I blame the Disney Effect.
So many Disney cartoon movies open with the death of a mother, the abandonment of a child. Our hearts are engaged, as human hearts so easily are, with sympathy for the lost and lonely, the helpless left alone in a hostile world. We attach these feelings to baby elephants and fawns, for instance, but they are our feelings, human feelings, and particularly our feelings and assumptions about death and loss. Disney has built an empire on painting animals even in film documentary style, as creatures... Sign in to see full entry.