Consider the wolves, reduced to mere caricatures of evil, in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Consider the leopard from Disney's animated Tarzan, who was simply trying to survive. Consider the hyenas of The Lion King; science tells us that hyenas are successful hunters and caring parents within their pack, and yet here they've been reduced to stereotype; mangy, miserable poachers.

Now comes "The Beast" of Stuart Little 3. Her habitat is shrinking, her food has fled the encroachment of human civilization, her forests either destroyed or filled with the sounds and smells of ATVs and chainsaws. She herself has probably been hunted, running for her life from baying dogs and humans who only want to destroy her because she would look good on a wall.

But even through all this, she is less of a carnivore than her real-world cousins would be. She offers her potential prey a way out. Bring her food, and you may live. She may indeed feel some disdain for the "lesser" animals she deals with, but she might be forgiven, considering the life she's lead.

Indeed, she could be the tragic hero of this opus. She defends the last vest ages of The Really Wild, while her forest is altered and destroyed to make way for scout camps, roads, condos, subdivisions and strip malls, vanquished tellingly by a mouse who thinks he's human and a cat who has forgotten his catness.

Yes, this video is for children, but children learn from what they experience. What are we teaching them? Quietly, I root for The Beast.