Why we "cutify" the beastly dangerous

hey are called "Teddy Bears" in honor of  26th US President Theodore Roosevelt who refused to shoot a brown bear tethered to a tree during a hunting trip to Mississipi in 1902. Roosevelt was known to be a big game hunter but he had never killed a bear. Due to limited time in his visit, some wise guy thought of the idea of trapping a brown bear alive and tying it down to a tree. They then ushered  the president to the backyard so he could have the honor of shooting the bear.

    Roosevelt was aghast. It's one thing to shoot a charging grizzly about to maul you to death. But this bear was a sitting duck. Even if it had been cut loose, its leg was broken by the vise-like grip of the bear trap that was used to capture it. It had no chance of running away.

I came across this bank of ewoks--lovable critters
from outer space tradition--at a gift shop that
specialized in "peace offerings" to girlfriends
on a rampage. Their boyfriends, those suckers,
gladly paid a fortune for these mood softeners.

     I agree it would have been disgusting if Roosevelt had shot the bear under those circumstances. And it would have been even more embarrassing if he missed. Long story short, a political cartoonist caricatured Roosevelt's humane gesture and it totally endeared him to the American public. Roosevelt went on to sign legislation that established the US Forestry Service and five National Parks. He became the leading advocate of wildlife conservation--and not just of the bear.

     

 Ever since, the "Teddy Bear" has become the most popular toy. It started a trend of making the vicious beast a symbol of gentleness and kindness--virtues meant to extol Roosevelt--but few people even accept  the notion of an authentically kind politician. So only the name Teddy Bear paid homage to the great man, the kindness and gentleness attribute all went to the bear.

I think the Japenese are leading the charge
of correcting the idea that dangerous beasts
ought to be portrayed as cuddlier. Their own
point of inspiration is the tamer and truly
huggable-in-real-life pets like cats and
rabbits. No wonder their globally-recognized
Hello Kitty brand is raking in the serious
megabucks.

    In my own "hunt shoots" prowling around the urban landscape, I've always encountered many bear displays. In fact, I've shot so many bear shots I thought one day I need to write something about them. The bears I've shot are not the man-killer types, of course. They are the umpteenth generation descendants of the  Teddy Bear toys originally created by the American Ideal Toy Company (with Roosevelt's approval) in 1902.  

    Today it is not just bears that are made into cute, cuddly, huggable stuffed toys. There are equally cute and endearing stuffed versions of lion, tiger, leopard, alligator, cheetah, hippo, rhino, buffalo, hyena, orangutan, elephant, walrus, shark, orca--ad infinitum.  Think of any vicious animal that if you unfortunately run into in the wild would absolutely kill you--and you can bet there's a cuddly likeness of it in all-natural fiber cloth skin and crush-proof foam filling.

    A manatee wouldn't hurt you, and I haven't seen too many manatee stuffed toys.

   I think it's absolutely a Freudian slip. We want to  "cutify" that which frightens us. What we cannot deal with successfully in real life, what we cannot overcome or dominate in the physical world we like to pummel into submission in the make-believe realm.

    On the other hand,   if you prefer to be  spiritual about this, I think it echoes the biblical-era regret of the progeny of the entire human race for the failure of Adam and Even to obey very simple dietary instructions. Because of their incompetence a totally pissed-off Creator ended the regime of all wildlife submitting themselves to the caretakership of Mr. and Mrs. Conservation Failure. We'll have to wait till after the Tribulation, the advent of a new heaven and an new earth, before babies can play with lions unharmed again.  In the meantime, the only way you can pet the likeness of the Lion of Judah for now  is if it was a stuffed toy. 

    For the more secular agnostics, of course,  the faith narrative stretch may be a bridge too far. They would rather subscribe to the Freudian philosophy that we simply irrationalize what we cannot rationally accept.  This makes this whole discussion more based on science than myticism. Or does it? 

At Christmas 2011 in SM mall Baguio (Philippines) the Christmas diorama
that their amazing arts and graphics people came up with was a "North Pole"
scenario, complete with polar bear, penguins, snow leopards, alpine huskies--
all in meticulously crafted stuffed toy tradition. Never mind if these animals
being portrayed as all that tame is inaccurate, people had no trouble in the
area of suspension of disbelief. After all, in tropical Philippines there's no
snow, Eskimos or igloos either,

   Do you know why the devil is portrayed as a pitchfork-wielding nincompoop with crooked nose, bloodshot bulging eyeballs,oversized earlobes, drooping cheeks, ill-fitting red pajamas and an overall unflatteringlook? 

   Early biblical scholarship--the religous intelligentsia--taught that Lucifer used to be an angel who fell from the heavens because of pride. So it was widely taught, and believed, that the antidote to the anti-godly menace of the devil is to ward him off with the same force that hurled him down to earth: an attack against his pride that he simply couldn't take. So every imaginable detail was painstakingly added to the caricature of the devil that would make him look absolutely ricidulous and laughable. Make the devil deplorable and not cute--anti-Christ meets anti-Teddy Bear.  

   Religious men applying Freudian science even ahead of the man's time? You'd never think science and faith intersected so early.  (all photos copyright 2020 Joel R. Dizon)

 

Ancient building makeover folly

I took the photograph of the Vigan Cathedral at left sometime in 2008. Then I photographed the same church about eight years later in 2016 (right) from the opposite end. To me, this is one example of some people not knowing any better than to leave be what should be left alone. Before the church's walls were plastered and painted over in yellow latex, they were dressed in bare stone that have aged gracefully with a light deposit of green moss. The old stoneface is a second course, beneath it is the original masonry of bricks made from corral sand. It evoked the subtle influence of its baroque architectural origins dating back to the Spanish colonial era. The garish remake at right is only appropriate perhaps if you're endorsing some quick-dry cement product for making roughly-textured walls smooth and shiny.   This is a definite FAIL. The shiny plaster finish is 21st century cladding technology. The local stucco finish of yesteryears is period-correct for an old Spanish church. You shouldn't try to bring a 17th- or 18th-century church into the 21st century. You just don't do that, period.