Subliminal Stupidity

Sir Leigh Teabing, from the world-renowned Dan Brown blockbuster and best seller, the Da Vinci Code, calls our ignorance or the womanly figure in Da Vinci's classic "Last Supper" a kind of Scotoma where the mind sees what it wants to see.

Itching to get the closest definition of scotoma to the common man, I though of digging it up at Wikipedia. My efforts have delivered thus:

A scotoma (Greek for darkness; plural: "scotomas" or "scotomata") is an area or island of loss or impairment of visual acuity surrounded by a field of normal or relatively well-preserved vision.

The way I see it, this is what happens when a bright flash of light temporarily blinds us in a certain visual spot, or when a certain image is "burned" into our field of vision temporarily by light and opacity.

What then caused this guy to come up with these crazy, far-fetched "subliminal" messages apparently found in Disney Films? Take this video for example:




So he says Disney puts a lot of subliminal words such as "SEX" and "LIE" and what not. Honestly, I think this guy must be sexually repressed or something. Most of the words can't even be made out until he draws them with his "funny handwriting". Even when he does point them out, they are not definite. Other words such as SET, SEW and others can be argued to be the more visible representations.

Some of them "appear" for less than half of a second. Too little time to even be absorbed by even the greatest minds.

Another claim he has is that disney characters often flash diablo or horned beast signs, as popularized by rock icons such as Ronnie James Dio. He even flashes comparative photos of real life people flashing similar signs. Obviously, he does not know that the hand signal for "I LOVE YOU" is very much similar to that, with a minor difference: the thumb is not curled up with the middle and ring fingers.

Sure, there may have been slips such as the Little Mermaid erection scene, and we still don't know why that scene was there in the first place, but a lot of his claims are really just so far-fetched that you stop and ask: Does this guy ever leave his room?

Up

Last week, I watched "Up" twice. Its just too bad that I didn't see it in 3-D. Disney did it again. No words can accurately describe how I enjoyed everything about it.

That being said, I was browsing and surfing the net for some trivia and this is what I've found (taken from IMDB.com):

On Dec. 23, 2005, young Colby Curtin was diagnosed with vascular cancer, after doctors found a tumor in her liver. On April 28th, 2009, at the age of ten, her parents took her to see Monsters vs Aliens (2009). She was most impressed with the preview to "Up", saying "I have to see that movie. It is so cool." Two days later, Colby's health began to worsen. On June 4th, her mother Lisa asked a hospice company to bring a wheelchair for Colby so she could visit a theater to see "Up." However, the weekend went by and the wheelchair was not delivered. Unfortunately, Colby was now too sick to leave home and her family feared she would die without seeing the film. A family friend named Terrell Orum-Moore, who desperately wanted Colby to get her last wish, began to cold-call Pixar and Disney to see if someone could help. Pixar has an automated telephone answering system, Orum-Moore said, and unless she had a name of a specific person she wanted to speak to, she could not get through. Orum-Moore guessed a name, and the computer system transferred her to someone who could help, she said. Pixar officials listened to Colby's story and agreed to send someone to Colby's house the next day with a DVD of "Up". Lisa Curtin asked her daughter, "Do you think you can hang on?". "I'm ready (to die), but I'm going to wait for the movie," the girl replied. The company flew an employee with the "Up" DVD, which was still only in theaters, to the Curtin's home on June 10 for a private viewing. He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie, and the group settled in to watch "Up". Colby couldn't see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed, so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film. At the end of the film, Lisa if her daughter enjoyed the movie, and Colby nodded yes. Lisa Curtin described the Pixar employee, saying "He couldn't have been nicer. His eyes were just welled up." Of the film, she remarked, "When I watched it, I had really no idea about the content of the theme of the movie. I just know that word 'Up' and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for me it meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven." Seven hours after viewing the film, Colby passed away with her parents at her side. Pixar officials declined to comment on the story or name the employees involved.

That in itself can pass for a disney movie.