YMMV / The Flying Mouse

• Broken Aesop: The moral of the short is to Be Yourself, but really the only reason the little mouse's wish didn't work out for him is that the fairy gave him bat-like wings that made him look scary to the other mice, instead of bird-like wings that he originally wished for.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The message of the short comes across as very backward these days. The mouse wants to fly like the birds, so when a fairy grants him a wish, he asks for wings. She tells him that "a mouse was never meant to fly", but he insists, so she obliges. The birds are not impressed, and his family locks him outside and throws pots and pans at him, despite the fact that he did nothing to harm them, or anyone. When he finally encounters a group of bats, they bully him for not being one of them, even if he looks like it. The mouse regrets ever making his wish, and the fairy returns to take away his wings, telling him to Be Yourself. Nowadays, most viewers would consider "being yourself" to mean doing what you truly want, regardless of what others think – which is what the little mouse was doing already.
  • The mother mouse spanking the mouse for accidentally ruining the laundry and his sister's clothes. Back then, it was seen as the mouse getting his just desserts, but modern audiences would think that the mother is going too far as corporal punishment is frowned up .
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The fairy for modern audiences as they perceive her as ungrateful for purposely giving the mouse scary wings in order to discourage him to fly and teach the lesson of "being himself" despite the mouse saving her life from the spider in the first place.
• The Woobie: The poor flying mouse, who is mocked by his brothers for his desire to fly, is spanked by his mother and ultimately gets discouraged from having his dream of flying as everyone perceives him as a threat or "nothin but a nothin'" for his bat wings just for saving the life of a fairy.