Disney Movies That Ignore Their Hero's Horrific Crimes
Need to teach the young 'uns morality while also building your Clash Of Clans army? Plop them down in front of a Disney movie that you can pay 1/4 of an attention to while mostly just poking at your phone. That's what Disney films are for: They're our modern day fables, built around some central moral triumph of good over evil. But if you were paying full attention, you might've caught some pretty messed up stuff, like the time ...
Frozen's Elsa Killed Soooo Many Babies
Elsa, heir to the throne of Arendelle, discovers that she is Iceman (but that's OK, because Disney owns Marvel now). After accidentally freezing her sister Anna, she locks herself away until her coronation day. Her secret powers manifest, forcing her into a self-imposed exile ... but not before she unwittingly kicks off an eternal winter in Arendelle.
Does any noble in any story have a response to hardship
that doesn't involve going insane or destroying the world?
It's made clear that this unexpected and supremely harsh winter is a danger to everyone in the kingdom, with characters shown stacking firewood and providing emergency blanket relief in the castle's courtyard. Here's the thing, though: Elsa doesn't just freeze the castle. Elsa freezes the whole freaking fjord.
The vast majority of Arendelle's people don't get to hang out in the castle courtyard all day. They live a meager existence in meager huts tucked somewhere within all those meager cliffs. And unlike the Starks, who brace for winter like a Game Of Thrones fan braces for spoilers, these people aren't ready. Their usual months of preparations -- gathering firewood, sewing up thicker clothing, burying stank-ass fish in their backyard, etc. -- are unceremoniously yoinked away by super-powered royalty throwing a tantrum.
Enjoy your idyllic Swiss mountain town image, because pretty soon you're going to resort to cannibalism.
Accidentally or not, Elsa sentenced the entire working class to a slow and icy death. As with all extreme weather events, it's society's most vulnerable -- the elderly, infirm, and babies -- that suffer the most. So even if we assume the hearty folks of Arendelle sucked it up and walked it off (uphill both ways, of course), at the bare minimum, Elsa is a mass murderer of geriatrics. Maybe they can address that in the sequel, Frozen 2: Freezer Geezers.
The Fairies From Sleeping Beauty Tried To Murder The Whole Kingdom
The story begins with the evil fairy Maleficent crashing the celebration of Princess Aurora's birth, where she gives her the gift that keeps on giving: A curse that will cause her, on her 16th birthday, to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die (spindles were basically the medieval equivalent of a modern public bus seat). Three good fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather "help" the princess by adjusting the curse so that she won't die, but merely sleep forever, because they're firmly against DNRs and can't help but inject their politics into their magic. Then they whisk the child away to raise her in the woods, in a shack, destitute, with no magic, even though the curse only put her in danger for one single specific day out of 16 entire years. The king and queen agree to this plan because they were apparently hoping for a boy, anyway.
Fast forward 16 years, and we find the fairy trio having a noisy and colorful magic-off to celebrate the princess' birthday -- on the one and only day they had to be discreet.
"Just for once, can you guys just be cool?"
Maleficent finds Aurora and sees her curse through. As the three fairies cry and wail over the princess' easily avoidable coma, Merryweather says, " will be heartbroken when they find out." To which Flora responds, "They're not going to. We'll put them all to sleep, until she awakens."
And that's precisely what they do. Even though they had absolutely no way of knowing at the time that the cure for Aurora's curse, her true love, was out gallivanting about the woods. They chose putting the entire kingdom in a never-ending coma over allowing them to experience icky feelings.
Remember that thing Maleficent did? You know, the one that made her the villain of this movie? Well Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather did that to fucking everyone.
Wendy From Peter Pan Chose Suicide Over Her Family
Peter Pan is the timeless story of a juvenile stalker who breaks into the house of a girl he likes and kidnaps her. But the movie never tries to hide the fact that Peter is a frightening maniac -- this time around we're victim-shaming Wendy, the lone pillar of maturity in the whole story, who is so desperate to escape Peter's nightmare world that she attempts suicide.
No, we're not watching the Russian translation of the film. It really happens.
Near the end of the movie, Wendy, her brothers, and the Lost Boys have been captured by Captain Hook and his underlings. Hook gives Wendy a choice: Sign up to serve with his crew of seafaring delinquents, or walk the plank. Wendy, ever the voice of reason, chooses to take a stand. She refuses to sign Hook's pirate agreement, opting instead to walk the plank.
"Hey, thanks for saying we'd all rather drown stupidly instead of signing a paper."
But ... why? Why is it better to walk the plank than sign a paper? She certainly wasn't expecting a daring, last-minute rescue by Peter (even though that's what happens), because last she saw Peter he was a bit busy being exploded.
Wendy have could have simply signed the paper while winking at her brothers, trying to buy enough time and distraction for them to formulate an escape plan. Or better yet, she could have signed it and pretended to be a pirate for a day (isn't that what this whole world is about, pretending to be stuff?) until everyone went to sleep, and then just left. Because you know what a contract with backstabbing, murderous pirates means? Jack fucking shit. What is Hook going to do, sue? The legal system in Neverland is notoriously lax.
"All rise, the Honorable Tick-Tock Croc presiding!"
But no, Wendy was clearly just looking for any excuse to end it. Goodbye cruel world, goodbye eight-year-old John, goodbye four-year-old Michael. Good luck as orphans in this world full of bloodthirsty pirates, horribly offensive Indian stereotypes, and inappropriately sexy mermaids, boys. See you in the next life (probably soon).
Sofia The First Eats Her Only Friends
Sofia The First is a Disney Junior series about a peasant-turned-princess -- Sofia, in case that wasn't self-evident -- who receives a magical amulet that, among other things, allows her to talk to animals. Her sudden transition to royalty means that poor Sofia's world is thrown upside down, and she doesn't know who, if anybody, she can trust -- but at least the animals are there for her. They are her helpers, her confidants, her best friends, and also her dinner.
Here's Sofia, having friends over for dinner.
Yep, Princess Sofia and her family eat meat. Now, we love animals and we also eat meat, which is a base level hypocrisy we will no doubt one day have to account for when get lost on a farm and the LSD turns on us. But here's the thing: Animals don't talk to us. Yet.
But they talk to Sofia.
"Friends for dinner? Again?"
And she eats them.
All Sofia does in this show is stand up for what she believes in. That's the whole point. It's a show about being yourself, and doing the right thing, even when it's hard. Speaking up for those who don't have a voice of their own, even if your opinion is in the minority. But apparently the line is drawn at how delicious steak is. Which, for the record, is super delicious.
"My dinner had a first name, it was O-S-C-A-R! He struggled with depression, but it was getting B-E-T-T-E-R ..."
Nobody Loves The Original Santa From The Santa Clause
Late one Christmas Eve, Scott Calvin (played by Tim Allen playing, as always, Tim Allen) shouts at a stranger on his roof, startling him and causing him to fall to his death. The newly dead stranger turns out to be the bona fide Santa Claus, a fact which gradually settles in for Scott as he puts on the Santa suit and the elves use blackmail and voodoo to transform him into the new Santa. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's back up a moment, to when your childhood sense of wonder is still lying dead and bleeding on Scott Calvin's sidewalk:
Young Charlie's topical grief for Dead Santa, as seen in the last ten seconds or so of that clip, is all he'll ever get. No one else in the entire trilogy ever once gives a single, steaming reindeer shit about the Santa whom Scott just killed.
When Scott first puts on the red suit, it takes a full year for him to physically transform into Santa -- white hair and obesity and all -- meaning that Dead Santa was Santa for at least one year, with an adventure and story all his own. One that ended in his untimely death, and nobody bats an eye.
When Scott arrives at the North Pole for the very first time, he's greeted by the elves, who, after finding out their boss/friend/father figure just died, proceed to smile and cheer "It's Santa! It's Santa!" at the man who killed him:
Any given Christmas could be the current Santa's last. And no one will cry for him when he's gone. They'll be far too busy creating the next one for that.
Santa Claus is dead. Long live Santa Claus.
Nathan is a Christian and says things like, "Glory to God in the highest!" He is also called Treegnome, and is hilarious, usually here, on his website.
Zoroastrianism used to be one of the biggest religions in the world, but their idea of heaven had a slight twist on it: to get there you'd have to cross a bridge. Sometimes rickety, sometimes wide and sturdy, if you fell off you'd go to the House of Lies for eternity. Fun! Not terrifying at all! This month, Jack, Dan, and Michael along with comedians Casey Jane Ellison and Ramin Nazer as they discuss their favorite afterlife scenarios from movies, sci-fi and lesser-known religions. Get your tickets here and we'll see you on the other side of the bridge!
For more reasons to be frightened by Disney films, check out The 7 Most Terrifying Disney Movie Deaths and 7 Classic Disney Movies That Taught Us Terrible Lessons.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out 4 Disney Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along, and other videos you won't see on the site!
Also, follow us on Facebook, and let's be best buddies forever.
