"Yogi Bear" and Philosophy.

Cyriaaque Lamar uncovers the existential nightmare that is the "Yogi Bear" movie:

Yogi Bear is like District 9 but way more depressing. In District 9, hundreds of aliens who have no interest in assimilating into human society are tossed in an internment camp. In Yogi, two (2) measly bears who want to be human are given a plot of federal land and forgotten. They receive no acknowledgement and are conferred no rights. Humanity cannot come to grips with a non-human sapience, so the bears are consigned to the woods. In this light, Ranger Smith's blandness assumes a new depth. His omnipresent guilt saps him of all vitality. He is no park ranger; he is Yogi's warden, complicit in a system he hates. The film's utter failure at everything is a metaphor for humanity's collective failure.


In the end, the relationship between Yogi and humanity most resembles that of the telepathic dog Blood and his savage boy Vic from Harlan Ellison's A Boy And His Dog. Like Blood, Yogi and Boo Boo's sentience is an aberration, but it gives them dignity. Human society in Yogi is summed up by Vic: base, uncouth, unadapting. But Ellison's tale was post-apocalyptic — Yogi Bear takes place in a world of laws. If humanity cannot accommodate two sapient bears, then I dread the (hypothetical) release of Yogi Bear 2: The Great Pic-A-Nic Caper. When Snagglepuss and Huckleberry Hound inevitably cameo, civilization will explode.