Terrible Lessons from Popular Childhood Movies

13 GOING ON 30
So what does acting like a child and not getting a single reference from your time period get you? Losing your job and friends or having your boss love the new you and finding a better perspective on life? According to the movie, it's obviously the latter. 

The movie portrays an image that if you grow up to be a miserable thirty-year-old, just a week of you getting back into the innocent mind frame of a thirteen-year-old can solve everything, well almost. The only way it doesn't work out is the romance. But not to worry, that's quickly set right by getting dream dust to wash over and travelling back in time to get romantically involved with the best friend. Makes you wonder if the whole movie was secretly about why you shouldn't friend zone anyone.

A BUG'S LIFE
At the very onset, the movie is very discouraging to any creative person and/or ant. We see how every ant in a colony actively disapproves of an ant, Flik, who just tries really hard to make things better with his inventions. If that's not dispiriting enough, we get to see how Flik's own ingenuity gets him and everyone around him into trouble over and over again.

To cover up yet another one of his massive screw ups, Flik lies to his entire colony and puts everyone's lives at risk just so people won't call him out. Things turn bad for him only momentarily but by the end of it all he gets accepted back. Great ending, I know, but pulling something like that will probably put you in prison for life or worse.

HOME ALONE
Other than the savage violence (yes, I'm talking about Home Alone, the children's movie), we get to witness absolute acts of child negligence. The only thing more shocking than that is that the consequences of said negligence – nothing. So the parents leave a child, who was sleeping in an attic, all alone while heading to vacation and get away with it scratch free. 

The most blatant lesson of Home Alone is that violence is indeed the answer. We get to see an eight year old terrorise two burglars with what seem to be potentially fatal booby-traps. The day is saved by a child dropping heavy objects on people's heads. How could that go wrong?

FORREST GUMP
"Life is like a box of chocolates." Is it? Really? The whole movie is like a series of very fortunate events happening to a very unfortunate person. When that fortune runs out, we have Forrest Gump running across states. Guess what? That fixes everything. Isn't that as sweet as chocolate? 

Moreover, narrating your feature-film length life story to absolute strangers is unlikely to get you where you want. Ambushing some unsuspecting stranger sitting next to you with intimate and minute details about yourself will, at the very least, end up making things uncomfortable for the both of you very soon. 

LEGALLY BLONDE
This movie is a showcase of bad relationship advice and awful life choices. Getting into a career with absolutely no idea of what it entails just because your ex will like it, will not turn out for the best. 

It all screams, repeatedly, that being pretty and blonde will get you places. If that doesn't work, knowing people, say sorority sisters, will get you there. The whole thing is literally an hour and a half of terrible life lessons.  

SHE'S THE MAN
Obviously people are so dumb that they cannot tell the difference between the sexes without seeing genitals. Of course swapping genders is as easy as sticking on some fake facial hair, wearing clothes of the opposite sex, and talking in an odd voice. 

Furthermore, the whole core of this movie is practically identity theft. The protagonist, Viola Hastings, steals her twin brother's identity to go as far as to get admitted to a school under his name. When she reveals herself in front of the whole school to have committed fraud, she is allowed to continue on with her game. Perfect.  

With a keen eye and a broken brain to mouth filter, Mahejabeen Hossain Nidhi has a habit of throwing obscure insults from classic novels at random people who may or may not have done anything to warrant them. Drop her a line at mahejabeen.nidhi@gmail.com