Not that the world doesn't already thank god for Miley Cyrus every single day, hourly, on its knees, but her recent unveiling of the real meaning of Alice In Wonderland has given us one more reason. What if we had just gone on thinking that this was a book meant for children's pleasure, written by a religious, socially awkward virgin with perhaps a slightly too keen interest in little girls? Knowing it's an acid trip, albeit one that took place not a few decades before acid existed, is so enlightening! And this is straight from Hannah Montana, she lives two lives side by side without anyone suspecting that the superstar is actually her; she probably knows a thing or two about making the seemingly impossible possible. Like, duh.
I'm sure Miley would get around to filling you in on some of the other insidious themes in classic children's literature, but the poor girl has enough on her plate - she can hardly find time to insult new ethnic groups these days, let alone contribute to the world's sum of literary knowledge! So, hopefully with her approval, allow me to fill you in on all the dangerous, deadly, evil subtexts to your favorite fond memories...so that you'll never be so foolish as to enjoy them for what they are on their faces, again!
The Chronicles of Narnia: Once you decode the whole book based on the anagrammatic and letter-replacement based cipher Lewis employed (hint: "Aslan" decodes to "Jesus") it becomes clear that these books were actually used to sell British state secrets to the Soviets during the cold-war era. Did you know that Queen Elizabeth II was secretly married to Hitler during his art student days, and that her inability to admit that the relationship was over contributed materially to the Nazi cause for the first years of the war? Well C.S. Lewis did...and so did the Russians.
The Wizard of Oz: Just because Hollywood glammed it up with whore-red slippers doesn't take away from the fact that this 'children's' book, in its original form, was meant as a critique of the gold standard, then crippling economic growth. So that proves that Mr. Baum's book is pretty much the reason that the economy is in trouble now - if only we'd never moved away from a gold-backed system, the value of Florida's sub-sub-sub-developments would still be sky-high! Sure, he refuted this interpretation in pretty much so many words, and there was no contemporary criticism to support the theory, but that's just because L. Frank Baum was a socialist (why else would he have a letter for a first name? unamurrican.), and, as anyone with half a brain knows, that got you tarred and feathered way back in the early 1900s.
The Hobbit: The Lord of the Rings trilogy has been interpreted is an allegory of WWII, an allegory of British colonialism, just super racist, and Catholicism lite, but did you know that its mild little predecessor, The Hobbit, was actually propaganda for same-sex marriage rights? Fourteen little men in the wilderness who find, most importantly, a golden ring? Guided through a dangerous part of their trip by a man who turns into a big bear? Bilbo eventually accepted back into his community, but now that his taste for "adventure" has "come out," always looked at a little askance? I mean, could it be any more obvious here, people?
Lemony Snicket: These tales of the Baudelaire orphans outwitting multiple death threats and a gaggle of guileful guardians, with meta-commentary by an unnamed author are...well they're definitely not intended as an ingenious snare for the use of pedophiles, I'll tell you that.
Twilight: Stephanie Meyer is actually the creator of a new religion whose main tenets are abstinence-only living until marriage, rejection of non-believers (even your parents), and which promises eternal life if you promise to replace sex with weird, fetishistic biting. It's right there on the dust jackets - all profits go to the church of Vampiontology. She's the L. Ron Hubbard of our days, hail Xe-, ummm...Tween-nu!
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials): Philip Pullman has made no secret of his anti-Narnian feelings, deriding those earlier books for creating an environment where "death is better than life; boys are better than girls . . . and so on. There is no shortage of such nauseating drivel in Narnia, if you can face it." You'd think that would give a good entry point into his, assumedly opposite, intentions for his own work, but what most readers haven't found on snopes.com is the fact that each of the characters in this book actually represents one of the figurines in his ever-growing Precious Moments porcelain keepsakes collection. Who's the big tough ol' atheist now? Who's that meanie-pants ol' atheist? Who's that widdle agnostic toughie-roughie?
Harry Potter: You guys don't need me to tell you - this one's all about hating Jesus, loving Satan, and secretly plotting to kill your parents! And that's just the surface level - if you make it to book four, there's actually a recipe for conjuring a killing demon out of regular table salt and the blood of an infant. And as if that weren't enough, J.K. (if only she were" j.k.") Rowling is trying to turn your kids gay. A world full of gay Satanist witches. Chilling stuff.
Winnie the Pooh: We all know that Disney animators love hiding sexual innuendo in their children's movies, but did you know that this practice started not with a very...involved priest in the Little Mermaid, but deep in the 100-acre wood(ie)? 1950s animators, aware that the still-naïve censorship board would be unlikely to pick up on most of what they were doing, picked this tale - with Eeyore's constant need to be stabbed sharply in the ass, Kanga's weird predilection for stuffing small animals into her orifices, and Winnie's...pooh - just to see how far they could push the limits. Then, after a huge drug orgy, fueled by not-as-anachronistic acid, the power-trip from pulling off both Alice and Winnie right under America's noses, and their own sick minds, they came up with a concept called "Hannah Montana" which was so crazy, so obviously a drug-induced, cradle-robber's fantasy, that, once sober, even the depraved Disney animators of the 1950s wouldn't touch it...