Bambi can't act. Bambi had major attitude.

Host: The soundstage was cavernous — vast, echoing, filled with the ghosts of a thousand imaginary worlds. Bright spotlights illuminated an artificial forest: towering foam trees, painted ferns, and a mechanical deer perched awkwardly on a set of hidden gears. A few crew members scurried around adjusting cables and checking lighting.

Jack sat in a director’s chair, a script folded in his lap, cigarette smoke curling lazily from between his fingers. He looked tired — that particular fatigue that comes not from work, but from illusion. Jeeny stood beside him, dressed in a faded production jacket, holding a clipboard covered in notes and doodles. Her dark eyes were alive with quiet amusement as she looked toward the fake forest.

In the center of the set, the mechanical deer — Bambi — stood motionless. Its plastic eyes glistened under the lights, too perfect, too glossy, too lifeless.

Jeeny: (reading aloud from her phone, laughing) “Treat Williams once said, ‘Bambi can’t act. Bambi had major attitude.’”

Jack: (exhaling smoke) “Finally, someone tells the truth about that deer.”

Jeeny: (teasing) “You’d think a woodland creature could manage some emotional range.”

Jack: “Not that one. Every take, same dead stare. No commitment, no vulnerability. Just... mechanical innocence.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what he meant. The attitude isn’t in the deer — it’s in the myth. Bambi’s supposed to make us cry, but he’s too polished to feel real.”

Jack: (grinning) “So Bambi’s a diva?”

Jeeny: “No, Bambi’s a metaphor. A perfectly sanitized symbol of purity sold to people who can’t handle the real forest — the one where blood stains snow and fear has eyes.”

Host: The crew lights dimmed briefly, a signal for a lighting test. The fake trees shimmered under a red hue, casting long, unnatural shadows across the floor. The smoke from Jack’s cigarette curled like mist through a forest of artifice.

Jack: “So you’re saying innocence is a performance.”

Jeeny: “Always has been. Especially in art. Especially in Hollywood.”

Jack: “And we fall for it — the fawn with the trembling voice, the wide eyes. It’s a script written for comfort, not truth.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s why Treat Williams’ line works — because even a child’s cartoon can have ego. Bambi’s attitude isn’t arrogance; it’s detachment. Manufactured innocence pretending to feel.”

Host: Jack leaned forward, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on the animatronic deer as if it held some secret. His voice dropped to a near whisper, the tone shifting from irony to thought.

Jack: “You ever think that’s what we all are? Mechanical animals pretending to feel something for the camera?”

Jeeny: “You mean, performing tenderness for an audience of ghosts?”

Jack: “Yeah. Crying on cue for a world that stopped listening.”

Host: The lights flickered, bathing the set in brief darkness before flaring back to gold. The deer’s shadow loomed huge on the backdrop — monstrous and fragile all at once.

Jeeny: “That’s why it’s funny, isn’t it? He said it as a joke, but there’s truth in it. We project so much humanity into puppets and pixels because we’ve forgotten how to recognize it in ourselves.”

Jack: “You think Bambi’s fake innocence comforts us because it never argues back?”

Jeeny: “Yes. It’s easy to love a symbol that doesn’t demand anything. Real creatures — real people — come with anger, flaws, attitude. But Bambi’s frozen. Perfect. Marketable.”

Jack: “And attitude-free innocence sells better than honest emotion.”

Jeeny: (smiling wryly) “Until someone like Treat Williams calls it out — and suddenly the forest doesn’t feel so magical anymore.”

Host: The sound of distant thunder rolled over the soundstage roof, the kind that seemed to shake the world just enough to remind you it’s real. The crew packed up slowly, the artificial deer being rolled off on its track, its glass eyes unblinking as it disappeared into the wings.

Jack watched it go, his voice quiet now — almost tender.

Jack: “You know, maybe I envy Bambi. No real pain. No failure. Just replayed tragedy — predictable, rehearsed.”

Jeeny: “But that’s not life. That’s myth — a safe tragedy. The kind you can sell tickets to.”

Jack: “Right. In real life, the forest doesn’t end with violins and moral lessons. It ends with survival — or it doesn’t end at all.”

Host: The rain outside began to hammer harder on the roof. The sound filled the space like applause for the storm. Jeeny walked closer to the window, her reflection mingling with the faint reflection of the deer’s silhouette now stored behind glass.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it? We build beauty out of imitation. We build tenderness out of wires. We’ve learned to feel through fiction.”

Jack: “Because fiction’s easier to forgive.”

Jeeny: “And real emotion’s harder to monetize.”

Host: The firelight from the equipment flickered as the crew left, one by one. The set was empty now, the mechanical deer tucked away — silent proof of humanity’s obsession with innocence we can control.

Jack: (leaning back) “You think that’s what Treat Williams meant — that Bambi’s attitude wasn’t arrogance, but defiance? Like even the idea of innocence refuses to stay pure under human hands.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Maybe Bambi’s the mirror we avoid looking into — the version of goodness that can’t survive us.”

Jack: “So innocence dies — and we rebuild it in plastic.”

Jeeny: “And call it art.”

Host: Silence settled between them. The rain softened. Somewhere, a faint echo of laughter drifted through the corridor — crew members, distant, tired, human.

Jeeny sat down beside Jack. The last bit of his cigarette glowed, then dimmed.

Jeeny: (softly) “You know, maybe the real ‘attitude’ isn’t in Bambi at all. Maybe it’s in us — the arrogance to think we can package wonder, sell grief, rehearse purity.”

Jack: (nodding) “And the blindness to think it won’t change us.”

Host: The lights dimmed completely now. The forest faded into black, the fake leaves whispering as if sighing relief to finally be unseen.

Jeeny stood, gathering her notes. Jack remained still, watching the emptiness where the deer had been.

Jeeny: (quietly, almost to herself) “Even make-believe innocence deserves its rest.”

Jack: “And even cynics need to mourn it.”

Host: The rain eased into a soft drizzle, a lullaby for the end of illusion. The two walked toward the exit, their footsteps echoing through the hollow set — the sound of reality reclaiming space from performance.

And as they stepped into the night, Treat Williams’s words lingered in the damp air — half humor, half prophecy:

That even icons of innocence
can grow tired of pretending.
That attitude may be rebellion,
but rebellion is just truth with teeth.
And that beneath every smiling symbol
lies the exhausted heartbeat
of something once alive,
now perfectly performed.

Host: The studio doors closed behind them.
The storm rumbled low.
And somewhere in the dark,
the ghost of Bambi — flawless, untouchable, eternal —
watched without blinking,
while the world outside kept learning
how to act.