Cartoons...who are they for really?

We went to see Tangled, yet another cartoon...seems that I've been seeing a lot of cartoons lately! :) It's in 3D and I must say it's way better than Gulliver's Travels... S said it's because it's an animation so it's a lot easier to make all those effects. Perhaps...

Sometimes I have the feeling that cartoons aren't for children. I'm not talking about those in cartoon / graphic novel form but deal with serious issues like political persecution etc. I'm talking about Disney stuff! Sometimes I think the message behind, or certain messages that are hidden in the cartoons aren't really for innocent children - they're so thought-provoking that I found them a bit deep. (Hmmm. Perhaps because I sometimes think like a child / don't think at all.)

Anyway, in Tangled there's this overbearing 'mother' figure (in quotation marks because she's not the mother) who always says (sings) she knows what's best for Rapunzel. There's this recent book by a certain American Chinese mother Amy Chua that's caused a lot of controversy, and it's about her 'very Chinese' way of childrearing. S said he totally detests this kind of mother, who thinks she knows what's best for her children and doesn't let her children choose their path. He actually compared this mother to the one in Tangled - he said they're no different, or they have some kind of secret agenda themselves - in Tangled, the mother wants all of Rapunzel's hair to herself so she can stay young forever, and in the case of Chua, perhaps - I'm not sure, so this is just a guess - she thinks her children will thank her in the end for all her strictness. I'm a bit divided about this - I'm not a sufferer of the so-called atypical Chinese mother (I actually don't think Chinese mothers are like that), but that may also explain why I'm not successful. *smiles* But I can't see myself being like Chua one day - I may be strict (at some point), or may think  I know better (at some point), but I don't think I'll have the persistence and endurance required to do all that she does. Just thinking about it makes me dizzy... having children is a headache, really. :)