...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.

[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!"

[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.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

Mauve's rant

Now, I'm not going to say I know a whole lot about Grimm fairy tales, but wasn't that pretty much the actual story, just minus whatever gruesome and/or violent elements were in the original version?

EDIT: The biggest difference is that the stepmother and stepsisters actually get punished in the original. I'm pretty sure crows ate out their eyes. I can see why that would be cut out.

[Seil]

Speaking of Hunchback, here's the scene where Frollo is about to burn Esmerelda alive. Weren't the Salem trials a hoot?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

The Hunchback movie didn't even need to be like that. In the book Frollo was barely a villain. But we know what kiddies like! Violence and death and scheming!

[POS Industries]

And yet Disney's version was still a delightfully silly romp compared to Hugo's original work.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Well that is true.

[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.)