movies as being geared towards children.  Winnie the Pooh is a children’s story and the plot of the 2011 movie was similar.  However, the previews tell us that this story was actually for adults.   The song that was played in the background of the preview was “Somewhere Only We Know”, by Keane.  It is about nostalgia, at least how it is shown in the preview.  This showed that the Winnie the Pooh movie was for those who grew up with Winnie the Pooh and had been to Hundred Acre Woods before.  It was saying it’s time to go back and see our old friends again. I was reminded that I loved the characters and when I saw the preview with the song in the background it made me smile and really want to see it because it reminded me of childhood.  While many children went and saw the movie, it was also calling for the teens and adults to come back to Hundred Acre Woods and remember the simpler times.

This ad shows two main things about our culture.  First, it shows that there are adults who go see children’s movies, especially if it includes characters the adults grew up with.  When Toy Story 3 came out, that movie was a very popular with teens and adults because people my age grew up with Woody and Buzz.  There were a lot of people who went to see that movie as adults without children. 

Second, it shows this longing for childhood or to remember childhood.  Currently, times are hard for a lot of people.  There are many people coming out of college with debt and there are no jobs available.   Other people are already in the workforce and unemployed and struggling to make ends meet.  These movies remind people of the simpler times when they were worried about fictional characters.  The fact that sequels and other movies from my childhood are coming out now shows that there is a market for adults to come see children’s movies with characters they grew up with.  While Disney and other production companies are still coming out with new movies that I did not see growing up, there are a lot of sequels and even further continuations of movies from my childhood coming out now, which I believe shows that there is a yearning in my generation to relive simpler times and remember the characters we loved.