Disney? - Page 2

[LadyButler]

You know, I think in the majority of things- not all by any stretch... but most- you can find redeeming qualities.

My best friend Shelly loves the movie Cinderella. Her twin sister Kelly hates it. Kelly sees Cinderella as a victim who allows herself to be treated as a doormat. Shelly on the other hand sees Cinderella as a model for finding the good in bad situations and finding joy in serving others.

I could see it either way, depending on my mood. :

HOWEVER- if the overall theme of something goes against your conscience, it's not worth it.

Disney has always had a certain romance in my family... and naive or not, I choose to see the magical innocence that I remember from my childhood. Don't get me wrong... I'm aware that there's a rather sinister side to Disney... but for now I'm choosing to ignore it.

[Bruden]

I think there was some criticism with Aladdin that only the villain had a non-American accent thus villainizing people who sound "foreign". I think they gave other examples but that is the only one I can think of right now.

My kids have only seen Cinderella and that's because I read them the Bros. Grimm one first. They've also only read the H.C. Andersen The Little Mermaid to them. I don't know that version is any better, she wants to be human for a man . . . who ends up not returning her affection. The transformation is painful, she looses her voice, her family and is cursed to become nothing but sea foam. Yeah that's happy stuff right?

Most of the older kids stuff is dark. I've recently busted out with all the classic: Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White. There parents are either plotting to kill their children, have died, or accidentally lure them to nearly certain doom. I waited long enough that my kids have imaginations and they know there are no witches, curses, wolfs out to eat them.

I do think Disney is pretty annoying and I've tried to give them the stories so they can imagine the characters looking a certain way in their heads. It's hard when everything is marketed to them.

[CryPixie83]

Originally Posted by LadyButler

Disney has always had a certain romance in my family... and naive or not, I choose to see the magical innocence that I remember from my childhood. Don't get me wrong... I'm aware that there's a rather sinister side to Disney... but for now I'm choosing to ignore it.

I'm like this a bit too. Disney really puts me on the fence. On one hand I hate the consumer-whore aspect (the movie>the series>the toys>the clothes>the fruit snacks>etc anyone see "Monkey Bone"?) and on the other hand I love the "childhood is magical" aspect. So, at this point I carefully pick and choose what dd is exposed to, hope to take a family vacation to Disneyland or Disneyworld someday but we're careful not to buy into the commercial-aspects.

[sunbaby]

in my opinion,
disney movies do two things i dont want for my kids:
1, either scare a kid, or desensetize them to the realites of violence, or both.
2,decrease the imagination

ok, before i explain this further, i will just straight up admit that we have a tv and movie free household by choice. i think most tv and movies do the two things i mentioned above to some degree, but disney is one of the most insidious offenders.

in my number one complaint, well if it scares a kid, that is just duh. i think any of the people here can get that. but i also think that even if the kid does not appear scared, witnessing violence is harmful to humans. some people, in some places, have to live with unthinkable violence all around them, and that is terrible, but i dont see why i should put my kid in front of a screen and subject her to witnessing violence when it is *optional*. i think its harmful to everyone, but especially kids, because their sense of boundary between reality and imaginary is not particularly developed.

furthermore, in order to deal with witnessing viloence repeatedly, a person has to harden to some degree, to desenstize themselves as a protective coping mechanism.

on the imagination thing, well, just think, if you tell your child the story of snow white, well, his or her brain is free to make snow white look however they wish. maybe a girl identifies with snow white, and thinks snow white looks just like herself. but once she sees the disney snow white, it is most likley that this will be the image of snow white she carries throughout her life. and so not only does she not get to create he own image of snow white, but i think the snow white she sees is suggesting to her how maybe she (the viewer) should look. so i think giving kids too strong of images, such as in disney movies, really robs them of their own inner imagery. and i think violence when viewed is a lot more powerful and scary that just stories told, but i also really respect that some people wont even tell their kids these fairy tales.
plus, kids who see movies and shows are more likely to mimic those in their imaginary play. kids who dont watch tv or movies get to make more stuff up from scratch.

