Earlier, in my small review of the book "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, I already mentioned this interesting feature of human psychology: everyone has their own main fairy tale from childhood, which we usually don't even remember. But our subconscious mind remembers and does everything so that we are awake in our fairy tale, building for us the equation "I am in my fairy tale = I am happy" (like how Don Quixote's "fairytale" was chivalric novels, and he began to make it with zeal into reality, not even realizing that to outside observers he looks like a complete inadequate. But it does not necessarily go so poorly, just the example of Don Quixote is an example of clumsy implementation).

Nowadays, your "main" fairy tale can also be a movie, especially one of the first ones you saw in your life in early childhood.

I offer an interesting exercise (if you want, a contest. If not, it will be useful to do it at least for yourself).

The very first movie you remember

At least it's worth trying to remember. But it will not be easy, because we are talking about your excursion into early childhood. However, if you succeed, it will help you understand yourself much better.

"Sheena: Queen of the Jungle"

When I dig into my own memory in recent months, I remembered both my own main childhood fairy tale (which I will not write about here) and the first movie. For me, that movie was "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" from 1980, which I watched in 1988, at the age of 5. My mother took me to the cinema, which was located in our city on the central square (and is now located there, but has not been working as intended for 30 years).

In my memories, the film evoked incredible delight: a beautiful blonde girl, obeyed by all the animals in the jungle, sometimes she epicly jumps on a zebra without a saddle, and without blinking an eye from hard blows to the crotch, and along the way shooting bad guys with a bow... at the same time, her the hair blows epically in the wind... The picture was magical, and it is possible that at the age of 5 I was in love with her! :-D

A frame from the movie "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle":

And so, in June 2023, remembering the movie "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle", I watched it again, 35 years later... The picture turned out to be naive and "cheap", in many ways stupid. Actress Tanya Roberts won the "Golden Raspberry" (as the worst female performance) for her role as Sheena. Still, I got a lot of benefit for myself from watching the film, and I reconsidered a lot, so I advise you to try a similar exercise for yourself. I even had a deja vu feeling of a certain happiness from my childhood, which seemed to have returned (at the same time, I want to emphasize once again that the film is clearly nonsense).

After watching the movie, there was a moment of sadness, because when I googled Tanya Roberts (real name Victoria Lee Bloom), it turned out that she had already died, and recently - in 2021. Bright memory, now I understand why my first girlfriend was a blonde.

You can look forever at three things: how snow is falling, how Russian tanks are burning, and how Sheena, the queen of the jungle, is riding a zebra =)

But the music in the video is very sad, like a reminder that in reality nothing is eternal.

My art on the theme of Sheena, the queen of the jungle

✍ Богдан Карасьов (Bogdan Karasiov, Ukraine), June 27, 2023.

With thanks to Victoria Lee Bloom for the charming female image, which, as it turned out, I unconsciously carried throughout my life as an ideal, and understood it even after a third of a century had passed.

• P.s. Use the tag #theveryfirstmovie if you feel like writing on this topic as well.