Monday, October 17, 2011

Winnie the Pooh - Alcoholic Metaphor?

I took my four year old and two year old to see the latest Winnie the Pooh movie. It was a cute movie that actually incorporated the fact that Winnie and the gang are all characters in a book (at times they'd walk from page to page, the narrator's words were literally printed like in a book, characters at one point built a ladder to get out of a pit with the words from the book's page, etc).

The plotline is eternal Pooh: Out of honey and looking for some. I thought it was interesting how it was expressed in this movie, however. It made me wonder... is Pooh a big metaphor for alcoholism? Just think of honey pots as alcohol bottles and honey as alcohol. Let's look at the evidence:

  • The movie begins by Pooh searching his house for honey. Empty honey pots are literally everywhere. This scene was almost an exact replica of the scene from Forrest Gump when Lt. Dan is looking for alcohol in him NYC apartment.
  • Pooh starts hitting up his friends for just a little honey. Pooh will do just about anything to get honey (except it seems he can't hold a job...). Rabbit is a gardener and Owl is an academic but Pooh spends every waking moment simply craving his next pot of honey.
  • Pooh goes through withdraw symptoms, even hallucinations.
  • When Pooh finally gets honey, it's a massively huge jar which he LITERALLY climbs inside. Ever heard of crawling into the bottle? Well, Pooh does so with vigor.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions but the evidence is quite interesting, is it not? Like a lot of children's literature, the characters often represent the worst in humanity. Pooh is certainly is a dark place. *giggle*

2 comments:

  1. http://mikelrecovery.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-name-is-winnie-p-and-i-am-alcoholic.html?m=1

    Thought you might find my take interesting...

    Mike

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