...Wait... Disney... What?

[Seil]

So I watched The Hunchback Of Notre Dame recently - still one of the greatest Disney flicks ever. And as I'm sitting along, singing along to The Bells Of Notre Dame, clapping along with Clopin and getting a hoot out of the show, I realize that holy crap, this is pretty heavy stuff. Have you ever sat there, just going along with the show, and suddenly had a... well, something a little less eye-opening than an epihany, but it's sort of like you were spaced out in history class and the teacher whaps the meter stick across your desk and you realize you're learning about what an asshole Hitler was.

Like... seriously - racism, facism, megalomania, cruelty, abuse, god-complexes, extortion, murder... At one point, Frollo traps a family in their house and lights the house on fire. Just... wow.

What about Toy Story? If you're a toy, and the only world you know is the room of your owner, the yard, and the sadistic creepy kid next door who'd like nothing better than to blow you up for fun... well. And the possibility of getting lost or damaged...

Tarzan - your family is a bunch of apes. A poacher wants to kill every member of your family one by one and sell them. Plus, there's all the prejudice that Tarzan suffered just 'cause he wasn't an actual ape.

Lion King - Hamlet. With lions. In Africa.

So, what's up Disney? I know they're taking previously written stories and adapting them to their needs, but even still. Frollo, singing the song "Hellfire," informing the audience that if the girl whose people he spent most of his adult life massacring doesn't love him, he'll burn her alive, all the while proclaiming himself to be a good and virtuous man. It's just... eally serious stuff for a 90 minute kids movie.

[mauve]

Then there's the fact that just about every Disney princess ever (excepting maybe Belle and Jasmine) is horrendously shallow and has a twisted backstory.

-Cinderella is trapped in an abusive family, and due to the social position of women in this particular Disney Fantasyland, is unable to escape said abuse unless she marries. The same principle applies to her two stepsisters, really: Their mother is apparently wealthy, but as a widow she has limited social mobility and really has no source of income aside from whatever her husband left for her. So now her daughters have to compete with their more attractive stepsister Cinderella for their futures, and ultimately, their survival. Things don't look good for them. So there's THAT whole deal. And then Cinderella decides she wants to go to the royal ball to meet the Prince, a random (nameless?? Or did he have a name?) dude who she doesn't know but has money and lives in a pretty sweet castle. Her fairy godmother, WHO HAS MAGICAL POWERS TO SOLVE ALL CINDERELLA'S PROBLEMS BUT ONLY SHOWS UP TO DELIVER A FREAKIN' PAIR OF SHOES rather than help with any of the more important problems, like, I dunno, extensive psychological abuse, rummages through Cinderella's garden and gives her an hour to look pretty and woo the prince.

During said hour, in which Cinderella somehow learns to ballroom dance, the Prince falls madly in love with her and decides he wants to marry her. Well gee, he certainly moves fast. So they're perfectly matched in that they're both shallow enough to fall in love based entirely on looks and (in Cinderella's case) social status. And then the genius Prince decides to track her down USING A SHOE. A SHOE. There's that whole issue right there. He tries the shoe on every freaking woman in the kingdom, so apparently he can't remember what her hair color or her figure or her facial features looked like..... Way to go, idiot. If she's that damn memorable, it must be true love.

So in the end, Cinderella marries the dude she meets ONCE at a party, the widow and her daughters.... really don't get much in the way of punishment, aside from the fact that the daughters are still unmarried and are still trapped with few lifestyle options and an ever-shrinking bank account. The pretty one is rewarded for not standing up for herself during her years of abuse, and the ugly ones are evil because they're ugly and unfit for marriage.

AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.



Don't even get me started on Snow White.

[Raiden]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

Then there's the fact that just about every Disney princess ever (excepting maybe Belle and Jasmine) is horrendously shallow and has a twisted backstory.

-Cinderella is trapped in an abusive family, and due to the social position of women in this particular Disney Fantasyland, is unable to escape said abuse unless she marries. The same principle applies to her two stepsisters, really: Their mother is apparently wealthy, but as a widow she has limited social mobility and really has no source of income aside from whatever her husband left for her. So now her daughters have to compete with their more attractive stepsister Cinderella for their futures, and ultimately, their survival. Things don't look good for them. So there's THAT whole deal. And then Cinderella decides she wants to go to the royal ball to meet the Prince, a random (nameless?? Or did he have a name?) dude who she doesn't know but has money and lives in a pretty sweet castle. Her fairy godmother, WHO HAS MAGICAL POWERS TO SOLVE ALL CINDERELLA'S PROBLEMS BUT ONLY SHOWS UP TO DELIVER A FREAKIN' PAIR OF SHOES rather than help with any of the more important problems, like, I dunno, extensive psychological abuse, rummages through Cinderella's garden and gives her an hour to look pretty and woo the prince.

During said hour, in which Cinderella somehow learns to ballroom dance, the Prince falls madly in love with her and decides he wants to marry her. Well gee, he certainly moves fast. So they're perfectly matched in that they're both shallow enough to fall in love based entirely on looks and (in Cinderella's case) social status. And then the genius Prince decides to track her down USING A SHOE. A SHOE. There's that whole issue right there. He tries the shoe on every freaking woman in the kingdom, so apparently he can't remember what her hair color or her figure or her facial features looked like..... Way to go, idiot. If she's that damn memorable, it must be true love.

So in the end, Cinderella marries the dude she meets ONCE at a party, the widow and her daughters.... really don't get much in the way of punishment, aside from the fact that the daughters are still unmarried and are still trapped with few lifestyle options and an ever-shrinking bank account. The pretty one is rewarded for not standing up for herself during her years of abuse, and the ugly ones are evil because they're ugly and unfit for marriage.

AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.



Don't even get me started on Snow White.