[Viewfinder]

Actress and Feminist activist Kathy Najimy has thoughts on this subject

though I'm not sure if it can be researched on the web. I know that she and longtime stage partner Mo Gaffney had something about the Disney filmography's recurrent deadmother plots in their most recent revival of "The Kathy and Mo Show" which I missed unfortunately. I LOVE them.

I have always had issues with the mother-killer Disney... maybe he was working out his childhood issues, but wow, too bad he didn't think about all the kids who DO have mothers and throw them a bone. Personally I think it was something deeper, myself. Like, what happened to his mother? Killed by a shark?

The old Disney movies, like Dumbo, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty are just not politically correct, and they're outdated... I wish Disney WOULD update them, but, why should they? Everyone buys them anyway.

My daughter and I have talked about it. At age five and six, it was a topic I brought up to her, and she has occasionally brought it up to me when she has observed it "happening again," in movies.

Of course, hard not to love WALT Disney just because I used to watch him every Sunday night with all my siblings gathered round the tv, as he introduced his "Wonderful World of Disney," but, the DISNEY company of the past thirty years was not run by him OR his brother.

Fairy tales a la Grimm and Anderson: also moral fables of their time, and not really socially meaningful today. They're mostly about teaching fear of authority.

[sohj]

Racist.

Sexist.

Consumerist. (As in, any one of those movies has a whole product line for the new fan to start coveting.)

Boring.

Mediocre animation -- both the old and the newER. The Pixar animation is good, but I still prefer the japanese animation like in Princess Mononoke.

About specific scenes to convince your DH...can't help you there. I cringed just when seeing the trailer for Pochohantas. Ewwwww.

[KaraBoo]

Yes, Disney is/are all those things. But my child wants to watch them. So she does. But we also talk about things we see. We read the original stories, some of which are just as violent and scary as the Disney versions. We talk about the modernized dialogue/jokes. We talk about the connection with toys/merchandise. Information is power.

[aprilushka]

I think Disney isn't so appropriate for preschool for a lot of the reasons mentioned. However, some of the movies are okay I think for kids say 6-7 and up and a lot of the issues a parent has with the films could be good talking points for the family. There are so many worse films out there I will try to keep my kids from seeing that I'd rather not make a bigger deal out of Disney, I don't have the energy to fight everything. We have a lot of Russian fairy tales in books and movies to try and keep our kids in touch with my husband's homeland and I should say, they are generally more violent and in some cases promoting very questionable morals (esp in terms of revenge killing, etc). The traditional stuff is pretty violent, I guess they had to scare 'em early with witches and so on to keep them from wandering off into the woods.


I personally like Disneyland despite the consumerism, because it is a truly enjoyable experience for children and is a good family memory (or at least it always was for me), although I've come to tire of Disney stuff just because now it's everywhere, whereas before you only got it if you went to Disneyland and it actually had a family memory attached to it. I know not everyone can afford to go though, so I wouldn't say it's necessarily better that way.

[kristenok18]

Not a fan of disney because of the ethnic and gender stereotypes, but I'm conflicted because I have such nostalgiac memories of the old movies from childhood...

About the dead/missing mother thing: I heard an interview once where the interviewee (can't remember who anymore) mentioned that the reason the mother is missing is that for a child to have an adventure (as is the plot of most of the movies), they have to be separated from the parents. In Nemo, the mother is killed early on, and then Nemo is separated from his dad for the majority of the movie. Since a vast number of stories come from fairytales, and the missing mother is prevalent in many fairytales, maybe this is just an extension. I was talking to a friend who is Vietnamese, who mentioned that most of the old sad songs in Vietnam are about the wicked stepmother, since so many children lost their mothers while young (this was referenced because she was talking about her cousin, who's 2nd wife is *horrible* to his kids by his dead wife, and how this is all too common in her culture). And oftentimes, unfortunately, the children of the deceased first wife didn't fare too well with the 2nd wife. Early death was so common for women, due to childbirth or other illnesses, that this is a theme that resonates in the children's stories of many cultures.

