The scene may have been staged, but Wiki's entry on them suggests the demonstrated behavior is completely authentic, instead taking a more semantic argument about the term suicide:
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"Lemmings have become the subject of a widely popular misconception that they are driven to commit mass suicide when they migrate by jumping off cliffs. It is not a deliberate mass suicide, in which animals voluntarily choose to die, but rather a result of their migratory behavior. Driven by strong biological urges, some species of lemmings may migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. They can swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat. In such cases, many drown if the body of water is an ocean or is so wide as to exceed their physical capabilities. Thus, the unexplained fluctuations in the population of Norwegian lemmings, and perhaps a small amount of semantic confusion (suicide not being limited to voluntary deliberation, but also the result of foolishness), helped give rise to the popular stereotype of the suicidal lemmings, particularly after this behaviour was staged in the Walt Disney documentary White Wilderness in 1958.[12] The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late 19th century. In the August 1877 issue of Popular Science Monthly, apparently suicidal lemmings are presumed to be swimming the Atlantic Ocean in search of the submerged continent of Lemuria.[13]"
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The Disney Film narrated the event (from the article) as, "A kind of compulsion seizes each tiny rodent and, carried along by an unreasoning hysteria, each falls into step for a march that will take them to a strange destiny. That destiny is to jump into the ocean. As they approach the sea, they've become victims of an obsession -- a one-track thought: Move on! Move on!"
I guess Disney's real offense was picking the wrong subspecies of lemming (one that absolutely doesn't have this behavior) and forcibly dropping them off a cliff because the little creatures wouldn't play along otherwise. Pretty nasty.
A cartoon depiction of kissing a life-saving non-consensual kiss somehow is not as bad as actually murdering dozens of real world living animals on camera for profit.
> [...] the sleeping beauty, Talia, falls into a deep sleep after getting a splinter of flax in her finger. She is discovered in her castle by a wandering king, who "carrie[s] her to a bed, where he gather[s] the first fruits of love." He abandons her there after the assault and she later gives birth to twins while still unconscious.
Oh come on, can we stop wasting time on these meaningless, overly politically correct discussion on fairy tales or derivations of fairy tales that are decades to centuries old. They are the products of their time and have their limits, but that doesn't make them bad stories -- if anything, the stories are more inspiring and comforting than disturbing.
By that logic Mario games should be banned because it reinforces gender stereotypes, right? Opera houses should just shut down because most of their repertoire is based on silly stories of men pursuing women, often misogynist?
> By that logic Mario games should be banned because it reinforces gender stereotypes, right? Opera houses should just shut down because most of their repertoire is based on silly stories of men pursuing women, often misogynist?
How quickly we forget the middle of last decade where everything was problematic.
Cinderella is the lass who loses her shoe, not one of the ones who fall asleep, those are Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
While the Snow White situation is especially bad (first time we see the guy is when he drops by to plant one on a presumed-dead minor), the Sleeping Beauty story is a bit more nuanced: he was there as a child when the curse was laid on the princess so he knows what's going on and they have at least some foundation for their relationship, albeit a shaky one (the meeting in the forest).
> first time we see the guy is when he drops by to plant one on a presumed-dead minor
Disney or the Grimm Brothers version? The original tale has Snow White (presumed dead) in a glass casket, the prince is taking her back to her father for a proper funeral, and she wakes up when the poisoned apple gets dislodged during the movement from the horses.
A kiss of life is not sexual in nature and its intent is different.
In the Cinderella story it is a kiss motivated by sexual desire (even if it is not worded quite that way for kids). It would be different if the prince knew it would revive her - IIRC he does not.
Assault might be a bit strong, and it does benefit her. However, it is definitely not something that would be normal behaviour in real life. How would you like to be woken by a stranger kissing you? Then again, fairy tails are pretty weird anyway.
>In the Cinderella story it is a kiss motivated by sexual desire ... It would be different if the prince knew it would revive her - IIRC he does not.
I believe you and the person you are quoting are referring to Snow White and not Cinderella?
Premising that I'm not acquainted with the original story, I find the claim that an "useless" kiss is inherently sexual ridiculous: kisses can be displays of affection without carrying romantic or sexual connotations, not to mention giving a last kiss to a deceased loved one is not that uncommon.
> the demonstrated behavior is completely authentic
But Attempting to cross a body of water is quite a bit different than plunging off a cliff. A rather low-to-the-ground animal has limited information about the width/risk of a water obstacle, but they do know what happens if they walk off a cliff. That's something they encounter in the course of normal daily behaviours required to provision fitness. Faking the cliffwalk because attempting to cross oceans exists is more than a semantic argument.
Pretty much the entire second half of the article addresses this directly.
Or find a way to watch that segment of the documentary. Those few lines of the narration don't really capture the narrative of the visual story-telling. (Though it was somewhat sickening to watch even before we knew the filmmakers were torturing and killing the lemmings rather than just observing them.)
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"Lemmings have become the subject of a widely popular misconception that they are driven to commit mass suicide when they migrate by jumping off cliffs. It is not a deliberate mass suicide, in which animals voluntarily choose to die, but rather a result of their migratory behavior. Driven by strong biological urges, some species of lemmings may migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. They can swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat. In such cases, many drown if the body of water is an ocean or is so wide as to exceed their physical capabilities. Thus, the unexplained fluctuations in the population of Norwegian lemmings, and perhaps a small amount of semantic confusion (suicide not being limited to voluntary deliberation, but also the result of foolishness), helped give rise to the popular stereotype of the suicidal lemmings, particularly after this behaviour was staged in the Walt Disney documentary White Wilderness in 1958.[12] The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late 19th century. In the August 1877 issue of Popular Science Monthly, apparently suicidal lemmings are presumed to be swimming the Atlantic Ocean in search of the submerged continent of Lemuria.[13]"
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The Disney Film narrated the event (from the article) as, "A kind of compulsion seizes each tiny rodent and, carried along by an unreasoning hysteria, each falls into step for a march that will take them to a strange destiny. That destiny is to jump into the ocean. As they approach the sea, they've become victims of an obsession -- a one-track thought: Move on! Move on!"
That does not seem especially inaccurate.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming