Classic Disney Movies
Disney has been entertaining children for years with stories centered around personal tragedies and some rather strange ideas about courtship and marriage ...
Relationships: the Disney model
What little girl doesn't dream that she's secretly a princess? None!
However, if she were to follow the Disney Model for Extremely Risky Relationships, she'd be married at 16 after dating for only a few days, and her future spouse may/may not be related to her. In The Little Mermaid, a girl goes exactly where she's not supposed to (the surface), meets her people's greatest predator (humans), and becomes infatuated enough to essentially sell her soul for a potential husband (If spending your life as a sentient shrimp cocktail in waiting doesn't qualify as at least some level of hell, you've got some personal empowerment issues to work out).
After catching her on the surface, her father confronts her about her "adventure," and she declares, "I'm 16-years old. I'm not a child anymore." After a metamorphosis t least as traumatic as a sex change, she becomes an entirely different species, albeit one with the appropriate genitalia (now that would have been a plot twist!) and heads for shore. After spending three days without having a single conversation with the man of her dreams, she goes ahead and marries him, thereby making drunken, random Las Vegas marriages look romantic and well-planned.
Where does the incest come into play? That would be compliments of The Lion King. Oh yeah. Extending beyond the realm of the back-water hills of Appalachia, digging your sister stretches over the Atlantic and hits the Savannah. There is only one male in the pride. That would be the beloved lion king, Mufasa. Simba and Nala grew up in the same pride. Again, I reiterate, there are no other males making babies in the pride. That would make Simba and Nala half siblings. That's right. They used the British royalty method of keeping the King's bloodline pure. The punishment of such a relationship? A half-baked sequel staring your mutant off-spring that introduces new blood (in the form of one new male) into the pride. I'm not even going to tread near the notion of how Simba inherited all those females. Neither The Lion King or The Lion King II: Simba's Pride seem to have any scruples concerning raising children in a harem of sex partners. An orgy is simply quality "family time."
No mother, no father, no problem
Disney movies that have a parent tragically taken from the poor main character:
- Snow White
- Cinderella
- Bambi
- Tarzan
- The Lion King
Disney movies that don't even address the fact that a parent is missing:
- The Jungle Book
- Aladdin (Jasmine or Aladdin, take your pick)
- Beauty and the Beast
- The Little Mermaid
- Basil--The Great Mouse Detective
Really when you break it down, you have a movie empire built on the back of making children consider the prospect of being orphaned, while also teaching them that this will somehow make their life fuller.
We're all for teaching kids important life lessons through art, but speaking from childhood memory, there's something macabre about herding a group of small children into a close, dark space, flooding their senses with light and sound, and killing an effigy of one of their closest relationships right in front of their young, innocent eyes.
Sequels, sequels, they're so fun!
Disney treats their most successful franchises like Rochester treats his wife in Jane Eyre, keeping them locked up in an attic for decades at a time. Unlike most films, Classic Disney Movies are rarely available to rent or purchase.
Then Disney will use some excuse to trot them out and allow us to gaze upon their glory for a limited time only and hold a parade all over the media about what a special opportunity we are all being given. The franchises will then be shut away for another ten years until there is a new generation who has not yet learned the trick, and which point Disney marches them back out and starts milking them for all they're worth with promises of "digitally remastered" and "added footage."
If you think this is out of some respect for the brilliant original works created by the company's ingenious namesake, you obviously don't know about the "sequels," which makes sense since they didn't bother releasing any of them in theaters.
Films with shameful, direct to DVD sequels:
- Pocahontas
- Brother Bear
- Lilo and Stitch
- Bambi (yeah, even Bambi has been ruined)
- Mulan
- The Jungle Book
- 101 Dalmatians
- 3 The Little Mermaid movies
- 3 The Lion King movies
- 3 Aladdin movies
- Air Bud has starred in more films than Rocky
Yes Disney has milked each of its most successful franchises for more sequels than a derby horse put out to stud, thus bringing us to a place where the captive lunatic metaphor becomes entirely too creepy to carry any further.
