The things that signaled the holidays to me were very different when I was seven. Back then, I prayed for snow, waited anxiously for Chanukah presents and couldn't wait to get to the movies. Now I don't like snow. It's something I have to power through on my way to class and I don't get nearly as much outdoor recess time as I used to. I can't tell my family or girlfriend anything I want for Chanukah because I don't really need or want that much. And movies - well, my viewing choices have gone from light holiday movies to Oscar-season films.
When I was seven, I saw movies like Disney's Aladdin"" and ""The Nightmare Before Christmas"" on Thanksgiving. I went to the movies to laugh and have fun. If 7-year-old Brad heard that future Brad went to movies like ""No Country for Old Men"" and ""American Gangster"" on Thanksgiving, he'd kick him so hard that midlife-crisis Brad could hear the screams.
He'd cringe at the thought of seeing dour, ""serious"" films on one of the few days still reserved for fun and enjoyment. He would be right.
Brad at seven would be upset mostly because I'm ignoring what drew him to movies in the first place. Even though ""No Country"" and ""Gangster"" are both very good films, younger-me would've definitely fled to ""Bee Movie"" or even ""Enchanted"" (no, I wasn't the coolest kid in my younger days - why do you ask?). He'd ask current-me why I'm renting ""Grizzly Man"" when ""Ratatouille"" just came out on DVD. Young-Brad would want to be taken to a world he could only imagine, not to be stuck in a world he inhabits 365 days a year.
Sure there's a seemingly easy answer to his questions; Disney's animation department hasn't really made a great movie in 10 years, and are those carefree days when I and millions of other kids could recite every line of the Genie's dialogue have now been replaced by video games, the internet and ""Shrek"" films that capture the images of my childhood but never the spirit. I'd tell him that I grew up from the days my best friend and I used to refer to ourselves as ""Chip 'n Dale"" and had ""The Lion King"" on repeat in my VHS player. Maybe my world is just too jaded to accept that magic can still happen in ""real life.""
But I think I'd tell him this: The trick is to grow up without growing old. You have a responsibility to others, but you have a responsibility to your spirit as well. And when you have run out of wonders in the world, that's the day that life starts to feel too long. But, Brad, as long as you have that little spark of childhood in you, you'll know you've never completely lost your way.
And that's why I made time to see ""Bee Movie"" and ""Enchanted"" recently. Movies are about more than Oscar season or seeing who can make it to $100 million the fastest; they're about reawakening the child who has never grown up and having a P.B.&J. sandwich with him, if only for a few brief hours.
Do you also find your inner 7-year-old yearning for the simpler days of carefree Disney movies and VHS? Are you unwilling to grow-up but to jaded for P.B.&J.? Share your thoughts with Brad at boron@wisc.edu.
