7 Classic Disney Movies That Taught Us Terrible Lessons
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Maybe we're too hard on Disney. After all, they simply remake classic stories in cartoon form. What's not to like? Well, as you'll see, it all depends on just how much thought you apply to it. Here's seven pretty terrible lessons that Disney films taught us, whether they meant to or not. #7.
The Lion King: To Be Successful, Sometimes People Got to Die
Simba always knew that he was going to succeed his father, Mufasa, as the next Lion King. But fate liked spitting in poor little Simba's face, and his dear old dad got trampled to death by wildebeests. Of course, Mufasa's death was really caused by the evil Scar, Simba's uncle. Later, all grown up, he reclaims his thrown and Scar suffers the double whammy of falling off a cliff and getting torn apart by hyenas. So after two particularly nasty and horrendous deaths, Simba finally becomes the lion king. The Supposed Message: We all have responsibilities we can't ignore. And don't trust that creepy uncle. The Actual Message: In order for you to be successful, other people will have to pay. And ultimately, that's okay, because the ends justify the means!
First you have Scar, who knew he couldn't be king of the pridelands until that dick Mufasa and his brat son were out of the way. So Scar did away with both of them, killing Mufasa and banishing Simba, and, as a result, he got to be king for a descent amount of time. Then when Simba started to grow some balls, he took back his throne... but only after Scar himself took a dirt nap. It's true that Simba didn't intentionally kill him, but you know who did? The screenwriter. After all, the movie doesn't end with Simba convincing Scar to renounce his evil ways, or putting Scar in lion jail.
No, the message was sent loud and clear: Simba could not be the true king unless Scar was dead. And they even arranged it so that Simba wouldn't have any of the pesky guilt that would have come with actually doing the deed himself. Everyone lived happily ever after. Except Scar of course, whose body was slowly pooped out by several hyenas the next day. #6.
Cinderella: Sort of Like "The Secret"
Cinderella is forced by her bitchy stepmother to clean the house from stem to stern every day. The only thing that prevents her from swallowing a bottle of pain killers is her belief that someday her dreams will come true. One day Cinderella plans to attend a ball thrown by the prince, but the fact that she has a cutthroat bitch for a stepmother completely slipped her mind. She is forbidden from going.
Luckily, it turns out Cinderella has a fairy godmother, who uses her magic to hook Cinderella up with a ride, a beautiful outfit and a pair of what would seem like grossly impractical glass heels. At the ball Cinderella uses her innate flirting skills and rocks the prince's world, to the point that the next day the prince whisks her away to be his princess. The Supposed Message: Dreams do come true! The Actual Message: If you wait around long enough, the universe will practically hand stuff to you.
No one is denying the fact that Cinderella's life was one big shit stain. But in her state of mind, she actually thought that her dreams would just sort of happen if she sat around being miserable long enough. It never occurred to her that she had the ability to just tell her stepmother to go fuck herself. Instead she kept scrubbing floors and believing that, if she continued to wish very hard and take absolutely no action, everything would fall into place. And what do you know, the bitch gets a fucking kingdom out of it. So don't worry, girls. Some kind of "Fairy Godmother" will sweep into your life at any moment, and find you a man to take care of everything. Just keep wishing! #5.
The Little Mermaid: A Little Deal with the Devil Never Hurt Nobody
A little mermaid named Ariel, who is presumably little in title only since she has one impressively big rack, dreams of living her life on shore and finding her true love. Well, a clearly evil sea-witch named Ursula offers to give the naive mermaid legs in exchange for something she probably might need in the future: her voice. When Ariel makes it to shore, she realizes the Sea-Bitch screwed her, as her legs work with the grace of a drunken paraplegic and she can't speak. So now she must somehow make Prince Eric fall in love with her while appearing to be either mute or retarded.
