Dani answers “What is the overall message for this story??”

Albert Benjamin asked this question about The Giving Tree:

What is the overall message for this story??

Dani Oh wow, so this is Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince in a new setting? I haven’t read the book, didn’t know it existed, but I now know where the inspirat…moreOh wow, so this is Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince in a new setting? I haven’t read the book, didn’t know it existed, but I now know where the inspiration came for a truly splendid adaptation (parody, then, I guess) called The Muffin Tree. It’s an early youtube video in which the little kid gets poisoned by the tree once it gets too greedy. Maybe today’s kids need a more blunt message - my kids loved it and asked for it repeatedly at the ages of about 6-7 upwards.

I shall ask them soonish if they remember it, I am pretty sure they do! Now in their mid-twenties, they are definitely not takers or matchers. However, I think that may have to do with having been brought up surrounded by givers. They both have boundaries too, but rather than crediting the animation student from twenty years ago or more, I suspect we loved the video because it very absurdly, fabulously, rhymed with how we already lived.

It turns the Muffin Films were made by Amy Winfrey for her phd thesis. She later created, among other things, Making Fiends, whivh i have just checked out and is similar in terms of hunour. Love it 😄
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