E.T. and other kids' movies that actually have a disturbing or nihilistic message

[msmith537]

I’m pretty sure that 50 years of Disney princess movies - Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc, - has filled a generation of women with the following message:

“Transform yourself into something desirable so that you can find some handsome rich guy to take care of you. All your friends - dwarves, fish, woodland creatures, magic dinerware - exist just to help you land your prince and can then be discarded. The alternative is that you turn into some old crone with 50 black cats.”

[Argent_Towers]

Also Beauty and the Beast promotes anorexia. During the “Be Our Guest” musical sequence, Belle doesn’t eat a SINGLE thing at the feast. Even though the whole sequence is completely devoted to describing all of the sumptuous culinary delights available to her, she is not once shown eating anything.

[Yookeroo]

@Koxinga

I think Pixar’s The Incredibles could be seen as having some undertones rather dark in their implications. At the very least, it seems chock full of homages to Ayn Rand, both visually (Edna’s studio, Mr. Incredible lifting the spherical robot) and in the dialogue:

“Sometimes I felt people got silly with their analysis of it, the Ayn Rand nonsense for example…” –Brad Bird

[Marley23]

@Sitnam

I remember there being very very few Disney movies where the children have a good home life. Kids like watching lonely abused orphans running away from home apparently.

I think it works the other way around. If a child has a happy home life, the viewers might wonder why the child is running away (going on an adventure or whatever). It’d sort of needlessly complicate the fairy tale.

[Sophistry_and_Illusion]

@Sitnam

I remember there being very very few Disney movies where the children have a good home life. Kids like watching lonely abused orphans running away from home apparently.

I remember Time magazine naming Bambi (and a whole host of other Disney movies) to their top horror movies of all time list. Their reasoning was:

@Time

Amazing that the first movies parents took their tots to in the 30s and 40s were the early Disney features. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo all exploited childhood traumas. Parents disappear or die; stepmothers plot the murder of their charges; a boy skips school and turns into a donkey. Kids were so frightened by these films that they wet themselves in terror. Bambi, directed by David Hand, has a primal shock that still haunts oldsters who saw it 40, 50, 65 years ago.

[choie]

I don’t see Beauty and the Beast teaching women that they have to transform themselves. To the contrary, not only does Belle refuse to change herself to win the approval of a man or anyone in her village, she manages to effect change in the Beast. And she falls in love with him as the Beast, rather than the pretty boy he ends up as when the spell is broken.

Except for that final transformation, Beauty and the Beast is the least offensive of the Disney animated ‘princess’ films in terms of old fashioned stereotypes.

[Koxinga]

@Yookeroo

“Sometimes I felt people got silly with their analysis of it, the Ayn Rand nonsense for example…” –Brad Bird

Ah. I guess by your quote here, you mean to indicate that for a given work of art, we’re only entitled to discuss those influences that the artist explicitly (and consciously) acknowledges.

:shrug: I’m afraid that I have to disagree. I think unconscious influences, especially when dark in nature, are what make art interesting. If it’s a good piece, the artist may be the last person you want to listen to for the “correct” interpretation.

[Marley23]

@Koxinga

Ah. I guess by your quote here, you mean to indicate that for a given work of art, we’re only entitled to discuss those influences that the artist explicitly (and consciously) acknowledges.

I don’t believe that either, but it suggests the movie has some ideas that appear Rand-esque, but that they are not Rand homages.

[Slithy_Tove]

@msmith537

I’m pretty sure that 50 years of Disney princess movies - Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc, - has filled a generation of women with the following message:

“Transform yourself into something desirable so that you can find some handsome rich guy to take care of you. All your friends - dwarves, fish, woodland creatures, magic dinerware - exist just to help you land your prince and can then be discarded. The alternative is that you turn into some old crone with 50 black cats.”

With the happy exception of Alice in Wonderland, with the useful message for children that this world is full of batsht crazies.

[Sockmunkey]

@Yumblie

This is just a general theme and not a specific movie, but I’m finding it harder and harder to get behind the “predators are evil” theme. In pretty much every kids movie that stars animals, there’s inevitably a conflict where predators are doing what they’re naturally supposed to do and hunting other animals. Our stars are of course the noble prey who outwit and defeat the evil predators. But we gloss over the fact that predators need to hunt and eat prey or they’ll die. They don’t have a choice in the matter; if they don’t eat other creatures they’ll starve. Nature is cruel like that, but in movie-land nature is pure and noble, except when it isn’t. It makes for an easy plot device so it’ll continue to be done, but it’s still a bit disturbing.

