I was watching Lilo & Stitch with my kid the other night, and it occurred to me that many of the Disney animated movies are about or involve broken homes.
Off the top of my head, here’s a list:
[ul]
[li]Treasure Planet - Single parent, Mother.[/li][li]Beauty and the Beast - Single parent, Father.[/li][li]Little Mermaid – Single parent, Sea King.[/li][li]Hercules - Baby disowned by parents, raised by foster family[/li][li]Lion King - Dad gets killed by a stampede![/li][li]Lilo & Stitch - Both parents dead, older sister raising younger sister.[/li][li]Alladin - Orphaned boy.[/li][li]Cinderella - No parents, evil stepmom & sisters.[/li][li]Dinosaur - Mom eaten by Tyrannosaur, baby raised by foster monkeys.[/li][li]Hunchback of Notre Dame - Baby raised by man who kills his family.[/li][li]Toy story – Where’s Andy’s dad? (OK, maybe I’m stretching here.)[/li][/ul]
On the other hand, we have these animated movies that either contain ‘whole’ families, or the subject seems irrelevant:
[ul]
[li]Mulan[/li][li]101(2) Dalmations[/li][li]Pocahontas[/li][li]Monsters, Inc.[/li][li]A Bug’s Life[/li][li]Lady & the Tramp[/li][/ul]
I’m unsure about these (and don’t recall in the latter two cases):
[ul]
[li]Peter Pan – Just where are Peter and the Lost Boys’ folks?[/li][li]Snow White – the subject of her family doesn’t come up. ?[/li][li]Sleeping Beauty – ditto. ?[/li][/ul]
Obviously, some of these stories are relying on source material (Brothers Grimm, etc) that dictate the story elements. Cinderella would be a good example of these, so would Treasure Planet.
However, even accounting for source material, there seems to sometimes be a conscious choice made to exclude a second parent. For example, The Little Mermaid, which is based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, would seem to have no requirement that Ariel not have a Mom. (Somebody who’s read HCA more recently than I please feel free to jump in and correct me.)
So, is there some fixation at Disney with stories about broken homes? Anybody know why this is so? Or is this just a common theme in any set of children’s stories?