Strawman Has A Point / Animated Films

• Balto: In the first movie, nearly everyone distrusts Balto, which is treated as Fantastic Racism towards wolf-dogs. However, most people are wary of large, potentially powerful (or diseased) stray dogs, and Balto being half-wolf also legitimately adds to the risk factor due to how unpredictable even tame wolf-dogs can be. While the way his fellow dogs treat him does lean into the irrational (particularly since some of them outright bully him), being wary is understandable - especially since the humans can't talk to the animals and so they don't have any proper way of knowing that he's not a threat.
• In Beauty and the Beast, Cogsworth comes off as a bozo when he tells the others to stop being nice to Maurice when he stumbles in, and to kick him back out into the cold blizzard. However, as all the others seemed to have forgotten, being stuck in a cold blizzard is much better than the alternative: pissing off The Beast.
• The Brave Little Toaster: While he's still clearly doing it to bully them, the Air Conditioner isn't wrong to say that it's unrealistic for the main characters to expect a now-grown child, whom they haven't seen in approximately ten years, to not only remember them but want to come back to them and that accepting it is easier than holding out. The fact that the Master does eventually come back to get them and that they're even reunited at all is sheer coincidence.
• Cars 3: The audience is meant to see Sterling's choice to forcibly retire Lightning as cold-hearted. Up until this point, however, Lightning was in the midst of a losing streak, had a near-fatal crash, wasn't getting anywhere during training, and trashed a multimillion-dollar simulator. By all accounts, Sterling's completely right in making him retire. In fact, he was actually completely supportive of Lightning making a comeback before the aforementioned simulator incident.
• Cats Don't Dance: While Darla definitely overreacts during the filming of "Little Ark Angel", Danny does upstage her show and tries to steal her spotlight, which would get most real-life extras fired almost instantly if they dared to go off-script and try butting into a lead actor's/actress' scenes. Moreover, he ruins a shot that would be very complicated for the 1930s on his first day, thus wasting everyone's time and a substantial amount of money.
• In The Emoji Movie, Smiler is supposed to come across as a tyrannical Control Freak for wanting to delete the main character, Gene, because of his "malfunction". The problem with this is that she lives in a world like something out of a Cosmic Horror Story where the entire universe the movie's emoji characters live in can be annihilated at a teenage boy's whim, something that nearly happens thanks to Gene. Her pursuit of Gene is clearly meant to be a case of Fantastic Racism, except that Gene's need to "be himself" not only destroys his workplace but also causes several innocent apps to be deleted during his journey and puts the entire world he inhabits at risk — something which Gene never apologizes for or tries to help repair. While her methods are admittedly extreme, her motivation ultimately comes down to preventing The End of the World as We Know It, and yet we're supposed to see everything she does as entirely unreasonable.
• A Goofy Movie:
  • While Principal Mazur did exaggerate Max's bad behavior during the phone call with Goofy, Mazur has a right to be upset: Max interrupted a school assembly with help from Bobby and P.J and sent the principal down a trap door. Also, Mazur is presented as an overreacting Dean Bitterman, commenting how Goofy needs to correct Max's behavior "before he ends up in the electric chair," which is framed in a way that makes it look like he means Max should be executed for violating school rules. However, what Mazur is saying is that Max may one day get in serious legal trouble if he keeps up with this type of irresponsible behavior, and considering just how grossly over-the-top Max's attempt to become popular with a girl he liked was, this seems like an imminent possibility.
  • While Max is meant to come off as ungrateful when he openly admits his dislike of Goofy's antics, he has a point: Goofy took Max on an impromptu vacation somewhere that Max had vocally stated he didn't want to go instead of simply talking about the principal's phone call, and was only thinking about how this would affect him personally, making his motives pretty selfish. Max was certainly overreacting, but Goofy wasn't acting much better.
  • Pete may be a Jerkass, and while his own parenting borders on flat out emotional abuse, he still does have some valid points. He is not wrong to point out Goofy needs to be more assertive and while Goofy knows Max loves him, Pete is right to point out he also needs to have Max's respect and Max's lack of respect is the reason Max changes the map.
