Eight Legged Freaks Is Right!
So I got to thinking about the movie "Charlotte's Web" today.
You've got Wilbur, a pig who wallows in self-pity, you've got some happy barnyard musical numbers, and you've got Charlotte, a spider who becomes the talk of the farm (and, later, the podunk town) because she writes stuff in her web. Wilbur idolizes Charlotte, and one gets the impression that, like a small child, he never leaves her alone. He's always looking up into the rafters, asking inane questions, making small talk. Charlotte is all too eager to oblige and settle his insecurities.
But I got to thinking about the fact that she's the only spider you see in the movie, and yet she produces an egg sac. As spiders are not asexual, she would thus have had to "come into contact" with a male spider at some point.
According to an eminently credible source, a male spider approaches the female and performs an elaborate dance to disarm her predatory instincts. In many species, the sexual encounter ends with the female killing and eating the male.
This means that, at some point, Charlotte was visited by a stranger to the barnyard who performed a mating ritual, and a few seconds later she most likely killed and ate him. All of this a few feet from a pig who never took his eyes off of Charlotte.
Go watch it again. I dare you.
You've got Wilbur, a pig who wallows in self-pity, you've got some happy barnyard musical numbers, and you've got Charlotte, a spider who becomes the talk of the farm (and, later, the podunk town) because she writes stuff in her web. Wilbur idolizes Charlotte, and one gets the impression that, like a small child, he never leaves her alone. He's always looking up into the rafters, asking inane questions, making small talk. Charlotte is all too eager to oblige and settle his insecurities.
But I got to thinking about the fact that she's the only spider you see in the movie, and yet she produces an egg sac. As spiders are not asexual, she would thus have had to "come into contact" with a male spider at some point.
According to an eminently credible source, a male spider approaches the female and performs an elaborate dance to disarm her predatory instincts. In many species, the sexual encounter ends with the female killing and eating the male.
This means that, at some point, Charlotte was visited by a stranger to the barnyard who performed a mating ritual, and a few seconds later she most likely killed and ate him. All of this a few feet from a pig who never took his eyes off of Charlotte.
Go watch it again. I dare you.
posted by The Marmoset | 3:57 PM
1 Comments:
You've got a point there. My niece has us watching the new "live action" version starring Julia Roberts as Charlotte. When Wilbur first meets the spider, all the other animals are grossed out, and one proclaims under their breath "careful, they eat their men-folk".
Post a Comment
<< Home