The Magical World of Disney

Stupid and helpless - a great role model.

When I think of movies with the magic of childhood, as I have already written, I think of Studio Ghibli. But for most Americans, Walt Disney is the King of Animated Family Movies. Of course, we've tried a few Disney movies. We started with Snow White, when our oldest was three. It seemed pretty harmless to me, but she didn't understand that the crocodiles and grasping hands were just logs and tree branches any more than Snow White did. And that's another thing- Snow White is not the brightest crayon in the box by any means. Yea, stupid princess, great role model. Of course, even my sensitive kid could handle this story by the time she was four.
Our next pass at Disney was Alice in Wonderland. The scene where Alice wanders in the forest was a little intimidating, as was the card-chase scene. But again, by the time she was four she could handle it, and asked to watch the movie over and over again.
After Alice, we tried Mulan. Now, Mulan is much more dramatic and scary than the other two. But our daughter had just moved here from China, and still spoke Mandarin. The standard DVD release of Mulan can be watched in English or Mandarin. Our girl could understand what was going on, and the advantage of a Chinese heroine was enough to overcome the scary parts.

Now that's a role model.

We tried some of the other new generation Disney movies, too. But as a rule, they were all overwhelming. Ursula terrified her at the end of The Little Mermaid. The giant panther head coming out of the sand in the opening scenes of Aladdin was as far as we got with that movie. The tiger in Tarzan terrified here. I never much liked the Lion King, so we didn't try it.
So we stuck with the older movies. 101 Dalmations worked pretty well, although it did introduce the word "idiot" into her vocabulary. In fact, I discovered that Disney movies often include name-calling. Lilo & Stitch used "stupidhead" more often than I had ever heard it in real life.
All in all, we found that Disney had it's place on our TV. But it was a little bit of a mystery why Disney has become the empire it has. I think it must be the rides.