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Strawman Has A Point / Animated Films

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  • Balto: In the first movie, nearly everyone distrusts Balto, which is treated as Fantastic Racism towards wolf-dogs. However, most people are wary of large, potentially powerful (or diseased) stray dogs, and Balto being half-wolf also legitimately adds to the risk factor due to how wolf-dogs are known for being more dangerous and unpredictable than even full-blooded wolves. While the way his fellow dogs treat him does lean into the irrational (particularly since some of them outright bully him), the humans being wary is understandable - especially since they can't talk to the animals and so they don't have any proper way of knowing that he's not a threat.
  • In Beauty and the Beast, Cogsworth comes off as a bozo when he tells the others to stop being nice to Maurice when he stumbles in, and to kick him back out into the cold blizzard. However, as all the others seemed to have forgotten, being stuck in a cold blizzard is much better than the alternative: pissing off The Beast.
  • The Brave Little Toaster: While he's still clearly doing it to bully them, the Air Conditioner isn't wrong to say that it's unrealistic for the main characters to expect a now-grown child, whom they haven't seen in approximately ten years, to not only remember them but want to come back to them and that accepting it is easier than holding out. The fact that the Master does eventually come back to get them and that they're even reunited at all is sheer coincidence.
  • Cars 3: The audience is meant to see Sterling's choice to forcibly retire Lightning as cold-hearted. Up until this point, however, Lightning was in the midst of a losing streak, had a near-fatal crash, wasn't getting anywhere during training, and trashed a multimillion-dollar simulator. By all accounts, Sterling's completely right in making him retire. In fact, he was actually completely supportive of Lightning making a comeback before the aforementioned simulator incident.
  • Cats Don't Dance: Darla's Establishing Character Moment, to introduce her as the villain, is her going ballistic when Danny upstages her during the "Little Ark Angel" sequence and thus trying to steal her spotlight. However, she's completely right to be so angry. An extra going off-script and trying to butt into a lead actor's scene would get the extra fired on the spot in real life. Plus, the shot Danny ruined would have been a very complicated and very expensive scene to shoot even nowadays, let alone in the 1930's. If anything, Darla was pretty lenient: rather than boot him off set, fire him immediately, or have him blacklisted from acting altogether — three things she could have easily done — Darla has her hired muscle get a little rough with Danny and threaten him to stay on-script before resuming filming, apparently with Danny still in the movie. Darla is later shown to be the epitome of a Nice Character, Mean Actor who intends to get all animals in Hollywood blacklisted, and later tries to have Danny outright killed, which would actually cross into Disproportionate Retribution. But Darla had every right to be angry at Danny for ruining that shot, and her response wasn't that unreasonable.
  • Daddy, I'm a Zombie: Dixie being mad at her mom is supposed a sign of her terrible attitude. However, Sophia divorced Phil for an extremely petty reason: she didn't want to live next to a cemetery, despite being married to a mortician. When Phil suggest they just move, Sophia get gets angry and divorces him anyway. So, this makes Sophia look really unreasonable and Dixie justified in not liking her mom.
  • In The Emoji Movie, Smiler is supposed to come across as a tyrannical Control Freak for wanting to delete the main character, Gene, because of his "malfunction". The problem with this is that she lives in a world like something out of a Cosmic Horror Story where the entire universe the movie's emoji characters live in can be annihilated at a teenage boy's whim, something that nearly happens thanks to Gene. Her pursuit of Gene is clearly meant to be a case of Fantastic Racism, except that Gene's need to "be himself" not only destroys his workplace but also causes several innocent apps and their inhabitants to be deleted during his journey, putting the entirety of the world he inhabits at risk — something which Gene never apologizes for or tries to help repair. While her methods are admittedly extreme, her motivation ultimately comes down to preventing The End of the World as We Know It, and yet we're supposed to see everything she does as entirely unreasonable.
  • Ernest et Célestine: The Judges (and by extension Ernest and Celestine's respective fellow mice and bears) might have been biased against the title characters, but you can understand their anger since both of them have caused a majority of crimes.
  • Free Birds: The colonists' motivation for the hunt is to survive the next winter. Considering the conditions at the time (and the absence of time-travelling turkeys), this is understandable.
  • A Goofy Movie:
    • While Principal Mazur did exaggerate Max's bad behavior during the phone call with Goofy, Mazur has a right to be upset: Max interrupted a school assembly with help from Bobby and P.J and sent the principal down a trap door. Also, Mazur is presented as an overreacting Dean Bitterman, commenting how Goofy needs to correct Max's behavior "before he ends up in the electric chair," which is framed in a way that makes it look like he means Max should be executed for violating school rules. However, what Mazur is saying is that Max may one day get in serious legal trouble if he keeps up with this type of irresponsible behavior, and considering just how grossly over-the-top Max's attempt to become popular with a girl he liked was, this seems like an imminent possibility.
