A Plague Of Unicorns

Kondoru

Kondoru

Beloved of Ra
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Dec 5, 2003
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The other day I went shopping in The Range and there were an astounding number pf products with unicorns on them.

Why are unicorns so popular these days? I find them sinister
 
I think it's part of the disneyfication of "monsters". :(

Everything develops sparkles and sugar, cf Twighlight vampires. Which means they don't fill their original niche.

I'm interested in the way this goes. Do we develop new things of awe and wonder, things that aren't comfortable and predictable, or do we lose a whole swathe of imaginative landscape?
 
Frideswide said:
I think it's part of the disneyfication of "monsters". :(

Everything develops sparkles and sugar, cf Twighlight vampires. Which means they don't fill their original niche.

I'm interested in the way this goes. Do we develop new things of awe and wonder, things that aren't comfortable and predictable, or do we lose a whole swathe of imaginative landscape?
Click to expand...
Coincidentally, my wife and I were discussing this yesterday. We watched "Room on the Broom" and I commented on how likeable and endearing witches have become in stories these days. Similarly with ogres (Shrek) and the various teen fantasies with werewolves and vampires.

However, in my lifetime, the friendly but slightly boring and corny clown has become a sinister figure of evil and terror. Also, there is a tendency in "serious drama" for people who should be "the good guys" (e.g. FBI, MI5, the police, and armed forces) to become "the bad guys".
 
Surely there must be a better collective noun for unicorns. A cornucopia of unicorns?
 
Xanatic* said:
Surely there must be a better collective noun for unicorns. A cornucopia of unicorns?
Click to expand...
It's a purity of unicorns.

These rainbow unicorns are for muggles. Cloven hoofed, bearded, fierce unicorns are the real thing.

EDIT: I just looked it up. Apparently it's a 'blessing' of unicorns. I don't know whether the vomit that followed is due to that or the grog. Probably a bit of both.
 
Frideswide said:
I think it's part of the disneyfication of "monsters". :(

Everything develops sparkles and sugar, cf Twighlight vampires. Which means they don't fill their original niche.

I'm interested in the way this goes. Do we develop new things of awe and wonder, things that aren't comfortable and predictable, or do we lose a whole swathe of imaginative landscape?
Click to expand...
I hate all things Disney as they have distorted the world of children. I hate those sickening cartoon type films where the animals have large cute eyes and are given human characteristics.

A while back during summer I was waiting for a friend at an agreed meeting point along the seafront and nearby was a children's area that seated about 25 kids and Disney films were being shown on a large screen. I don't know what the film was that was being shown. At one point they were these sickening cartoon mummy and daddy unicorns with two young unicorns and it was all sparkles, big eyes with big eye lashes. Mummy unicorn was speaking to daddy unicorn in this vomit inducing voice to please let the children play a little longer. The next door neighbours were two equally puke inducing gay rabbits that walked upright and lived in a hobbit type house in a hill that had a neat front garden full of flowers and a white picket fence.

Even the f*cking butterflies had big eyes with large eye lashes and were displaying human characteristics.

My day out was ruined. I was stuck with mummy unicorns voice in my head all day long.
 
Frideswide said:
I think it's part of the disneyfication of "monsters". :(

Everything develops sparkles and sugar, cf Twighlight vampires. Which means they don't fill their original niche.

I'm interested in the way this goes. Do we develop new things of awe and wonder, things that aren't comfortable and predictable, or do we lose a whole swathe of imaginative landscape?
Click to expand...
I think that "monsters" like many things in everyday life, at certain times become fashions. Maybe for a movie, a series, or a character. On occasions the so-called flaps or waves of appearances of a strange being have triggered poems or plays. I have investigated an episode that occurred in 1922 about the apparition in a lake in the south of my country, in Patagonia, which was described as a plesiosaur. Expeditions and donations were organized, a wooden carving was made with his figure and the news even spread throughout the planet. I have collected almost a thousand references. Even Charles Fort mentioned it, citing the Scientific American publication. A more current case is the so-called Chupacabras and one belonging to the 18th century are the appearances of Harpies in many plates and books of the time, locating their presence in Perou, Chili and France.​
 
I have also investigated the plague of the so-called "Green Dwarfs" that appeared for almost a week in a town called Villa Montoro. The commotion caused by these supposed appearances was such that television, newspapers and magazines filled a lot of space with interviews. Even a music band called "Los Enanitos Verdes (Green Dwarfs) ", in the province of Mendoza, was created as a result of an alleged photograph of a small being taken in 1979. When this epidemic arose in 1983, the band took on a lot of public importance.​
 
kesavaross said:
I hate all things Disney as they have distorted the world of children. I hate those sickening cartoon type films where the animals have large cute eyes and are given human characteristics.

A while back during summer I was waiting for a friend at an agreed meeting point along the seafront and nearby was a children's area that seated about 25 kids and Disney films were being shown on a large screen. I don't know what the film was that was being shown. At one point they were these sickening cartoon mummy and daddy unicorns with two young unicorns and it was all sparkles, big eyes with big eye lashes. Mummy unicorn was speaking to daddy unicorn in this vomit inducing voice to please let the children play a little longer. The next door neighbours were two equally puke inducing gay rabbits that walked upright and lived in a hobbit type house in a hill that had a neat front garden full of flowers and a white picket fence.

Even the f*cking butterflies had big eyes with large eye lashes and were displaying human characteristics.

My day out was ruined. I was stuck with mummy unicorns voice in my head all day long.
Click to expand...
My eldest daughter would have been about three when I bought her a set of Sylvanian Families toys (it was Christmas and I had NO IDEA what to get her, in my defence, I panicked.) She never ever even picked them up, she just looked at me and said, in a disparaging tone (which was pretty effective for a three year old) 'animals in clothes.'

She's always been a sensible person. However the toys came in later when her younger sisters found them irresistible.
 
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