You want to see something horrible in Children’s entertainment. Try the Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen, here .
Believe it or not, the happy ending of the story is that the little girl gets her feet cut off and later dies of a broken heart after pulling herself to church on her stumps and crutches, knowing she is forgiven.
Anyone here read Bruno Bettleheim, or am I hopelessly dating myself here? His theory was that folk tales (which is what Disney movies are today) need to be scary so kids learn to master their own inner ugliness and demons. Kids feel anger, jealousy, fear and even hate - we just kid ourselves that childhood is completely innocent and sweet. Scary stories, even those with main characters who do stupid, selfish things (Jack steals and murders in that whole beanstalk story) teach kids that it’s normal to feel those things sometimes. They also teach them that they can face and overcome the big scary monsters that they face: daycare, school, drugs, parents dying, war as well as the ones they imagine: monsters in the closet, going to school naked, killer clowns.
While his theories on autism have been correctly cast aside, his work on fairy tales hasn’t, as far as I know.
And it seems like everyone knows only the Disney-fied version as when I try to tell them this ending they don’t believe me (it’s one of my favourite fairy tales).
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t recall bawling at Disney movies that often. I think the last one was Lilo and Stitch. Actually, for my memory that’s about the only one I remember crying over.
“Bumbi’s mom is… waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”
I haven’t seen Lady and the Tramp since I was a kid and even thinking about it makes me want to cry.
Disney owns the Muppet Show Muppets, Kermit the Frog and the like, but the Sesame Street gang are owned by Sesame Workshop. They bought them off of Henson about five years ago.
This is why I think Disney improved on The Little Mermaid. That Andersen guy was one twisted fella.
I think at least part of the reason of Disney’s decline is their insistence on putting in a comic relief character. Mushu in Mulan, for instance, or the silly gargoyle in Hunchback. The comic relief should be spread among all the characters.
I suppose you have a point, as long as you don’t try to apply that to Aladdin. Don’t you be bashing the Genie, now!
Exactly. Kids enjoy the full range of emotions that adults enjoy, and we like to be scared or sad as much as we like to be excited or sentimental.
The one that got me was, Old Yeller. Maybe because it was live-action, but the idea of not only having your valient dog die, but having to kill him yourself, was terribly traumatic. Cartoon didn’t bother me so much. Maybe it’s because I grew up watching all those old Shirley Temple movies in which she was always an orphan.
StG
I agree too, there is a point were punishing your characters gets to a ridiculous level. The same girl that found the prince on the beach after the little mermaid had rescued him (the prince never knew that the mermaid had rescued him) was by coincidence a princess! The same princess that was also supposed to marry the prince when coming of age! Because the prince was eternally grateful to that princess he then gladly agreed to the wedding forgetting about the mermaid.
Even when little I screamed shenanigans! Disney making the other princess the witch in disguise was a deserved protest to Andersen.
Having said that, The Little Mermaid is an exception IMO, I still consider Disney guilty of homogenizing and pasteurizing the classics too much.
Lady and the Tramp is currently my two-year-old’s favorite movie, so I feel qualified after watching a good “gazillion” times now in pointing out that a dog does indeed die, although off-screen. It’s in the part where Lady is at the pound and one of the dogs is being led down the hall all frisky and happy but the other dogs are fully aware of this dog’s fate.
But for some reason that part doesn’t get to me as much as the part when Lady is telling her friends about how she was spanked. There is just something about those eyes, and her feeling of rejection that gets me every time.
Mulan is another one that gets to me, both when her father runs out after her in the rain clutching her comb and when they arrive at the village where everyone is dead. Coming up, singing such a cheery song, then BOOM! Death and destruction and silence.
Actually, Aladdin follows Lynn’s suggestion, if you think about it. Sure, Genie was wild and crazy and completely Robin Williams, but the animals (Iago, Abu, Raja), the Carpet, and the Sultan were all goofy to one extent or another. Aladdin, Jasmine, and Jafar didn’t have as many humorous moments (and when they did, it was playing off the other characters), but the comedy is spread among a significant number of characters. Aladdin’s one of the classic Disney movies, and I think this may well be one of the reasons why.
(Though come to think of it, Aladdin didn’t have many terribly sad scenes in it, and only a few somewhat scary ones. Certainly nothing that approaches Ursula, for instance.)
Oh, no! Kids crying!? The horror! The horror!
How can we allow this to continue! Kids! Crying!
nnnoooooOOOOOOOOOOOooooo!!!
sobs
My mom used to take me to Disney matinees as a child. Oddly enough, one of the scenes that most affected me was when Cinderella wears the dress the animals made for her, only to have her stepsisters tear it apart. I was so angry for her, I still can’t stand to watch that scene.
As for Disney movies watched as an adult, I enjoyed Lilo and Stitch except for the parts where the other girls make fun of her. I guess I don’t like to see children bullied, even in cartoons. I was touched by the part near the end where it’s the two-month aniversary of the parents’ death, and Nani sits outside with Lilo on her lap, singing “Aloha Oe” and releasing a flower into the wind. Also by Stitch’s speech about the girls being his family.
The Princess hasn’t cried at any Disney movies that I’ve noticed, except maybe Dumbo. She refuses to watch that one again, and won’t watch Pinocchio at all, mostly because the Disneyland ride frightened her.
And yet, Bambi, Dumbo, Snow White, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast,
these films are classics and will be watched by your great grandchildren. Do you think the Care Bears shitting rainbow colored hearts is going to last that long? These films are great because they have those scenes. You wouldn’t know what peace is without war and you can’t know happiness without knowing sorrow.
Have you ever seen that Care Bears movie that came out in the 80’s? It was scary, with this boy being possessed by an evil enchanted book (that’s right, books are eeeeevil, don’t forget, kids!). It was a rotten movie, of course, but it certainly didn’t lack for terror. Perhaps you should pick a different example. 
What I object to in Disney movies, scary-wise, is the nightmare faces, loud, flashy music, and generally overdone visuals; I think it’s too overwhelming for a lot of small kids. I don’t object at all to characters dying or scary events, just the way it’s overdone.
As a result, my kids have not seen many Disney movies yet, but we always read them the older versions of the fairy tales (OK, not the bit about how Sleeping Beauty produces twins, that’s a little *too *old-fashioned… :D). I mostly like them to know the stories from books before they see any movies; that’s just my personal philosophy. They weren’t allowed to see Mary Poppins until they had it read to them (really, I rented it because I wanted to show them the roof of South Hall!).
And, you undoubtedly noticed, that was the last song in the movie, just incidental music after that. I remember leaning over to Desertroomie when we saw it on the big screen and murmurring, “Welcome to the war. I hope you like it.”