By some miracle, the prince takes the bait (again, note the rack) but then Ursula, who in the cartoon seems to be portrayed as a black drag queen, goes after the couple. The prince is forced to kill Ursula by stabbing her with a ship. As a result, Ariel gets both her legs and her voice. The Supposed Message: True love conquers all! The Actual Message: A little compromise with evil is okay, as long as everything works out okay in the end! Ariel loved to sing, and she sang pretty damn well. But she wanted to live on shore and find love so bad that she made a "deal" with a "devil" and "sells" her beautiful voice, or "soul" so to speak.
And guess what? It worked. Sure, the writers threw in some complications in the form of Prince Eric having to send Ursula straight to Disney Hell, but the fact of the matter remains that Ariel would never have gotten to meet Prince Eric at all had she not compromised with the evil queen in the first place. She made a figurative deal with the devil, got everything she wanted and came out completely unscathed. So keep that in mind if you have to, say, sleep with some dude to get that acting role. None of that will matter once you achieve your dreams! #4.
Beauty and the Beast: Just Because He's Abusive, Doesn't Mean He's Not a Really Good Guy
After a spoiled prince pretty much tells an old beggar woman to fuck off, he is transformed into a beast, as it turns out the beggar is an enchantress. And she makes it very clear that until he learns to love and thus is loved in return, there will be no ladies in his life and it's just going to be him and his hand for a very long time. As luck would have it, there happens to be a woman out there named Belle with a heart big enough to share with unfortunate-looking people such as the Beast, and she's not too bad to look at either. When her father is kidnapped by the Beast, Belle offers herself in exchange for his freedom.
Against all odds, they fall in love. The townspeople snap and try and kill the Beast, but because Belle admits she loves him, the Beast turns back into a man and the two live happily ever after. The Supposed Message: Treat others the way you wish to be treated! The Actual Message: Underneath the abusive exterior of your man is a loving heart he's just dying to share with you. First of all, Belle was a prisoner in the Beast's fucking castle. Nothing says "I love you" like house arrest. Secondly, he wasn't exactly whispering sweet nothings in her ear. The Beast hurled insults at Belle at every chance, and came close to pimp slapping the shit out of her on more than one occasion.
But she ignored all that unimportant trivia, because the Beast had a loving heart! Sure he gets angry sometimes, but that's just how he is. And, in the end, he turned back into a sexy, romantic prince. It's all good now. Her patience paid off, girls, and it will for you, too! If you just stick with it and don't judge your man too harshly. Or call the cops. |
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As I understand the theology, the original Little Mermaid wouldn't have wound up in Purgatory. You still need a soul to exist there. Creatures that have no souls merely cease to exist. So the original has the saddest ending possible--can you blame Disney for wanting to make it happy? Ariel, the character the audience is supposed to identify with, learns the same lesson, but doesn't have to die. In fact, she learns the lesson that her desire to live on the surface wasn't wrong--the problem was how she went about it.
The message of The Lion King isn't that people have to die, but that death isn't the end. It's part of the "circle of life." And when you see what happens to the prideland when hyenas are allowed to roam free, you understand there was a reason they were banished. They can't live in harmony with everyone else. The message isn't racism--it's being a responsible citizen in society.
Someone's already mentioned how Beauty and the Beast isn't messed up: as Belle is actually a freaking feminist, not feeling bound by her place in society. But, unlike the stereotype today, she also has a heart. She learns that hurt people say and do mean things, but that a little compassion towards can show you who they really are inside.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame has been covered so well that I need to say little--Quasimodo is in love with an ideal. He doesn't learn until the sequel what true love is. Sure, the original meant what you said, but that's why Disney changed it.
The point of Sleeping Beauty is that the prince only does all of that to prove his love for her. There's no other reason for him to fight Maleficent. It's a freaking "True love conquers all" message.
With The Fox and the Hound you would have a point, if you assume that all movies end the way they are supposed to. This one takes the more realistic approach that says that you can be trained to hate, and that love won't fix it all. But you'll also notice the idealism in Fox. Even though someone hates you, and still will only grudgingly respect you afterward, you still should do good by them. It's similar to the message you missed in Beauty and the Beast.
