When you are a parent of a young child, you often have the pleasure of watching the same movie over and over and over. The one good thing about this is that you get the chance to dissect the movie into itty-bitty parts in a way that you never thought possible. (I could write a doctoral thesis on some of the movies my daughter has binge watched.) Sometimes, even if it’s a movie you’ve seen before, you suddenly see a message or theme you never did before.
That’s what happened lately with me and Disney’s The Rescuers. That movie was one of my favorites as a child, so I thought I knew it pretty well. But after seeing it for the 100 billionth time, I suddenly realized it had a theme I had never noticed before. (SPOILERS BELOW)
Small people can make a big difference.
Now, perhaps that should have been obvious—I mean, it does star mice who rescue people. I just never saw it before. In the beginning, Rufus the cat asks, “Two little mice? What can you do?” And when the mice first talk to Penny, she asks, “Didn’t you bring somebody big with you? Like the police?” And the mice themselves, in their darkest moment, wonder if they are capable of helping at all.
But, of course, they are perfectly able to save the day—with a little help from other small animal friends.
This theme of being small but capable may be why I loved the movie so much as a child. My author theme is that every child has the potential to change the world—an extension of this very theme. It seems this theme has been in my heart for a lot longer than I realized.
I’ve talked before about another good message kids can take from The Rescuers, but I think this one is something all kids need to hear:
You are small, but not helpless.
In a nutshell, giving kids the idea that they can change the world for the better sends them perhaps the strongest message of all:
You matter.
And isn’t that a message we all need to hear from time to time?
I haven’t seen The Rescuers in a looong time. Now, I think I’ll show it to my GRANDkids! It’s a perfect message for the.
I hadn’t seen it since I was a child, either. But now I have a 6-year-old, so I am revisiting a lot of old favorites with her.