• Judge Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame is generally presented as a bigoted Knight Templar, but nonetheless, not all of his actions are as unreasonable as they may first appear when viewed in their proper context. For example, even though he acts like an abusive foster parent, Frollo's grim depiction of the world "out there" is actually quite realistic considering the film is set in Medieval Europe, which was not known for being kind to those with severe birth defects. Quasimodo gets to witness this first hand, and later says that it's because of people like Frollo that the world is that way, but his point is undermined by the fact that there's at least one scene where a large group of people is cruel to him without any involvement from Frollo.
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: Sid's arguments for adopting the eggs are dismissed by the narrative as him making a irrational choice for being at the verge of a personal crisis as well as being...well, Sid, but his actions are fairly reasonable, he found three lonely eggs underground and the legitimate mother didn't actually bothered to find them until they were born, he has every reason to believe they were abandoned and that he was doing the right thing by adopting them. And while denying a dinosaur of his babies isn't a wise choice, he's not wrong he was the one who took care of them until they were born and therefore are his sons.
• Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return: The appraiser — while still abrasive and crooked — is perfectly justified in listing the Gale home as uninhabitable and dangerous after it gets wrecked by the tornado. Dorothy's insistence that she can fix it herself comes off as naive and hysterical (not helped by his appearance immediately being followed by Dorothy trying and failing to fix things), and the film has to resort to revealing that the appraiser is actually a con artist so he won't come off as more reasonable.
• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride: Simba is portrayed as prejudiced for failing to bury the hatchet with the exiled Outsiders for most of the film. However, not only do they show no interest in dropping their hatred of him until the very end, they're loyalists to Scar, the ruler who usurped rule over the Pridelands by killing Simba's father, convinced Simba that it was his fault and that he should run away, tried to kill Simba when he came back, and would have condemned all his subjects to death out of stubborn pride. Moreover, they're actively plotting to kill Simba and take over his kingdom, so it's not hard to agree with Simba that they shouldn't be in the Pridelands.
• Little Angels: The Brightest Christmas: At one point, Daniel complains about their dad making them live in the middle of nowhere and remarks that the situation is all his fault. Watchers are supposed to see this as Daniel refusing to take responsibility for his actions, but leaving his children alone in the middle of a blizzard in a cabin with no working phone line that's separated from the nearest town by a mountain and a dangerous river was a very irresponsible thing for the dad to do.
• The Little Mermaid (1989):
  • We're meant to see King Triton as unreasonable and bigoted for viewing humans as barbaric and trying to keep his daughter away from the surface world. But he has legitimate reasons to be worried: humans do catch and eat fish (his subjects), and since merpeople are half-fish, his concern for his daughter getting "snared on some fish-eaters' hook" isn't completely unfounded. While he turns out to be wrong about humans, this is more due to Moral Luck than actual knowledge since Ariel started out just as ignorant about the human world as he was. Even without that aspect, he's very justified in being concerned for his headstrong, naive teenage daughter who's become recklessly infatuated with someone she hasn't even properly met.
  • Triton and Sebastian scolding Ariel for missing the concert also falls into this territory. Based on Flounder's reaction, the audience is supposed to think that Ariel isn't supposed to be reprimanded at all for missing the concert ("But it wasn't her fault!"). However, this is mentioned to be far from Ariel's first no-show (as evidenced by Sebastian's "If only she'd show up for rehearsal once in a while" and Triton's "I just don't know what we're going to do with you, young lady"), and they have a point that, because of her absence, the concert was ruined and those in it (Sebastian & her sisters) were humiliated. While Triton and Sebastian are definitely too hard on her and won't hear her out, they have every right to be angry and hold her accountable for her actions.
• Mulan:
  • Shang is portrayed as in the wrong for mistrusting Mulan after she was revealed to be a woman disguising herself as a man. This ignores the fact that, by pretending to be a man, Mulan has been lying to Shang and her fellow soldiers for months, and would still be lying to them had she not been wounded in battle. Mulan may have had good intentions in trying to save her father's life, but she not only risked her own life, she would have also brought shame on her family name for the dishonor of deceiving the entire Chinese army. This makes Shang's lack of trust in Mulan fairly reasonable.
  • While the Matchmaker is being a complete jerkass by calling Mulan a disgrace, she's right to give Mulan a failing grade on the test. Mulan isn't an impressive bride-to-be (at first): even disregarding the Cri-kee antics that weren't entirely her fault, she still cheated by writing on her skin and spilled tea on the table while she was supposed to be proving her best mettle as a wife.