***I'm not saying it's right to never see a mother figure in a Disney movie, just offering another viewpoint!

[EFmom]

Re the dead or missing mothers/parents, this is nothing unique to Disney. It is a very common literary device. To name just a few...

Anne of Green Gables
Lemony Snicket
Little Orphan Annie
Batman
Hansel and Gretel
Harry Potter
Heidi
Oliver Twist
Dorothy (Oz)

[CJ 5]

I am a selective Disney mom. Maybe I am the only one that finds NEMO terrifying though I am sure my 2 year old would like the fish I hated that show. I do like Pixar and monsters inc is one of my favorites of all time.

My little girl watches 101 Dalmatians and aristocats because she loves animals. I think she saw bugs life once. I tend to avoid any of the others though.

When she gets older I will probably let the kids watch some Disney movies but my mother bought me a bunch of them and my husband has already told me that he wants to get rid of Tarzan and a couple others because of the content. I personally think the end of little mermaid is terrifying and the movie I absolutely detest is SWAN princess. I find that movie so demeaning to women I almost just can't stand Disney for making it.

What I really dislike is the straight to video -poor story- mass market to children-sequel brigade. My children won't watch any of those. I also do not buy bedspreads and posters etc of Disney characters or other corporate animation. I feel we need to be the first line of defense in protecting our children’s innocence.

We have a daughter and my husband is very adamant that she have good role models. We are not into the princess stuff and the helpless stupid female slutty dressed persona that is prevalent in Disney material and well even in other cartoons. Probably the most important thing is to limit exposure and use moderation because it is almost impossible to insulate our children entirely from what is really an American culture

[LeftField]

Originally Posted by kristenok18

Not a fan of disney because of the ethnic and gender stereotypes, but I'm conflicted because I have such nostalgiac memories of the old movies from childhood...

This is going to date me, but I'm only in my early 30s. There is a fundamental difference, as I see it, between our childhood days and our children's days. We didn't have a VCR until I was almost 12. Cartoons were showed on Saturday mornings and a more limited selection were shown after school. There was no children's programming on demand. I saw the Disney movies too...once, in a theatre. And I was much older. I saw Cinderella in the cinema, but I was at least 7. Today, 2 year olds are watching feature-length Disney films with mature themes in their own home, whenever they want to. My kids aren't missing out on the nostalgia from my childhood, because I was much older than them when I saw these and it was a very special evening out, not a common thing.

[Nicole77]

Originally Posted by KaraBoo

Yes, Disney is/are all those things. But my child wants to watch them. So she does. But we also talk about things we see. We read the original stories, some of which are just as violent and scary as the Disney versions. We talk about the modernized dialogue/jokes. We talk about the connection with toys/merchandise. Information is power.

Same with us. We originally planned on her not seeing any movies or television until she was much older but my 12 year old brother who is deaf-blind is a real movie nut and he loves, loves, loves when Madeline hangs out and watches a movie with him so we decided it was something we would be good with. Plus, Madeline enjoys watching various movies on occasion now that she is in school and hears about them from her friends and I always talk with her about the same things you do afterwards.

For example, Pocahontas may have been a historically inaccurate movie but as a historian I could talk to her a bit about that (at her level) and we also talked a lot during that movie about respect for the earth we live on and the ways that early Native Americans can teach us about living in harmony with the earth. Cinderella, we talk about how silly it is that her stepsisters and stepmother treat her so badly an especially how silly it is that she waits for the prince to save her instead of saving herself (and then we read The Paperbag Princess to further the idea! ). Mulan (who rocks in my opinion) we talked about gender and why people used to think girls couldn't do important and strong things, how sometimes it can still be like that, and isn't Mulan strong and brave for standing up and saying that was wrong? Etc, etc...you get the picture. I don't think for our family it is about banning movies and television whole cloth but rather being selective about the movies we are okay with and then using them as jumping off points for conversations.

