Disney Will Delete Hunting Scene Where Bambi’s Mother is Shot in its Upcoming Remake

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By Matt Manda

The 1942 Disney children’s classic Bambi is getting a remake and chatter from Hollywood insiders suggests the reboot won’t include one particularly critical scene. Not surprisingly, producers are leaving out the scene when the titular young fawn’s mother is presumably killed by a hunter.

“Not to spoil the plot, but there’s a treatment of the mom dying that I think some kids, some parents these days are more sensitive about than they were in the past,” film writer and former director Linsey Beer told a movie news website.

The decision is laughable. Bambi was produced in a way to smear the reputation of hunters. Outdoor writer Larry Case wrote in 2018 of how an editor at Outdoor Life wrote to Walt Disney of the unfair portrayal. Some things in the entertainment industry don’t change.

The same Hollywood anti-gun, anti-hunting culture behind the Bambi decision is reminiscent of an equally idiotic decision to reboot Looney Tunes while leaving out Elmer Fudd’s iconic shotgun.

elmer fudd no gun
Courtesy Warner Media

Viewers will have to wait until 2025 to see how the great minds of Tinseltown choose to portray Bambi’s mother’s death.

Trigger Warning

For centuries, even before the founding of the country, young Americans learned safe and responsible firearm ownership from their parents. It was necessary for survival, not just for hunting and harvesting game to eat but also for security and protection.

Millions of young people today learn the value and importance of firearm handling early on from families passing down traditions to hunter education courses and youth programs like Scouting and 4-H. Cultivating the understanding of handling firearms makes for safer and more responsible gun-owning adults. For Disney, this is problematic.

For those who need a refresher – there is no specific depiction of Bambi’s mother being shot and killed in the original movie. No blood, no struggle, no suffering.

The scene that’s triggering for the Disney suits involves Bambi and his mother eating grass in a snowy field. Mom becomes aware of approaching hunters and urges Bambi to run cover. The scene cuts to Bambi running through woods and the report of a shot rings out. Bambi continues running, but his mother isn’t seen again. That’s all. For Disney, that “trauma” is too much.

Movie news website World of Reel criticized the decision.

“It is quite likely that the studio has decided to remove it so as not to offend today’s sensibilities,” wrote Jordan Ruimy, for World of Reel. “As if we couldn’t despise Disney more, nixing out this scene is an odd creative decision. Bambi’s mother should absolutely die… as it sets up the emotional stakes for the rest of the film.”

“The changes to Bambi come as Disney has been lambasted by critics for its recent “woke” remakes of other live-action films,” the Post Millennial’s Katie Daviscourt wrote.

Beer added the scene is just too problematic for millions of today’s parents and whole generations of kids who have never seen one of Disney’s earliest and most well-known classics.

“I do think there’s an entire generation of children who have never seen the original, which is such a shame,” Beer said.

‘Wascally Wabbit’ Hypocwisy

Disney likely thinks they aren’t making an unprecedented decision. HBO Max made a similarly silly decision to satisfy anti-hunting activists and gun control advocates when they rebooted the Looney Tunes cartoons. Show writers nixed perpetually-failing hunter Elmer Fudd’s iconic shotgun, as well as Yosemite Sam’s two trusty revolvers. At the time, Executive Producer Peter Browngardt tried to make it make sense. He failed.

“We’re not doing guns. But we can do cartoony violence – TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in.”

Apparently, explosions and the occasional anvil drop are just fine, as is Fudd is chasing Bugs Bunny around with a Grim Reaper-style scythe. At the time, Warner Bros. never said antigun pressure led to their decision, but Looney Tunes animator Michael Ruocco all but confirmed it.

“Also, think about context about what’s going on in the world… Right on the heels of a record number of mass shootings… NOBODY wanted to touch guns working in media,” Ruocco posted on social media.

Disney is on the receiving end of plenty of criticism for “going woke” in recent years, but they can’t be criticized for being consistent. Disney’s 2023 remake of the classic Peter Pan still includes a pistol-wielding Captain Hook and plenty of cannon fire. Writers kept in numerous swashbuckling pirates swinging their swords, but that makes too much sense today.

A combination of knives, clubs, blunt objects and fists are used to intentionally kill more Americans each year than the total number murdered by all rifles, a statistic perpetually left out of the gun control argument in support of banning modern sporting rifles (MSRs).