    • While Max is meant to come off as ungrateful when he openly admits his dislike of Goofy's antics, he has a point: Goofy took Max on an impromptu vacation somewhere that Max had vocally stated he didn't want to go instead of simply talking about the principal's phone call, and was only thinking about how this would affect him personally, making his motives pretty selfish. Max was certainly overreacting, but Goofy wasn't acting much better.
    • Pete may be a Jerkass, and while his own parenting borders on flat out emotional abuse, he still does have some valid points. He is not wrong to point out Goofy needs to be more assertive and while Goofy knows Max loves him, Pete is right to point out he also needs to have Max's respect and Max's lack of respect is the reason Max changes the map.
  • Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return: The appraiser — while still abrasive and crooked — is perfectly justified in listing the Gale home as uninhabitable and dangerous after it gets wrecked by the tornado. Dorothy's insistence that she can fix it herself comes off as naive and hysterical (not helped by his appearance immediately being followed by Dorothy trying and failing to fix things), and the film has to resort to revealing that the appraiser is actually a con artist so he won't come off as more reasonable.
  • Little Angels: The Brightest Christmas: At one point, Daniel complains about their dad making them live in the middle of nowhere and remarks that the situation is all his fault. Watchers are supposed to see this as Daniel refusing to take responsibility for his actions, but leaving his children alone in the middle of a blizzard in a cabin with no working phone line that's separated from the nearest town by a mountain and a dangerous river was a very irresponsible thing for the dad to do.
  • The Little Engine That Could (1991): While it was nothing short of cruel of the Tower to get Tillie's hopes up about pulling the birthday train, then screaming Big "NO!"'s in her face, he was within his rights to deny this request for several reasons. Firstly, the journey over the mountain has proven to be mortally perilous for Tillie and the birthday train passengers, and they only just barely manage to survive the collapsing bridge and avalanche. Secondly, unlike the other engines, Tillie has apparently no experience with pulling any trains, so with this in mind, her wanting to pull a train over the mountain not only seems like an overly lofty goal, but a dangerous one as well.
  • The Little Mermaid (1989): Triton and Sebastian scolding Ariel for missing the concert falls into this territory. Based on Flounder's reaction, the audience is supposed to think that Ariel isn't supposed to be reprimanded at all for missing the concert ("But it wasn't her fault!"). However, this is mentioned to be far from Ariel's first no-show (as evidenced by Sebastian's "If only she'd show up for rehearsal once in a while" and Triton's "I just don't know what we're going to do with you, young lady"), and they have a point that, because of her absence, the concert was ruined and those in it (Sebastian & her sisters) were humiliated. While Triton and Sebastian are definitely too hard on her and won't hear her out, they have every right to be angry and hold her accountable for her actions.
  • The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie: Although Daffy is being an entitled jerk for demanding the Oswald award go to him, he isn't wrong by exclaiming that Bugs winning the award was rigged. At the beginning of the awards segment, Bugs' narration makes it clear that Friz Freleng created the Oswald awards after Bugs complained about only getting a carrot for Knighty Knight Bugs while Friz took home an Oscar.
  • Mulan (1998)
    • Shang is portrayed as in the wrong for mistrusting Mulan after she was revealed to be a woman disguising herself as a man. This ignores the fact that, by pretending to be a man, Mulan has been lying to Shang and her fellow soldiers for months, and would still be lying to them had she not been wounded in battle. Mulan may have had good intentions in trying to save her father's life, but she not only risked her own life, she would have also brought shame on her family name for the dishonor of deceiving the entire Chinese army. This makes Shang's lack of trust in Mulan fairly reasonable.
    • While the Matchmaker was being a complete Jerkass by calling Mulan a disgrace (and for saying that Mulan will never bring her family honor), she was still in the right to give Mulan a failing grade on the test. Mulan was not an impressive bride-to-be (at first): even disregarding the Cri-kee antics that weren't entirely her fault, she still cheated by writing on her skin and spilled tea on the table while she was supposed to be proving her best mettle as a wife.
    • The Ancestors in the sequel are treated like unreasonable, spiteful jerks for cheering and rejoicing when Mulan and Shang's engagement means Mushu's role as Guardian will be ended, and taking joy in picking on and abusing Mushu—somewhat justifying his desperation to not losing his job—when if anything, they're perfectly reasonable for having to dread every moment of him gloating and pushing them around to the point that he's getting what he deserves—and on top of that, him having seemingly learned nothing by the end of the film when he gets to remain in his role only further aggravates the point.