Agreed, that crap bugs the hell outta me too.
It’s really bad in “The Land Before Time” movies where most predatory species are shown as souless animals as opposed to the herbivores which are “people who just happen to be animals”.

One other thing that gets me is the similar trend of typecasting an animal’s personality based on species.
Born a fox? You must be clever and/or cunning.
Born a weasel? You are clearly a selfish, sneaky, SOB.
Born a muskrat? Doesn’t even matter. You won’t be a main character and nobody cares about muskrats.

Just about the only time they don’t do this is when they make an animal the exact opposite of the sterotype for some kind of lame character conflict.

Regarding Old Yeller, I think the message is that “doin’ what ya gotta do” is sometimes very painful even when it’s for the best.

Regarding The Incredibles, I find it hillarious that this movie did a better job of showing how super-powers would work if they existed, than most serious and/or comic book-based sci-fi movies!

I don’t think Dash was laughing at the enemy dying I think it was more along the lines of “Wooo-hoo! I’m winning and I can do this kickass stuff!”

In general, most Disney crap does bug the hell out of me because it seems to follow the line of thought that a couple of guys beating the crap out of each other is more horrible than losing your parents at five years old and having to live on the street and/or with an abusive caretaker.

[Freudian_Slit]

@Sockmunkey

Born a muskrat? Doesn’t even matter. You won’t be a main character and nobody cares about muskrats.

What about the muskrat who helped create the world? It’s an old Native American story.

[Sockmunkey]

@Freudian Slit

What about the muskrat who helped create the world? It’s an old Native American story.

Not a Disney movie though.

[armedmonkey]

@Yumblie

In pretty much every kids movie that stars animals, there’s inevitably a conflict where predators are doing what they’re naturally supposed to do and hunting other animals. Our stars are of course the noble prey who outwit and defeat the evil predators. But we gloss over the fact that predators need to hunt and eat prey or they’ll die.

This simply isn’t true. One of the major plot points in Madagascar was that the lion, one the heroes, had to eat meat. Just off the top of my head, other sympathetic predators include The Lion King the saber toothed tiger in Ice Age, and the black panther in The Jungle Book.
As for my nomination for WTF “kid’s” movies, I nominate Watership Down. Quick synopsis: Fiver gets a hallucinatory vision about the end of the world, spurring Hazel and company to rebel against society and fight the cops in order to escape Armageddon. Shortly afterwards Violet falls victim to death from the sky. Our heroes find shelter with a cult practicing death worship and flee only to be captured and tortured by a foreign army. They escape from prison with the aid of a mysterious white flying creature from an altogether other world and eventually find paradise.

[Zebra]

Well there is Babe the Gallant Pig.
Get a job or we’ll eat you!

[Kamino_Neko]

@A Monkey With a Gun

and the black panther in The Jungle Book.

I haven’t seen the Disney movie…did they not include Mowgli’s wolf family?

[Zebra]

Yes the wolves are there. Only the tiger is trying to kill the boy but his reason is that the bow will grow up to be a man and a hunter. The tiger isn’t hungry.

[choie]

The vultures come off pretty well in Jungle Book, too.

[Kamino_Neko]

Oh, and don’t forget Disney’s Robin Hood, where Robin and Marian are foxes, King Richard is a lion (though so is Prince John), Friar Tuck’s a badger…

[Baldwin]

@Koxinga

:shrug: I’m afraid that I have to disagree. I think unconscious influences, especially when dark in nature, are what make art interesting. If it’s a good piece, the artist may be the last person you want to listen to for the “correct” interpretation.

The artist is the only person who deserves to be listened to for the correct interpretation.

[msmith537]

@Argent Towers

Also Beauty and the Beast promotes anorexia. During the “Be Our Guest” musical sequence, Belle doesn’t eat a SINGLE thing at the feast. Even though the whole sequence is completely devoted to describing all of the sumptuous culinary delights available to her, she is not once shown eating anything.

In all fairness, I would probably have a hard time eating at a feast where everything got up and started dancing around me.