Walk It Back

The continued erasure of hunting traditions in media and efforts to eliminate the teaching of responsible firearm ownership and use by young Americans isn’t only happening on the silver screen. California Gov. Gavin Newsom attempted to criminalize anything remotely related to youth hunting and recreational shooting sports when he passed a law that imposed $25,000 civil fines on “firearm industry members” for advertising “any firearms-related product” in a way that could be seen as “appealing to minors.”

The California State High School Clay Target League couldn’t take the risk of continuing operation. “As a school-based activity serving students from 6th-12th grade, these provisions serve to outlaw the very name and existence of the California State High School Clay Target League,” the group posted on its website. Gov. Newsom was forced to backtrack. Still, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blocked the law.

The pushback was fierce at the federal level too, after President Joe Biden’s attempt to eliminate hunter education and archery program funding in schools. After swift bipartisan calls for the president to reverse course, President Biden was forced to sign a law, passed with near unanimous support in both chambers of Congress (only one vote in either opposed), reversing his administration’s anti-gun overreach.

Early education about hunting is beneficial and leads to safer and more responsible gun owners. Legislative attempts to eliminate these educational programs are met with strong opposition for good reason.

By eliminating the hunting scene in their Bambi remake, Disney is once again showing it’s far more interested in appeasing social activists and gun control advocates precisely at a time when the public overwhelmingly wants them to stay out of it.

 

Matt Manda is Manager, Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation

50 COMMENTS

  1. In the update, the ” doe ” dies after the mean Republicans stopped paying for the necessary hormones required to keep ” her ”
    from turning back into a buck, and the wussified animal was driven from the herd and died in a snowbank.

    • Diz knee may divest of all their peripheral holdings as they are literally hemorrhaging $. I need a haunch of venison🦌🙄😀

    • Disney had not only bent the knee to w0ke s0cial-justice activists, they have bent over backwards to assist their not-so-secret agenda, and bent over forwards to further appease them.

      No wonder the “house of mouse” stock price is at record lows. Parks have record non-attendance. The Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser hotel experience has closed after $1 billion on losses.

      Go w0ke and go broke.

      • Well children in the real world after some kidnapper takes you into the forest and stabs you to death and later Bambi stumbles upon the crime scene she is not going to call 911. You see kiddies it is for you and yours to be armed and vigilant so you can call 911 to come take the kidnapper to the morgue.

      • “…stock price is at record lows.”

        Disney will recover. Buy low & sell high, you capitalists. I made a pile on Peloton as a result of their “scandal” just prior to covid.

      • “The Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser hotel experience has closed after $1 billion on losses.”

        Every local review on that I have seen (since it is local to me) has been along the lines of “Nice, but too damn expensive”.

        How expensive?

        “Three guests (2 adults, 1 child): Rates start at $889 per night, per guest. Therefore, 2-night stays for a party of 3 start at $5,299.

        https://magicguides.com/how-much-does-disneys-star-wars-hotel-cost/

    • fawns are born in the spring…deer are hunted in the fall…which makes the whole thing a false premise….and who goes hunting with a scythe?…..utter nonsense!

    • A damn good thing the original is easily found online, dead mom and all… 🙂

      • I bought the Warner Bros Cartoon Collection DVD set back the mid 2000s. All of the cartoons in their original untouched state.

        Much better than the new w0ke versions.

    • I was going to say a hunter in a maga hat who looks suspiciously like Trump will capture and slowly torture to death both of Bambi’s moms, and then cruelly deny Bambi gender affirming hormone treatments. And the evil hunter was only able to capture them because the forrest was affected by climate change. But happy ending! Bambi is rescued by heroic and noble Hamas freedom fighters!

  2. I’d kinda like to see an 18 wheeler flying down the highway with the driver chowing down on a submarine sandwich, drinking a cup of coffee, talking on the CB radio and then *Kablamb* Bambis mom gets run over and hung up in the duelies and the truck smears blood and guts for 159 yards.

    • Yup—smelly, polluting diesel truck or some souped up V-8:truck. Helps to paint (smear?) all ICE vehicles in the same Earth-destroying perspective.

      Perhaps they’ll remake Old Yeller where Tommy sends the dog to Aunt Suzy’s farm for dogs with rabies.

    • “…and the truck smears blood and guts for 159 yards.”

      I haven’t had a laugh like that in *years*, Marsupial One, thanks! 🙂

    • I wish, more likely it will be global warming related. If that is the case then we can at least trigger people by reminding them that Bambi’s mom got cooked in both movies.

  3. There is no point in raising your blood pressure here. Every single thing that is Disney should be boycott. Don’t bother pausing to think about it. Just move along.