  • My Little Pony: The Movie (2017): Tempest Shadow is disdainful of friendship and Equestria's friendship-centric way. But she raises unintentionally valid criticisms.
    • She bemoans how so much Equestrian power is wasted on parties when it has far greater uses. But if Equestria used that power to build an army powerful enough to defend against the Storm King and other threats, annex villainous or despondent locations like Klugetown, or put it into medical science to find solutions to her and others' disabilities (the apparent lack of her horn which drove her to villainy in desperation to get fixed), much of the movie's and the show's major conflicts might have been prevented or mitigated.
    • Tempest makes another good point with her Villain Song, "Open Up Your Eyes", which explains her backstory of why she distrusts friendship. Explanation (spoilers!)When she was little, she and her friends were playing with a ball that ended up in a cave. She went in to retrieve it and found out too late that there was an Ursa Minor inside. The Ursa Minor attacked her, destroying her horn. Afterward, her friends began to fear and shun her because the loss of her horn meant she had lost control of her magic, resulting in her abandoning the notion of friendship entirely. While the song is supposed to be evil/anti-friendship, it comes off more as a cautionary tale of being careful who you choose to trust because your "friends" are still capable of stabbing you in the back.
  • Origin: Spirits of the Past: While Shunack is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wishes to undo the damages done to Earth and correct his mistake, he's still supposed to be in the wrong as he advocates for dangerous and extremist measures. However, some fans have ended up siding with his cause, arguing that it would be a good thing to destroy the Forest based on Blue-and-Orange Morality.
  • Ratatouille: One of the points of contention between Remy and his father, Django, is how the only use Django sees in Remy's incredible sense of smell is as a poison detector. When the two are reunited later in the film, Remy is dejected that all Django has to say about Remy being separated from the clan is "Nobody got poisoned, thank God!". The thing is, while it's not as romantic as being a master chef, having a sense of smell sensitive enough to detect poisons is a very useful trait, especially for a rat colony.
  • In Return to Never Land, Jane's no-nonsense dismissal of all things childish is treated as wrong by the other characters and the narration, and her Character Development revolves around her needing to be reminded that she is still a child. However, she lives during the Blitz in a town regularly bombarded by German aircraft, so her growing up faster to be more responsible and having other priorities than children's stories (albeit while also being a killjoy) is actually pretty reasonable.
  • In The Secret of Kells, Abbot Cellach's obsession with building his wall over preserving the books and his decision to forbid his nephew Brendan to go to the forest are portrayed as well-intentioned but ultimately misguided, and there's no doubt that he's not the best at expressing his affection towards Brendan. However, when Brendan does go into the forest, he's attacked by wolves and would have died if the local representative of The Fair Folk didn't come to help him, so Abbot Cellach was perfectly justified. Moreover, Cellach's decision to protect the present (with his wall) instead of the future (the books and their knowledge) is justified in a time of invasions, and it's worth mentioning that a normal invading army would have thought twice before attacking a heavily fortified location - his opponents just happen to be unstoppable subhuman monsters.
  • Shark Tale: Oscar laughing off Angie advising him to tell everyone the truth about how Frankie died and admit that he's not actually a "Shark Slayer" is supposed to be seen as just yet another example of him being selfish and making bad decisions. But by that point, Oscar has managed to make the shark mob back off by faking Lenny's death, and it can be argued that his reputation is allowing the fish to live free.
  • The Simpsons Movie: Homer refusing to return to Springfield is supposed to come off as Homer being a Jerkass — which is not unfounded as the reason the town is in danger is because of Homer, so it can be seen as him not taking responsibility for his actions. But the Springfielders tried to kill all of the Simpson family (even Maggie!) for what Homer and Homer alone had done, which is over the line. Earlier in the movie, when the mob surrounded the Simpsons' house, Marge urged Homer to go outside and apologize, to which Homer says he can't risk the mob attacking the rest of the family. Carl shouts from outside that they're only interested in Homer, but as the family attempts to escape, it's clear that the mob does have designs on everybody. And when Homer attempts the apology anyway, it's useless. Homer himself brings this up, to which Marge has no comeback; the film tries to distract from the argument by segueing into a joke about Homer not knowing what time they were attacked. Bart is the only one who makes a semi-decent argument for trying to save Springfield — Flanders and his kids are there, and Flanders risked his life to help the Simpsons when they were in trouble, so the Simpson family owes him one. Even so, Homer's point still stands that he has every right to be angry at Springfield.
  • South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut: At the start of the movie, the mothers of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny are at least partly justified when they boycott Terrance and Philip, as their film did influence the boys badly: Kenny dies trying to replicate one of their stunts, giving them every reason to be angry. However, as a studio executive points out, the film had an adult rating; the boys sneak in by claiming a random adult was their legal guardian, and the studio who made the movie never intended it to be for children. The movie may have been gross, but the boys weren't the target audience. The parents only become full-on villains when they decide to blame all of their problems on Canada.
