Personal View

I watched the movie when I was 10 and it was so impressive that I would never forget the story. I like the storyline of the movie. It is so touching – the unconditional love between mother and son, friendship between Dumbo and Mouse, the tolerance of differences, and the importance of believing in yourself. I like watching this classic film because it is heartening that the protagonist, “Dumbo”, accepted his differences and transformed a negative situation into a positive one, i.e. Dumbo used his big ears to fly. I was also attracted by the humorous scripts , visuals and music of the movie

I watched the movie again in 2024. Besides the fact that I still found this movie very heartwarming, I have some different perspectives while viewing this film:

The lightning at the start of the movie is quite frightening. It seemed like the beginning of a hard life and a harsh world.

Dumbo was born with exceptionally big ears making him different from the other babies. Children may be born with diversities, some are rich while some are poor, some are healthy while some with disabilities, some are born in a world of peace while some are in a nation of war. We need to accept our difference and work together to create a kind, fair, respectful, and harmonious world for everyone to live in. As an early reminder of the future, the film depicts the phenomenon, bullying and discrimination, back in the 1940s that still exist today.

While the love between mother and child is unconditional, there may also be conflicts due to differences in perspectives, expectations, or communication breakdowns or misunderstandings, e.g. academic pressure on children, frequency of internet usage, and socialising activities, etc. It can be viewed as a natural relationship and, if the conflict could not be resolved, it would have a bad impact on children in their family relationship especially when children is in the stage of adolescence.

Timothy, Dumbo’s best friend was extremely funny as well. His approach towards becoming friends with Dumbo really showed me how friendships should be. However, in real life, it is quite challenging to find true friendships or long-lasting friendships like Dumbo and Mouse. Relationships among friends may change due to changing values when you grow up, separation, lack of common interest or no time to meet up. Sometimes you will wonder what you have done wrong but do not dare to ask them. You just have no idea why your best friends drift apart or even disappear in your life!

Other interesting facts: “Dumbo” is an elephant and elephants do not fly. In real life, elephants are afraid of mice but Dumbo was not.