That’s not as far from the original source material as you might imagine.
The original text of “Bambi” by Felix Salten is gruesome, full of maimed and slaughtered animals, and even a murdered hunter. I had a recollection – from reading it as a child – that Bambi himself even eventually gets his revenge on a hunter by sabotaging his unattended gun, but I can’t find any mention of that in the text summaries I’ve found, so I must be mixing it up with something else. The point stands, though: deer are scary. Don’t trust the skittish little bastards. They’re only pretending to be scared so that they can lure you deeper into the woods. (*), (**)
Salten was also the author of “Josefine Mutzenbacher”, a heart-warming little tale of child prostitution. I’m a little surprised that Disney hasn’t yet seen fit to make a movie out of that, the way that they did to Salten’s “Bambi” and “The Hound of Florence” (turned into “The Shaggy Dog” by Disney). Can’t think why not.
(*) Deer have been filmed eating baby birds and, most recently, human remains.
(**) The scariest deer in literature, incidentally, is not Bambi but the demon deer in Margaret Killjoy’s “The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.” If there are more frightening deer out there, I don’t want to know about them.