  • The Ancestors in the sequel are treated like unreasonable, spiteful jerks for cheering and rejoicing when Mulan and Shang's engagement means Mushu's role as Guardian will be ended, and taking joy in picking on and abusing Mushu—somewhat justifying his desperation to not losing his job—when if anything, they're perfectly reasonable for having to dread every moment of him gloating and pushing them around to the point that he's getting what he deserves—and on top of that, him having seemingly learned nothing by the end of the film when he gets to remain in his role only further aggravates the point.
• My Little Pony: The Movie (2017): Tempest Shadow is disdainful of friendship and Equestria's friendship-centric way. But she raises unintentionally valid criticisms.
  • She bemoans how so much Equestrian power is wasted on parties when it has far greater uses. But if Equestria used that power to build an army powerful enough to defend against the Storm King and other threats, annex villainous or despondent locations like Klugetown, or put it into medical science to find solutions to her and others' disabilities (the apparent lack of which drove her to villainy in desperation to get fixed), much of the movie's and the show's major conflicts might have been prevented or mitigated.
  • Tempest makes another good point with her Villain Song, "Open Up Your Eyes", which explains her backstory of why she distrusts friendship. ^{Explanation (spoilers!)}When she was little, she and her friends were playing with a ball that ended up in a cave. She went in to retrieve it and found out too late that there was an Ursa Minor inside. The Ursa Minor attacked her, destroying her horn. Afterward, her friends began to fear and shun her because the loss of her horn meant she had lost control of her magic, resulting in her abandoning the notion of friendship entirely. While the song is supposed to be evil/anti-friendship, it comes off more as a cautionary tale of being careful who you choose to trust because your "friends" are still capable of stabbing you in the back.
• Origin: Spirits of the Past: While Shunack is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wishes to undo the damages done to Earth and correct his mistake, he's still supposed to be in the wrong as he advocates for dangerous and extremist measures. However, some fans have ended up siding with his cause, arguing that it would be a good thing to destroy the Forest based on Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• In Ratatouille one of the points of contention between Remy and his father, Django, is the only use Django sees in Remy's incredible sense of smell is as a poison detector. When the two are reunited later in the film, Remy is dejected that all Django has to say about Remy being separated from the clan is "Nobody got poisoned, thank God!". The thing is, while it's not as romantic as being a master chef, having a sense of smell sensitive enough to detect poisons is a very useful trait, especially for a rat colony.
• In Return To Never Land, Jane's no-nonsense dismissal of all things childish is treated as wrong by the other characters and the narration, and her Character Development revolves around her needing to be reminded that she is still a child. However, she lives during the Blitz in a town regularly bombarded by German aircraft, so her growing up faster to be more responsible and having other priorities than children's stories (albeit while also being a killjoy) is actually pretty reasonable.
• In The Secret of Kells, Abbot Cellach's obsession with building his wall over preserving the books and his decision to forbid his nephew Brendan to go to the forest are portrayed as well-intentioned but ultimately misguided, and there's no doubt that he's not the best at expressing his affection towards Brendan. However, when Brendan does go into the forest, he's attacked by wolves and would have died if the local representative of The Fair Folk didn't come to help him, so Abbot Cellach was perfectly justified. Moreover, Cellach's decision to protect the present (with his wall) instead of the future (the books and their knowledge) is justified in a time of invasions, and it's worth mentioning that a normal invading army would have thought twice before attacking a heavily fortified location - his opponents just happen to be unstoppable subhuman monsters.
• Shark Tale: Oscar laughing off Angie advising him to tell everyone the truth about how Frankie died and admit that he's not actually a "Shark Slayer" is supposed to be seen as just yet another example of him being selfish and making bad decisions. But by that point, Oscar has managed to make the shark mob back off by faking Lenny's death, and it can be argued that his reputation is allowing the fish to live free.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut: At the start of the movie, the mothers of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny are at least partly justified when they boycott Terrance and Philip, as their film did influence the boys badly: Kenny dies trying to replicate one of their stunts, giving them every reason to be angry. However, as a studio executive points out, the film had an adult rating; the boys sneak in by claiming a random adult was their legal guardian, and the studio who made the movie never intended it to be for children. The movie may have been gross, but the boys weren't the target audience. The parents only become full-on villains when they decide to blame all of their problems on Canada.
