My beef with Disney is not specifically that they make cheap, cutesy, vacuous children’s stories. If that’s what they want to do, then fine. The problem is that they take good, meaningful, artistic stories with real lessons and turn them into meaningless drivel. I liked Tom’s point that the original purpose of the fairy tale or fable was to teach a lesson in an entertaining manner, and Disney has completely overlooked it.
I can’t blame Disney for trying to get rich, but I can blame them for contributing to the dumbing down of America. Don’t like it, don’t watch it-I don’t plan to (nor will my children if I have anything to say about it).
You seem to infer that, but for Disney’s dumbing down of a great story, the viewers would have read the original. A huge inference that I totally disagree with. Even without Disney, kids wouldn’t read enough of the classics.
Now I’ll put my head on a platter for those of you who feel the need to blame Disney for all of societies evils: I suspect that kids are even more likely to read the original having experienced the “entertaining” version. No proof, just a theory.
If your beef is that kids should experience the original stories, I agree. But blaming Disney will not solve the ultimate problem. Disney creates this stuff for profit, and they’re very good at it. Their motives are no different than almost any other profitable company.
“Yes, the young sparrows if you treat them tenderly thank you with droppings” - Issa
In my horrible little school, we were forbidden from reading anything that was not on the “approved” list, or discussing one of those Satan-inspired works. Eleventh grade literature: “Heidi.” And even that had a disclaimer in the front cover stating that they did not endorse its content. I dunno if it was her love of goats or what . . .
I digress . . . anyway, after several brain-draining years, I hadn’t read any of the classics. I was only exposed to them through TV movies, and the like. (A perfect example for that was Ralph Feinnes as Heathcliff.) Once interested in the story, I had to read the book.
RoadKing,
You’re right, of course. I should not be so naive as to assume that people will find culture on their own. And I’m not so naive as to think that people would have read the original in the absence (or presence) of Disney. Perhaps it offends my sense of aesthetic. Perhaps I am more optimistic about your average Joe and his ability to be entertained by anything other than mindless drivel. Perhaps I am jealous that Disney is making buttloads of cash sugarcoating and sanitizing the world’s great stories. Perhaps I am just cynical enough to simply hate cutesy stories with happy endings.
Whatever it is, I think it stinks and I reserve the right to hate Disney for it.
“Their motives are no different than almost any other profitable company.”
Yet so few companies sell themselves as products for the entire family; in fact as a Disney “life style.” Other companies may claim that their product will make you a better human being, but Disney produces thought control. Children learn to walk because of Mickey. Toddlers learn to read because of Goofy. Young readers learn to follow the TV Guide because of Donald.
If making money was evil, then everybody is guilty. What makes Disney evil is the way they make their money. Disney tells people what they want then produces to fill that want. Since they target children, they give the appearance of being wholesome to adults. But Disney isn’t content with just selling kids their cultural mush, they insist that there are messages in all the stories. The main themes in Disney toons are:
Obey the Status Quo (All the villains are bucking the system for personal gain; the heroes “restore” order)>
If I am a good girl, a man will rescue me. (The male version is: If I try real hard, I’ll get the girl)
Buy the product line.
And finally, I don’t know about you, but I’m uncomfortable in a world where even the lions are middle class white people.
I believe the Tarzan franchise is still controlled by the Estate of E.R. Burroughs. ERB died in 1950, and I’m pretty sure he renewed his copyrights throughout his life.
[[A nit to pick, Elijah. Where do you find Hercules in either of Homer’s epics?]]
He appears briefly as a shade in the Odyssey when Odysseus is required by someone (Circe, I think) to journey to Hades in order to question Teiresias about his future. Apparently his human part has to live in the underworld, but his immortal part gets to live with the gods.
Disney’s misrepresentation of mythology and literature are one thing, but the outright re-writing of history is another. Pocahontas, for example, had absolutely nothing to do with any historical figure or event other than stealing some people’s names, yet Disney continued to brag about its historical research in publicity for this film. If they did any historical research, it was to make sure they didn’t include any actual people or events.
