animated tale of a panda who dreams of Becoming a Kung Fu master

Rating: 1/10 (3 July 2008)

I could only watch half of this movie, then I had to call it quits for me and my daughter. Imagine teaching children to prejudge and ridicule people based on looks. The panda looks like the panda is SUPPOSED to look, and he stands there and accepts the poking and prodding and ridicule that is heaped upon him and it made me sad to watch. If the Panda were female or if he were a caricature of a visible minority, jokes of the same ilk would be inexcusable, so how is this funny? I'm sick to death of this trite perpetuation of a stereotype that, at best, teaches children forget that there is a broad range of what is beautiful, or, indeed, what is healthy.'There is evidence that fat people who achieve cardiovascular fitness through exercise have better health outcomes than lean people who don't.' Many people are overweight. Many people think that being fit means being lean. We have to stand this idea on its head and film and TV would be a powerful way to get these ideas across to the burgeoning generation, instead, we perpetuate cruelty and a culture where eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder, ranging between 5-15% for patients with anorexia and 1-2% for those with bulimia; where people with these eating disorders have the potential for imminent and serious self-harm (those with anorexia are 57 times more likely to commit suicide than the expected rate for women in the same age/racial groupings). Time for Hollywood to behave more responsibly.