I wanted to be an assassin, then I wanted to be a military medic then I wanted to be a cereal chemist... Princess was never there
ReplyI wanted to be a monk when I was a little girl, so I could learn all kinds of ass whoopin' techniques (LOTS of Dragonball Z and Final Fantasy), but my parents told me I couldn't be a monk because monks were male... So then I wanted to be an assassin. When my daughter was 3, she told me she wants to be a princess zombie slayer with a warlock penguin.
ReplyI hope that you are proud and supportive of your daughter's glorious ambitions. That sounds like the best answer to "what to you want to be when you grow up" that I have ever heard.
I had to read this sentence:
Reply"A half-baked sequel staring your mutant off-spring that introduces new blood (in the form of one new male) into the pride."
at least four times before I realized that the word you're looking for is "starring". You're welcome. And do better proofreading.
Other than that, this was hilarious.
Shut the f**k up
When I was growing up I never once wanted to be a princess. I wanted to be a janitor, because I dream big!
ReplyIt might be worth noting that all those movies (except "The Lion King", which was directly ripped from a Japanese cartoon movie) are based on very old fairy tales. So really, it's not so much Disney you should be blaming, but rather storytellers over the course of several centuries. (The Disney versions are actually way more watered down and kid-friendly.)
ReplyThe Lion King is based of of something older than some Japanese cartoon movie. It's based off of Shakespeare's Hamlet, which was based off of a Dutch play.
They forgot Hunchback......lol.
ReplyI thought it was hilarious. *shrugs* Love the images too
ReplyIn all fairness, they are lions, and that's how the pride works.
Reply-__-
ReplyShut up about Disney dude.
ReplyAre you f*****g retarded? This is a article about Disney. Get off the Internet.
Jasmine had a father.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesUm, they're definitely talking about Aladdin, whose orphan status is mentioned but whose parents we never hear about until the VHS sequels come along?
well she doesn't have a mother
I, like rosin1, assumed that they were referring to the fact that nobody ever mentions where Jasmine's mom is. For all we know, the Sultan gave birth to Jasmine. He does seem to have child-bearing hips.
Oh geez, I haven't thought about The Great Mouse Detective in years! I used to watch my little video cassette tape of that movie all the time. Remember, never call Rattigan a rat...
ReplyI'm not sure if this has been said, but in the 3rd little mermaid it explains the fate of her mother (SPOILERS-OMG Crushed by a boat and sent hubby into a rage that sets the plot in motion!)
ReplyI'm sorry, the third little mermaid? What plot was left after the main character died?
Outkin is talking about the little mermaid's mom as in Ariel's mother.
When I was a little girl, I didn't ever once dream of becoming a disney princess. I wanted to be a 100 ft tall man-eating dragon....
ReplyMarry me.
I realize that it was already explained that the sequels are s****y but, I'm pretty sure the majority of the story in Aladdin 3 focuses on Aladdin's relationship with his father. So, at least one parent is discussed but I don't remember if there is anything having to do with his mother.
ReplyAladdin's mother was in the movie originally. They e en had a song where Aladdin sings to his mother. It all ended up being cut at the end though.
The Great Mouse Detective does address the fact that the daughter doesn't have a mother, when Basil asks about the woman in question. Right? It's when she explains her father is missing, I thought he asked about the mother..perhaps I'm wrong, it's been so long since I've seen it.
ReplyActually, yes. Although I only remembered it after you brought it up-- Basil says something smarmy about "And what about your MOTHER, hmm?" and the little scamp does the waterworks. Thereby guilting the story into motion against the stereotypical salty lead character's wishes (Disney Plot Device #09)
It's pretty much okay for lions to have a certain amount of incest, because they are f*****g animals and don't worry about that.
ReplyStrangely enough watching Aladdin while reading this, and we just got to the best part... Jasmine getting sexually harassed by Jafar and her pretending she likes it (or secretly enjoying it).
ReplyDidn't The Great Mouse Detective have a sequel, too?
ReplyDid DisneyFan01 from Encylopedia Dramatica/ Deviant Art infamy draw Ariel on the Cosmo mag? It looks similar to her tracing style.
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