• Strange World: We are supposed to see Searcher as an overbearing parent for not wanting his kid, Ethan, to become an explorer like Ethan wants to be. However, you don't need to be a stick-in-the-mud parent to think letting a teenager explore a Death World where everything wants you dead is a bad idea especially since Ethan shows he lacks basic survival skills, like when he trusts an animal he has never seen been before, which nearly gets him killed. (He only survives because said animal pulls a Heel–Face Turn.)
• Superman vs. the Elite:
  • Manchester Black may be a Well-Intentioned Extremist lambasted by Superman for his unethical and amoral methods, but it's also shown that some of his questionable actions have prevented worse harm in the future.
    Manchester Black: People don't want babysitters in spandex to spank them when they're bad. They want surgeons to cut out the cancers that fester in us and make sure they never come back.
  • He also points out that despite Superman's disapproval of lethal force, he still supports a system that has no such qualms.
    Superman: You can't murder people and call yourselves heroes!
    Manchester Black: Why not? Your government does it all the time.
• Towards the end of The Sword in the Stone, Merlin gets angry at Wart for being proud of having been made Sir Kay's squire, saying that he was expecting Wart to "amount to something" and "have some brains". The viewer is supposed to agree with Merlin, but there are a few things wrong with that. While Wart got the position through no real merit of his own (the person who was to be a squire in Wart's place had come down with a nasty fever), the boy is right when he says that an orphan like him has no real prospects in the society they're living in, and becoming a squire to a knight is the best he can reasonably hope for. Despite his good intentions, Merlin is forcing his own ahead-of-his-time reasoning on Wart, with the boy telling Merlin that he's so focused on the future that he's completely ignoring what's going on in the present.
• Toy Story 2: Villain Stinky Pete the Prospector has the unambiguously nasty aim of keeping Woody from returning to Andy, whom Woody knows to appreciate him. However, as he's defeated, he screams "Children destroy toys! You'll all be ruined! Forgotten! Spending eternity rotting away in some landfill!" It's a perfectly legitimate concern, and Pete has no way of knowing how good an owner Andy is. His foreshadowing almost comes true in the third movie.
• In Trolls, Branch refuses to help Poppy save her friends after they have been abducted by the Big Bad Chef Bergen, and she disputes this by saying that they're his friends. While this is meant to come off as him being an unsympathetic jerk towards Poppy, Branch is actually completely within his rights to say no. He correctly points out that the captured trolls in question are Poppy's friends, not his, and them being captured was a consequence of them blowing off his warnings that their partying would expose their village to the Bergens while he spent years keeping to himself, making sure his bunker is fortified and well-stocked, and avoiding the Bergens, while the others simply think it's just him Crying Wolf, which to be fair he more-or-less does. When their loud party draws Chef's attention and lets her snatch up plenty of trolls, Branch feels no obligation to help them after they had ignored his advice for many years.
• Turning Red: Ming is portrayed as an overbearing, domineering mother for making her daughter Mei seal her panda spirit away with a ritual at the first red moon after it manifests. However, not only does Ming have understandable reasons for wanting to seal it up (she injured her own mother with it), but Mei herself attacks and terrifies Tyler at his party with her panda form after losing her temper. What's more, the decision to not seal the panda during the first subsequent red moon is explicitly stated to be a permanent one, while the inverse is not, because Mei's aunts and grandma release theirs. But all of Mei's family, including her mother, ultimately accepts her autonomous decision without even a discussion.
• Wish (2023): The movie paints Magnifico as narcissistic and self-interested for being selective about which wishes he grants, but many viewers and commentators have found that his reasons, while still self-serving, do go hand in hand with ensuring peace and stability for his kingdom. And while this doesn’t excuse him hoarding the wishes he chooses not to grant or the actions he stoops to later in the story, many people find it hard to vilify him based only on how he uses his powers early on. Some also think idea itself that not all wishes should be granted is also very reasonable, and not just for the kingdom's stability; some wishes should not be granted, either because they lose meaning when granted with no effort or because they may involve or affect other people in a negative fashion.

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