And, finally, we approach Cinderella, the hardest one to disagree with. All I can point out is that the reason Cinderella succeeds, despite her problems, is that she has friends. And that, being virtuous is how she gets these friends. She's not really in a position to do anything about her condition, but she does what little she can. And that little is not only enough to win friends, but to win the heart of a prince.
Actually The Lion King also promotes segregation, because Mufasa and later Simba were basically maintaining a kingdom where all animals were one JUST AS LONG AS THE HEYENAS STAY IN THEIR DESIGNATED SPOT, which just happens to be a crappy elephant corpse ghetto.
I'm in agreement with Zi721, Ariel looks like she's f*****g 13. Actually that's something I've noticed, Disney promotes statutory rape. Think about it, every Disney princess is in some ancient or colonial time when marrying girls 12 and up was cool with people. So Jasmin was probably around what, 14 when Alladin rolled in, Ariel as stated looks 13 and as for Belle, she's actually the most mature looking of the bunch so I'm guessing 16-17. Disney was a perv! Oh and lets not forget The Great Mouse Detective, awesome movie. Also the only Disney flick to have a stripper in it.
I'd actually like to point out the fact that, if you go by the original legends, merfolk don't even HAVE souls. They had to marry humans in order to get them. Which is why Andersen's Little Mermaid winds up in Purgatory.
I disagree about Beauty and th Beast, Belle didn't fall in love with the Beast when he was mean. She refused to dinner with him, tried to escape, and argued with him.
It was the Beast who had to control his temper, and Belle fell in love with him after that.
The moral is NOT "You can change him", it is "You can change".
The hell do they mean "impressive rack"? Ariel's next to fricken flat-chested.....
just like to point out, that two of the animators for The Fox and The Hound went on to become very successful (and disturbed) filmmakers: Don Bluth and Tim Burton
You seemed to have missed a huge point about Lion King. You say Simba didn't try to get Scar to renounce his ways and was just trying to kill him so he could take the throne.You seemed to have forgotten that Simba gave Scar a chance to run.'Run, run away Scar, and never return.' That sounds like he was being pretty merciful considering all the evil Scar had done.Scar was the one who blew his chance to escape alive.
"Frollo is a total God-fearing, gypsy-killing m**********r who wants to get it on with a 16-year old."
Who isnt?!
Sdempster - I never thought of it that way, but you put it brilliantly.
Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of my favorite Disney movies, it's got awesome songs, and by far the most compelling villain they've ever put on screen. The rest of their bad guys are like comic relief villains, whereas Frollo is a total God-fearing, gypsy-killing m**********r who wants to get it on with a 16-year old.
Disney, what happened to your balls?
Hey you forgot the Nightmare Before Christmas.
The Plot: Jack Skellington is the Pumpking King of Halloween. However he gets bored with it year after year and so decides to do Christmas instead. In the following events both Santa Claus and his love interest are handed over to the psychopath Oogie Boogie and Jack flops and realizes that he must set things right.
The Supposed Message: Be happy for the life you do have, rather than the one that somebody else has.
The Actual Message: If you endanger your best friends' lives but still set things right it's A-OK. So really Jack pretty much had his girlfriend bagged and sent over to Oogie Boogie. That's pretty much like handing them over to Michael Myers from Halloween. So forget the fact they were nearly made into a tasty soup, so long as you rescue them they'll still be your best friend.
the real message of the little mermaid is that all a woman has to do to get a guy to love her is be quiet and have a beautiful pair of legs to keep open ;)
Enough complaining about the Hunchback, why are women always expected to go for the nice, ugly guy and it's never the other way around? It's perfectly okay for a guy to go after a girl based on looks but when a girl does the same, she's nothing but a stuck-up s***k. Women think with their crotches just as much as men, that's just the way it works. And, you forget that on top of being handsome, Phoebus was also a pretty effing awesome guy. If he'd have been a dick with no redeeming characteristics it would be a different story. I felt bad for Quasi, but hey, at least in the end he got a hot female friend who probably feels comfortable undressing in front of him because he may as well be a chick.