Why is it that in all Disney movies parents are portrayed as either incompetent buffoons or evil monsters in league with the devil? Why is it that Disney movies are filled with 16 year old girls who run away from home (against the better judgment of their parents) in order to marry some prince and live happily ever after? What kind of message does this send to kids?
Of course, Disney is not the only movie studio to completely ignore the original stories they base their movies on. James Bond films ceased to bear any resemblance to the original Ian Fleming stories after Goldfinger. And even the earlier ones had only slight similarities in plot. (Of course, the movies are generally better than Fleming’s stories, but I digress.)
Tom Clancy refused to sell any more of the rights to his novels after Paramount butchered Patriot Games.
I guess my complaint is that there will be a whole generation of kids that will believe that Pocahontas was a stacked 16 year old girl that saved her poor, innocent father and his tribe of peaceful Indians from the evil depredations of the white European John Smith by falling in love with him and marrying him. Never mind that her father was really a bloodthirsty bastard who fought several wars in order to enslave several neighboring tribes, that he welcomed the contact with Smith because he thought that Smith might sell him weapons, that Pocahontas was only 12 at the time she met Smith and had no romantic relationship with him (she did later marry a member of the British royal family, relocated to England, and died childless) and that the early colonists were more interested in conquest and plunder than they were in trade, not to mention the portrayal in the movie of a racial conflict that belongs more to the 20th century than the 17th.
With Disney’s pervasive effect on American culture, its rewriting of history to politically correct standards, its actual suppression of people who disagree with them, etc., I would have to say that this company comes about as close to Big Brother and Newspeak as anything this century has produced. Sort of Big Brother meets the Brave New World. If we ever get a completely totalitarian government in this country, Disney will be one of its biggest supporters.
I’m no fan of Disney’s, as my previous posts to this thread have established, but I will note that they are not the only ones guilty of re-writing history for the sake of the storyline. Witness “Elizabeth” – the recent movie about Queen Elizabeth the First of England. Great costumes, story, etc. Lousy history. And they had the gall to put some little blurb at the end suggesting that Robert Dudley and Elizabeth’s friendship was at an end following the events in the film (which did NOT go down the way the movie portrays), when that was simply not so. Dudley was at Elizabeth’s side during the Spanish Armada crisis; he died a few months later and she wept bitterly for him.
-Melin
I’m a woman phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me
(Maya Angelou)
I’m no fan of Disney’s, as my previous posts to this thread have established, but I will note that they are not the only ones guilty of re-writing history for the sake of the storyline. Witness “Elizabeth” – the recent movie about Queen Elizabeth the First of England. Great costumes, story, etc. Lousy history. And they had the gall to put some little blurb at the end suggesting that Robert Dudley and Elizabeth’s friendship was at an end following the events in the film (which did NOT go down the way the movie portrays), when that was simply not so. Dudley was at Elizabeth’s side during the Spanish Armada crisis; he died a few months later and she wept bitterly for him.
-Melin
I’m a woman phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me
(Maya Angelou)
Pocahontas married a Jamestown settler named John Rolfe in 1614. She converted to Christianity and took the name Rebecca. They had a son, Thomas Rolfe. Pocahontas died in 1617 during a tour of England. No one’s really sure how she died, other than illness. Son Thomas was raised in England while John returned to Virginia. As an adult, Thomas also settled in Virginia, and there are plenty of his descendents around today.
I do not use Disney movies to study history but a kid who doesn’t understand the disjointed memorization practice I was subjected to in social studies class might.
I am historically ignorant, but a child raised on movies may not reallize he or she is.
The difference is I attempt to make sense of things when I read a history book and a “movie-baby” wouldn’t… why try to understand what you already know?
This being said, Why do parents take their kids to those movies?