....ummm....*pat pat*

That'll do girl. That'll do.

Granted, my extent of enjoying Disney Films were watching fight scenes. I was a young boy, and as such was impervious and even disgusted by scenes of love. Now, the Prince shoving a sword into Maleficent's dragon chest? That was gold.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Originally Posted by Raiden

....ummm....*pat pat*

That'll do girl. That'll do.

Granted, my extent of enjoying Disney Films were watching fight scenes. I was a young boy, and as such was impervious and even disgusted by scenes of love. Now, the Prince shoving a sword into Maleficent's dragon chest? That was gold.

*grumble mumble* cheap shot, that was *grump* >.=.<

Also, has anyone heard of the latest stink around "The Princess and the Frog"? Something about keeping the prince white even though the 'princess' as it were, is black? I swear, I saw an article about this recently either on MSN, Aol, or Yahoo news but I don't remember exactly where.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Shyria Dracnoir

Also, has anyone heard of the latest stink around "The Princess and the Frog"? Something about keeping the prince white even though the 'princess' as it were, is black? I swear, I saw an article about this recently either on MSN, Aol, or Yahoo news but I don't remember exactly where.

Well, it was all a mess from the get-go. Disney wanted to make a movie based in 1920s New Orleans, centered around a young black woman living in the French Quarter working as a chambermaid for a spoiled, rich white debutante. The woman's name was Madelaine, a suitably French name for anyone living in the area during that era regardless of race, shortened to "Maddy" as was common practice at the time. The shortening of the name could be taken as demeaning, because such demeaning shortenings of names was also common practice at the time. All of this was intended to display the adversity that black people in America faced, especially during that era, and the main character would ultimately overcome that adversity in the end and rise above it.

But a number of people couldn't see the forest for the trees and accused Disney of making some bigass racist stereotype, so now the main character is a proud, strong black woman named Tiana who don't let nobody get her down. Now, obviously, the character is stereotype free, amirite?

And the prince in question is European and, thus, white. His story is about crossing of racial lines in a time and place where doing such things was considered an absolute disgrace in the white community, and more so for someone of royal blood to even lower themselves to rubbing elbows with the common folk, regardless of race. To embrace black music and culture, and to travel halfway across the globe to some gritty uncouth place like Louisiana to do so was just not done.

Now, that's all well and good, but the female protagonist that he will invariably fall for and run away with in troo love is black, and a black girl falling in love with a white guy apparently sends the message that love between two black people is wrong or that the only way to succeed as a black person is to escape black culture entirely and assimilate with the white folk? But what message does the outcry against it send? That two people of different races falling in love and making a go of it is wrong? The hypocrisy involved in the complaints is what bothers me most.

I will say that the movie's villain being a black voodoo witch doctor is a little much, but I honestly don't know who else they're supposed to find in 1920s New Orleans to turn a dude into a frog without really reaching like crazy.

[The Wizard Who Did It]

Originally Posted by Shyria Dracnoir

Also, has anyone heard of the latest stink around "The Princess and the Frog"? Something about keeping the prince white even though the 'princess' as it were, is black? I swear, I saw an article about this recently either on MSN, Aol, or Yahoo news but I don't remember exactly where.

Honestly, people get up in arms about the stupidest things. Like barely noticeable and hardly pronounced glowing blue wangs.

That said, it's entirely possible to make a racism related stink about anything.

2 white people getting married? There's no black people, this is keeping the people down!
A white and a black person getting married? So you say that black people have to elevate themselves to marry white people!
2 black people getting married? Well I guess white people are too good for black people!

Such important issues tend come up in the subtext of works, which a lot of people seem to neglect.

[Seil]

Sleeping Beauty - There was this great Robot Chicken sketch where as Prince Charming leans down to kiss her, a bird cries out "Date rape! Date rape!"

[Satan's Onion]

Originally Posted by Seil

Sleeping Beauty - There was this great Robot Chicken sketch where as Prince Charming leans down to kiss her, a bird cries out "Date rape! Date rape!"

That's funny because from what I've heard, much older versions of the story (before they were compiled and edited for "family" consumption) incorporate something a lot more like, well, rape.

SPOILAR ALERT!
Apparently the Prince does his thing to her in her enchanted sleep; she gets pregnant, gestates a full nine months, gives birth to twins--remember, this is all while she sleeps--and is only woken when one of them crawls up to her breasts and starts to suckle. From what I've heard, she has to track down the Prince and make him marry her. That's her "happily ever after".
/SPOILARZZZ!

That said, I remember really liking the soundtrack to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I don't remember if I liked the film all that much, but the soundtrack was great. Even "Hellfire". Especially "Hellfire", come to think. Pity the film was...well, what it was.

@Mauve: What about Mulan? I mean, she's only barely considered a (TM) (C) (OWNED BY DISNEY DON'T USE IT) Disney Princess (TM) (C) (OWNED BY DISNEY SERIOUSLY, WE WILL END YOU IF YOU INFRINGE ON US), but technically she is one. (Maybe they hide her 'cos she actually does something besides sit and wait for marriage to a suitable prince. I dunno.)

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Satan's Onion

SPOILAR ALERT!
Apparently the Prince does his thing to her in her enchanted sleep; she gets pregnant, gestates a full nine months, gives birth to twins--remember, this is all while she sleeps--and is only woken when one of them crawls up to her breasts and starts to suckle. From what I've heard, she has to track down the Prince and make him marry her. That's her "happily ever after".
/SPOILARZZZ!

Disney: Taking the WTF out of your kid's stories since the early 80s!

[Amake]

I love The Hunchback. I hear Disney had a lot of 'splainin to do especially because of the "Hellfire" song. More precisely a lot of parents had to explain hellfire, desire and other such rhymes to their kids and they didn't like that one bit. Heh.