  4. With Disney’s current financial woes I’m willing to bet the “live-action” Bambi remake never happens. Those remakes aren’t really live-action anyway, just photorealistic animation with a smattering of actual photography sprinkled in.

    The hunting stuff in the original Bambi movie is pretty bad – very much a depiction of “slob” hunters who’re not only shooting game birds with rifles and responsible for offing Bambi’s mom but they cause the big climactic forest fire by not minding their campsite properly. On the other hand the animation is absolutely lovely, maybe even better than Snow White or Pinocchio.

    The original book was hardly pro-hunting, but it did get banned and burned by the N@z1s for being a supposed allegory about the treatment of “enemies of the state” in Germany in the 1930s if you know what I mean.

  5. And Warner Bros. Animation pretty much got the fate they deserved – after the merger with Discovery they’ve been lumped in with the TV guys and now work for Cartoon Network – a long, ignominious drop from the glory days of Termite Terrace!

  6. and Bambi’s mom will be a purple haired lesbian doe, that had in vitro…😂🤣😅🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

  7. There is the 9 to 5 version was kinda fun. Just put on ‘Bambi Meets Godzilla’ and be done with it.

  8. So much of the older stuff for kids had heavy matter in it. Now kids are so soft and sanitized using terms like mother and father beget counseling.

    The perfect generation to make it through WWIII.

  9. I am worried about Yosemite Sam. Any news? That little dude does NOT need to be running around unarmed.

  10. Disney could make Bambi a rhinoceros in this remake and no one will be there to notice.

    I’ve got a proposition for Disney: instead of blowing $500 million on another box office bomb, give me $200 million and I’ll promise real hard to buy a few shares of stock. Win-win.

  11. How about a movie about making Bambi’s Mom into burger, sausage and roasts? The using the hide for some diy projects?

      • Well not yet this is just a Federal judge declining to allow a restraining order to remain in place (see 2nd and 9th circuits) just means it will be largely ignored and slowly wind it’s way through court until it actually gets a decision.

        • don’t spoil daicans delusion you big meanie. He thinks this his thing was about Bruen.

          🤣

        • Oh my bad probably should not be so harsh but was mildly disappointed that Gazolla vs Hochul got the expected denial this Tuesday so have to wait on the Second still.

  12. It should be an ATF raid on Bambi’s family when the agents just shoot the mom in the back 47 times or maybe kneel on her neck until she chokes out. Doe’s lives matter.

  13. In the Disney remake if reality were used: Bambi becomes Bob and Sally then has an abortion procedure to feel like a ‘they’ then spends all day in public demanding people address them with their pronouns instead of laughing at them.

  14. See, this is the reason we need to ban McDonalds selling all those chicken McNuggets all these ‘sensitive’ ‘parent triggered’ kids eat. If they ever learn that, you know, chickens are slaughtered to bring them their num-num McNuggets … and those burgers …WoW! that would really mess these sensitive ‘triggered parents’ up if they didn’t like them so much.

    And Disney Land/Disney World is nothing but trigger-land for these sensitive parents and kids, resultants like Plaza Inn with its pepperoni pizza, and Bengal Barbecue with its Chieftain chicken skewer and Bengal beef skewer …. and all the others with its cute slaughtered animal food products. Heck, its a wonder Disney doesn’t try to make a buck from selling Bambi Burgers.

    Oh! The horror of virtue signaling hypocrisy!

  15. I’ve got the original Bambi. Loaned it to my sister to show the kids – when it got to the part with Bambi’s mom they wondered a bit about it, asked a couple of questions, and came to the reality realization that all things die, and were sad but recovered just fine and did not need the ‘mental health’ therapy these stupid virtue signaling parents and companies today claim will be needed. They were not emotionally or psychologically scarred or damaged like the stupid virtue signaling ‘triggered parents’ and companies say they will be. They learned something about life, the reality they will need to face some day. If you raise emotionally weak children, if you don’t let them learn to face the reality of life, they will always be weak and dependent upon others to validate them, in some way.

  16. Y’all are assuming Disney will still be making movies in 2025. The lefties who have gained control of Disney and who are so eager to use what’s left of it too push their propaganda have destroyed so much of the value and reputation of the company that they are already selling off pieces. Who here other than the resident trolls has gone to any Disney movie in the last five years?

  17. I wanted to join the Mickey Mouse club but my Father said NO.
    “Your not going to spend your time watching a gdamned mouse when theres choirs to do.”

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