Dick Van Dyke did a great interview with The Guardian in which he discusses the impact of movie, television, and video game violence on young people. It is a great interview and he makes some great points. Unfortunately, his wisdom will be dismissed as the rantings of an old man.
Commenting on why the industry rarely makes films with such innocence as Mary Poppins, he said: “We lost Walt Disney, for one thing. Walt was a child at heart. He had such creativity and imagination. We said we were both children looking for our inner adults.”
Disney knew how to thrill children with fantasy, rather than reality, he added. “Walt said kids like to be scared. It’s a delicious feeling. But he did it with witches, evil queens and things like that. Now it goes into blood and violence.”
He argued that children’s films from Hollywood’s so-called golden age taught morals and manners: “When I was a teenager, I modeled myself after the way Fred Astaire or Cary Grant dressed. Now kids emulate street gangs. They like to dress like hoods. That’s just a reversal. They’re picking the wrong role models.”
Here is the article for those interested:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/apr/15/dick-van-dyke-screen-violence-walt-disney
