Me and Hardship sat down to watch Lady and the Tramp the other night; I’d never seen it, she insisted. Now, I loved the movie, but I couldnt relax while watching it. I was braced from MINUTE ONE for some heartbreaking tragedy to befall these dogs. I guess I was just programmed to react like this from past experiences, in kids films in general, but specifically Disney animations. Bambi’s mother getting shot, Dumbo’s mother getting carted to the elephant nuthouse, Mufasa…
Whats the deal? Why do this to kids? Shouldnt kids movies be more fun, and not deal with these subjects? I understand that kids need to learn about death and, eh, mental health, but is a family animation the thing that should teach them this lesson? I mean, lets ease the kids into it. Dont have their first experiences with death be just BLAM!! YOUR MOTHER IS DEAD BAMBI!!
As for Lady and the Tramp, I never settled. Until the end, I was sure one of the dogs would get killed, or put to sleep, or lost, or thrown out in the street… But they all survive. Although I thought it horrible that the bloodhound got hit by the wagon at the end, and was presented as dead… only to emerge in the next scene with only a broken leg. Why do that? Why try to insinuate that the dog has been killed, to get a cheap emotional kick? It turned me off the whole movie.
Every read Grimm’s fairy tales in their original form? They’re gory and terrifying.
Children’s literature of the Victorian era was filled with death. “Slovenly Peter” is one of my favorites. It has the tale of the little girl who played with matches and accompanying drawings of her burning into a pile of ashes while her cats weep in horror. Quite a few of the novels for children written around that time had death scenes protagonists’ siblings or even of the protagonist themselves. (Generally melodramatic scenes in which the child died in a romantic, angelic manner, saying goodbyes and giving advice to those who stood nearby.)
It’s only in recent years that we’ve felt the need to shield children from death and “scary things.”
It is not really such a recent phenomenon, I blame Disney himself for that.
In a couple of documentaries I remember that on *Lady and the Tramp * Disney had planned for Trusty to die, but complaints by many, even Peggy Lee, convinced Walt to change the ending.
It was like watching the GeorgeLucasification of Disney (Think Greedo shooting first)
Speaking of that, *Peter Pan * has IMO a scene that was also changed to soften a darker scene:
Peter has Captain Hook hanging by his hook on a cliff in the cave, the Crocodile swims under them and then:
Peter Pan: Mr. Crocodile, do you like codfish?
[crocodile nods] Peter Pan: You do?
[Peter moves his leg to be ready to give a kick to the hook and drop the Captain to the jaws of the crocodile]
Then Wendy says “Peter! No!” and here is were I think that was added: there is no reaction shot of Peter stopping to Wendy’s plea, only a close up of the hook sliding and losing the grip on its own.
Then I remember Baloo’s “death” in Jungle Book.
Gurgy’s “death” in The Black Cauldron.
Disney’s quality was going really down.
Seems to me the resurgence of Disney in the late 80’s gave the courage to Disney animation to deal with Mufasa’s death, I wonder if then the lack of courage in more recent Disney movies was also part of their decline.
Disney himself was an ultraconservative. He probably wanted to impress upon youngsters the belief that the world is full of evil and suffering that we must just learn to accept, because.
Kids, nothing. I was in my early thirties when I rented Lilo and Stich, which I watched alone, and was sobbing and unconsolable for hours. Nobody died, though, so I’m sure it tapped into some deep psychological neurosis that I choose not to explore any further.
Because Disney likes to make entertainment that people will watch and enjoy. This involves touching on all emotions. The more powerful the emotion and the more deeply touched, the better.
Yeah, Disney really kind of cleaned up a lot of their fairy-tale stories. In fact, sometimes they cleaned up the already cleaned-up versions the late Victorians produced. The most annoying one is the way they gave The little mermaid a happy ending, but I guess the original ending was completely un-movie-like; the masses would have risen up in rebellion or something. (Really, she never gets the prince at all and is about to die and turn into seafoam when she gets a reprieve; she gets to become a spirit of the air and go around doing good deeds for a few hundred years until she gains a soul. Yippee!)
What I dislike about a lot of Disney movies is the gratuitous very scary scenes that are really not appropriate for the little kids that they know perfectly well are going to see the movies. Like Ursula taking Ariel’s voice (that used to terrify my little sister)–it’s very hyped-up and scary.
Bambi is a novel, btw–I’ve never read it but it’s supposed to be great. I assume that the mother died in the book, too–and that’s the classic way to get a kid out into the world to go adventuring–if the parent’s around, there’s not much of a story.
Well I think that if it’s a part of life, Disney covers it.
Bambi: I think it’s a crucial part of the movie that Bambi suffers loss. It wouldn’t be “Bambi” with out it.
Disney, and if I can add, Sesame Street/Muppets ((Yes, Disney owns them, but lets put that aside for a second)) deal with all aspects of Life. Big Bird had to deal with the death of Mr.Hooper.
Life cannot be happy 100% of the time. Life is life, and life is… Sh*tty.
This is the percise reason that I Despise Barney. Barney doesn’t live in the real world. On top of that, he Sugar coats the already sugar overloaded moments.
In short: Disney doesn’t fear REAL LIFE. Life is going to happen to everyone. the only weapon against it is expereince.
How exactly would you like to ease kids into death? It seems like making up fictional stories about characters we like who die is, y’know, easier than waiting 'till Grandma kicks it for your first taste of loss. We can watch the movie again and see how much Bambi’s mom loved him and she’s “alive” all over again. We can’t do the same for Grandma.
Making kids bawl crying means that learn that you can be sad, even really, really sad, and that it’s OK. You won’t feel really, really sad forever and you won’t stay really, really happy forever, either. Kids need to experience emotions to learn how to deal with them. I’d rather talk my kid through her first grieving process in the privacy of my own living room when I’m not particularly grieving myself, than to do it at a public funeral where I’m having a hard enough time holding myself together.
Oh, and Gurgi didn’t stay dead in The Black Cauldron book, either.
Uh, I thought the quote marks would make it clear it was a fake death.
Anyhoo, it was true Disney made kids bawl, but he lost the nerve late in life. IOW the OP is actually correct only about “20%” of the time regarding Disney.
Doesn’t it also help develop a kid’s empathy? I bawled my ass off when Bambi’s mom died. Hysterical even. But it drew me completely out of my “me, me, me” world.
Yes, but your post implied this was Disney getting weak and pulling their punches. WhyNot’s post is pointing out that the scene was taken straight from the book.
But in the original, the witch hacks out the mermaid’s tongue. At least this way, it was reversible and the voice comes back. Way less scary.
It also probably depends on the kid. Many kids can take a lot more than you would think and to some extent, kids like to be scared. The stories they make up themselves and tell each other are far worse than Disney’s minor little “mom’s dead” storylines.
Thanks for the defense, but at the heart, GIGObuster’s right. I haven’t seen the movie since it was in theaters (and I was a kid). I forgot that they cut out the character who, in the book, learns to forgo his selfishness and does sacrifice himself and stay dead. Instead, they threw their abysmally wrong notion of Gurgi (in the book, a 6 foot tall, simple but noble Sasquatch, in the movie a Jar-Jar Binks derived pekinese moppet) into the “sacrifice” role but didn’t keep him dead. So, yeah, it’s lessening the death aspect, certainly.
of the time regarding Disney.