Plus, I always try to remember that I was allowed to watch all of those movies as a kid (Cinderella, Snow White, and every other damsel in distress saved by the big, strong man movie) and I grew up to be a raging feminist!

[Mountaingirl3]

I think Disney/Pixar movies are unhealthy for most kids under six (and I may raise that age as mine grow).

A wedding is potrayed as the major goal for girls.
Heroines usually fall in love with and marry someone they barely know.
Women are often powerless (even asleep) throughout.
Girls seldom have friends, just a "love at first sight guy" and pets.
The villians are nightmare scarey.
The characters are in constant peril and the pace is stressful.
Jokes are not age appropriate (nothing goes over my kids heads--they hear)
The plots yank your emotions around. Adults are used to this, but my kids become completely emersed in what they watch. They actually feel the characters' emotions, and these movies deal with intense and grown-up emotions, such as:
Lion King--guilt over father's death, escaping responsibility to the tribe
Little Mermaid--teenage angst, desire, leaving family to join husband
101 Dalmations--abduction, parents unable to find children
Beauty and the Beast/Snow White/Little Mermaid--murderous, often sexual, jealousy

Hope that's helpful. I think these films are great for teenagers and adults.

[Joannarachel]

For the girl who is TV free, I have a question.

You say you don't want your child to watch Disney movies because you would prefer her to be able to create the images in her mind.

(While we are not TV free, I do agree that an abundance of visual media IS a creativity squasher. TV is not often on in this house, and I could live without it, although I do believe it has some important aspects. But I digress )

Anyhow, do you feel the same way about, say...picture books? An illustrated book of the Brothers Grimm? Or would you prefer that stories are told, not read?

[rmzbm]

Originally Posted by LadyButler

Disney has always had a certain romance in my family... and naive or not, I choose to see the magical innocence that I remember from my childhood. Don't get me wrong... I'm aware that there's a rather sinister side to Disney... but for now I'm choosing to ignore it.

This is where I am, too.

I am neither "pro" or "con" Disney. I take each film for what I think it's worth on it's own merits.

[OakBerry]

Originally Posted by LeftField

This is going to date me, but I'm only in my early 30s. There is a fundamental difference, as I see it, between our childhood days and our children's days. We didn't have a VCR until I was almost 12. Cartoons were showed on Saturday mornings and a more limited selection were shown after school. There was no children's programming on demand. I saw the Disney movies too...once, in a theatre. And I was much older. I saw Cinderella in the cinema, but I was at least 7. Today, 2 year olds are watching feature-length Disney films with mature themes in their own home, whenever they want to. My kids aren't missing out on the nostalgia from my childhood, because I was much older than them when I saw these and it was a very special evening out, not a common thing.

Ita! I think that is my main issue with kid's shows and movies, is that they have access to so much, too much.

Although I admit I like the Pixxar movies alot!
Ds has only watched one though, Cars. I thought that was appropriate and fun to watch.

Boongirl, I loved The Incredibles! I thought it a bit mature for ds, but dh and I watched it by ourselves one night and it was very well done, funny and clever.

[MamaBug]

Moving this to Books and Other Media

[CookClanMama]

CJ 5, just so you know, The Swan Princess is not a Disney film.

As for the OP-personally, I like most Disney movies, & so do my kids. Yes, they aren't "politically correct", but what is? They are good discussion opportunities. I second what a PP said about missing parents/mothers not being unique to Disney films. Many Disney films are coming-of-age stories, & for the stories to be entertaining, there must be a conflict of some sort. Since most of these films are about children/teens, then logically the conflict will involve their parents (or lack thereof).