I disagree with #3. Phoebus, Quasimodo, and Frollo all represent three different types of attraction to Esmeralda.
Frollo is obsessive lust and only focuses on her faults (he blames her for his feelings, focuses on her ethnicity, etc). For obvious reasons, this isn't exactly a healthy relationship.
Quasimodo has been locked up all his life with virtually no human contact, aside from Frollo. He sees Esmeralda as an angel and someone who doesn't shy away from his deformities. He's more in love with an idea of her and not the person herself. This would also be an unhealthy relationship, although subtler, because he has her on this pedastal which she won't be able to live up to forever. He accentuates the positive and glosses over the negative.
However, Phoebus sees Esmeralda as a smart, capable woman, but also knows that she isn't perfect. Quasimodo and Frollo represent the two extremes, neither of which would make a long lasting relationship, but Phoebus is the middle ground and is much more realistic.
And (holy s**t, this turned out much longer than I intended) at the end of the day, how many people really take away from this movie the message that "the ugly guy never gets the girl?"
@rickyayshi
Oh you mean the movie that's so horrible that it makes Quantum of Solace look like Casino Royale. HoND2 is the kind of movie that any with any taste in movies at all will contemplate how much closer they are to death because of the time they pissed away on that snoozefest.
Also the lady Quasi falls for is horrendous. It could be the poor animation but really she's so ugly it makes Frollo look like a model. So in a way it's quite fitting.
Compare Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty to the original, pre-Grimm folk tale, in which the prince rapes the sleeping beauty multiple times, gets her pregnant and has children by her all before she wakes up. And she still marries him.
you seem to have forgotten something in Beauty and the Beast. Belle did not stick through an abusive relationship. hell as soon as the beast yelled at her and threatened her, she left, her promise forgotten. then she ran into a pack of wolves who the beast saved her from and got himself badly beaten up. she only stayed then to take care of him and if he hadn't changed his attitude she would have left again
and in Sleeping Beauty Philip and Aurora had already met before hand and they had been attracted to each other so they weren't strangers
and you obviously no nothing about the Hunchback sequel because in that Quasimodo does indeed find himself a woman and a pretty one at that
To be fair about Sleeping Beauty, Prince Philip and Aurora did know each other, and there was an attraction between them before the whole "poke the spindle and go into a coma" scene. They did not know that the other was royalty, but they were not strangers.
I agree with the first six but I've not sure about the last. I thought it was pretty clear that the ending was supposed to be sad and unfair. That's actually one thing I like about the movie. It didn't have an ideal happy ending but one that was pretty realistic given the circumstances.
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"Someone's already mentioned how Beauty and the Beast isn't messed up: as Belle is actually a freaking feminist, not feeling bound by her place in society. But, unlike the stereotype today, she also has a heart. She learns that hurt people say and do mean things, but that a little compassion towards can show you who they really are inside."
Nevermind the fact that she's a f*****g b***h in the beginning, of course. Her opening song is Little Town---quiet town, full of little people, waking up to say Bonjour! Who wants to live in paradise with a b***h who looks down on the illiterate ignoramouses?
I'm not saying she's not a feminist, and it is of course a human ideal to want to improve our own living situations, but Belle seems to look down on people who have lived together in relative harmony. That is, until the alpha male incites them to form a lynch mob because of his perception of his inferiority (before the ruling class, a lesson in peasant society if there ever was one). It is narrow minded of them to be so impressionable; but if she's so freaking progressive-minded wouldn't she have noticed that and adjusted for the possibility? Nevermind the fact that the Beast appears to be a parable for the might of the ruling class. It appears the "little people" are once again oppressed, regardless of whatever lesson the Beast was supposed to have learned. By destroying the head of the snake (once again, Gaston) he takes the fight out of the peasantry. Awful.
The only one I have to say promotes a good enough lesson is Cinderella. Work hard and you shall recieve---seems like the American Dream.