  • Strange World: We are supposed to see Searcher as an overbearing parent for not wanting his kid, Ethan, to become an explorer like Ethan wants to be. However, you don't need to be a stick-in-the-mud parent to think letting a teenager explore a Death World where everything wants you dead is a bad idea especially since Ethan shows he lacks basic survival skills, like when he trusts an animal he has never seen been before, which nearly gets him killed. (He only survives because said animal pulls a Heel–Face Turn.)
  • Towards the end of The Sword in the Stone, Merlin gets angry at Wart for being proud of having been made Sir Kay's squire, saying that he was expecting Wart to "amount to something" and "have some brains". The viewer is supposed to agree with Merlin, but there are a few things wrong with that. While Wart got the position through no real merit of his own (the person who was to be a squire in Wart's place had come down with a nasty fever), the boy is right when he says that an orphan like him has no real prospects in the society they're living in, and becoming a squire to a knight is the best he can reasonably hope for. Despite his good intentions, Merlin is forcing his own ahead-of-his-time reasoning on Wart, with the boy telling Merlin that he's so focused on the future that he's completely ignoring what's going on in the present.
  • Toy Story 2: Villain Stinky Pete the Prospector has the unambiguously nasty aim of keeping Woody from returning to Andy, whom Woody knows to appreciate him. However, as he's defeated, he screams "Children destroy toys! You'll all be ruined! Forgotten! Spending eternity rotting away in some landfill!" It's a perfectly legitimate concern, and Pete has no way of knowing how good an owner Andy is. His foreshadowing almost comes true in the third movie.
  • In Trolls (2016), Branch refuses to help Poppy save her friends after they have been abducted by the Big Bad Chef Bergen, and she disputes this by saying that they're his friends. While this is meant to come off as him being an unsympathetic jerk towards Poppy, Branch is actually completely within his rights to say no. He correctly points out that the captured trolls in question are Poppy's friends, not his, and them being captured was a consequence of them blowing off his warnings that their partying would expose their village to the Bergens while he spent years keeping to himself, making sure his bunker is fortified and well-stocked, and avoiding the Bergens, while the others simply think it's just him Crying Wolf, which to be fair he more-or-less does. When their loud party draws Chef's attention and lets her snatch up plenty of trolls, Branch feels no obligation to help them after they had ignored his advice for many years.
  • Turning Red: Ming is treated as being in the wrong for making her daughter Mei seal her panda spirit away with a ritual at the first red moon after it manifests. However, while Ming is generally an overbearing mother throughout the movie, she does have understandable reasons for wanting to seal it up (namely injuring her own mother with it), and Mei herself did attack and terrified Tyler at his party with her panda form after losing her temper. What's more, the decision to not seal the panda during the first subsequent red moon is explicitly stated to be a permanent one, while the inverse is not, because Mei's aunts and grandma release theirs. But all of Mei's family, including her mother, ultimately accepts her autonomous decision without even a discussion.
  • WALL•E: AUTO's refusal to let humans return to Earth is depicted as him being unable to see beyond his programming and adapt to a changing situation. However, the only basis for Earth being able to support life is the existence of one single plant in the vast, polluted wasteland that the planet has become. Add to this that the humans have atrophied to the point that they can barely walk under their own power, and that they are also so ignorant that their Captain thinks that pizza grows on plants. In the light of all this, the idea that these humans could survive on Earth is highly implausible, and the Captain's insistence on returning seems suicidally overconfident. Reportedly, test audiences for the film also thought that the humans would die within months of arriving back at Earth.
  • Wish (2023): King Magnifico is meant to be a narcissistic tyrant whose reasons for selectively granting wishes are excuses to prevent any threats to his power, and his eventually responding to his citizens objecting by descending to straight-up evildoing subverts any legitimacy or nuance he had. While it doesn't excuse his later actions, many viewers agree with his argument that vague wishes shouldn't be granted (sure, Sabino wants to inspire people with his music, but Magnifico doesn't know what they'd be inspired to do), nor ones that could violate another person's free will (i.e. "true love"). Despite his selfish ulterior motives, he is doing his job as king by bringing peace and prosperity to his kingdom by not granting wishes that could threaten his reign and ability to do so. This, along with his previous apprentices and applicants for the position often using it just to get him to grant their and loved ones wishes, and his citizens' response to the news that an unknown, possibly malevolent magical force is in the kingdom being solely concern for their wishes, seems to support Magnifico's belief they are ungrateful and their love of him conditional — even if he badly overreacts to that.

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