Trauma Teddy
A teddy bear recounts a traumatic event from his past.
Films where everyday inanimate objects become sentient beings have been hugely successful these days. Toy Story, Cars, and Ted all wowed us by using less-than-normal characters to tell extraordinary, heroic tales.
But what about telling an ordinary story with ordinary characters? In such a case – can inanimate objects do the trick?
Trauma Teddy most assuredly does – in three short, effective pages, recounting a tragic misunderstanding between a boy and his bear.
The set-up’s deceptively simple: we meet unkempt Teddy reciting a traumatic childhood memory to his psychiatrist, a more respectable (and well-learned) bear.
What’s the memory rattling around in Teddy’s furry head?
Well, it’s a story within a story, in a way. Need insight? Cue the flashback, and despair:
6-year-old Bobby sits in a counsellor’s office, equally distraught himself. Despite gentle questioning, Bobby refuses to explain what’s wrong. So his counsellor decides to use Teddy as a safer medium of communication. Resulting in Bobby’s break through confession. And…
What Bobby demonstrates with Teddy shows us not one, but two traumatic incidents. Happening ironically at the exact same time…
Simple and short with a darkly comic edge, Trauma Teddy takes a difficult premise and manages to squeeze empathetic humour from it.
But you’ll never look at a Teddy the same way again!