The thing I don’t like is when people put their children on the front lines of their own political beliefs.
Your child is going to grow up missing out on many classics of modern children’s movies. She’s going to go to school and have to miss out on schoolyard talks about Disney. She’s going to be made fun of. And she’s going to wonder WHY she can’t see Disney stuff. And if you tell her it’s because of your fight against copyright laws or big corporations or whatever it is, she’s not going to understand.
You’re depriving your child because of what YOU want. To me, that comes across as selfish. You’re not thinking about your kid, you’re thinking about how much you hate Disney, and you’re using your child as a weapon.
I feel the same way about people who make their children march for their pet political causes. Children are not supposed to be pawns. They’re kids. Disney movies are great fun, and Disney characters, like it or not, are a big part of the overall culture of childhood. Don’t take it away from them because you’ve got an axe to grind.
In the other threads, lee and kellym asserted that they were getting unwelcome comments from people IRL. I can believe that a ban on Disney products would generate more comments than the fact that you do not intend to raise your child in a church, but it would not be because it is more controversial. I think it could be because a ban on Disney is less controversial than anything concerning religion.
By now, many people know that talking about religion is not always appropriate and can lead to hurt feelings and arguments. But a ban on Disney is so trivial that many relatives and friends would do what Ukelele Ike: they would state that they disagree or that it isn’t practical just because they wouldn’t anticipate that you would take it so hard.
Those who prompted the gift ban were aware long before I got pregnant of my anti-Disney stance. They did mean to be rude and were quite asinine about rubbing my nose in the apparent fact that now that I would have a child I would have to let Disney into my life and home. When I said that I had no intention, they said they would bypass me and give the gifts directly to my child. These were mainly acquaintances and coworkers.
I did express my desire not to have Disney to friends and relatives, mostly to avoid unpleasantness in no using or worse taking gifts away from my child. One friend expressed a wish to make a little mermaid cross stitch and I asked her not to, that I would really prefer anything but Disney and suggested that her own drawings would make much nicer patterns. I did not want her to go to the trouble to make something that I would feel compelled to either not display or to give away. She was quite pleasant and understanding, unlike the coworkers who harass me every week.
Since PunditLisa already pointed out my thread, I’ll only encourage lee those who ask the same question as the OP to read it all the way through. Many of the posts invalidate the question, in many ways… in short, the answer would be “Why is a lack of Disney more worrisome than a lack of God? It isn’t.” The OP’s question is an invalid one.
Annoying gift-givers and massive marketing machines aside (which really are not the issue at hand), there is no reason to feel that a lack of Disney is “more worrisome” than a lack of religion. Some people give annoying gifts. Both Christianity and Disney are quite pervasive in American culture, and if you disagree strongly with either, you’re likely to think that it’s everywhere.
To my mind, the criticisms lee and KellyM have been receiving are more about their somewhat naive presumption that keeping Disney away from their kids is (a) a realistic goal and (b) a goal which will benefit their child. They are welcome to their own opinions on the matter, but their preconceptions about Disnay are fairly limited in understanding, and their belief that they can somehow shelter their kids from the horrors of Disney is somewhat amusing, but also unrealistic.
In short… there are much bigger parenting problems than whether or not your kids see a Disney movie. You’re frankly making a mountain out of a molehill, but feel free to continue to do so, if you wish. As PunditLisa said, “Pooh isn’t even worth getting your blood pressure up.”
Avalonian, please do not presume to guess as to lee’s and my knowledge of Disney. lee and I have seen virtually every Disney animated movie. We know what they have in them, and have formed our opinions based on that knowledge. They are not “naive preconceptions” but well-formed and -formulated opinions.
How you came to the conclusion that those opinions are “preconceptions” “limited in understanding” is beyond me. Like so many others in this discussion you are making unwarranted assumptions, and it’s really starting to piss me off.
We only know what you tell us. Perhaps I came to the conclusion I did because the the rather broad brush you and lee paint Disney with. I honestly fail to see how you could put all things Disney into the same category of evil. It seems a particuarly unconsidered view.
Since you haven’t given any details that yield valid reasons for your decision, other than the broadest statement “Disney == Evil,” then the responsibility is yours to better explain your position. Given your refusal to discuss the details of your anti-Disney decision here, you have only yourself to be pissed off at.
Avalonian, I question your attention to this thread. I have expressed at length how we feel about Disney, to the extent that it is clear that we have not made the broad statement, “Disney == Evil”. I do definitely remember stating in the second page of this thread that our ban on Disney animation does not extend to Touchstone, ABC, ESPN, or Disney nonanimated feature releases. Perhaps you missed that.
In any case, I consider your persistent ignorance of that which has already been said insulting. Please actually read the thread before posting.
I can understand keeping Disney from small children, but I think the idea that you would not let them watch a Disney movie at your house when they are old enough to rent one, which is about what? 13, 14? Your kids are going to have the internet, they’ll see Disney. You’d have much more luck teaching them why you don’t approve of Disney.
I think that Disney is vile as well, and I will keep it from my young children, and I will try and look for alternative venues for them, but what you are inviting into your home is a veneration of Disney because it will suddenly be taboo. Your children will take every opportunity to watch Disney films that they possibly can.
I figure that once they are about 5 the worry that they’ll be overly affected by Disney’s messages is somewhat over. My basic opinion is that I don’t want my children watching such banal trash, and would keep them from the teletubbies for the same reason.
lee: Think about the hassle you’ve been getting for your Disney stance. Think about the rudeness you’ve been subjected to (according to you), and the people ‘rubbing your nose in it’.
Now imagine your little daughter getting the same treatment for the next 18 years.
mswas, when she’s 13 she can watch it on her own TV if she wants to. It’s still not going in the family DVD player, any more than would “Dead and Buried” or “Silence of the Lambs” (even though I really liked the latter a lot, but it gives lee nightmares even thinking about watching it). These are house rules, and they’re going to be obeyed by anyone living in the house.
Already did it, but thanks… I guess I did miss the part where you discuss each Disney film and why it is objectionable, on its own merits. However, I did see several parts where you treat all Disney movies the same, and I also saw this part:
I submit that it very much is the point, but you patently refuse to discuss the issues at hand.
Please, re-read your own comments. I question your own attention as you post them.
Again, any misunderstandings about the origins of your views on Disney are due only to the broad brush you use when talking about them. Remedy that, and we have something to talk about.
Sam Stone, you are still laboring under the misapprehension that this strictly a political stance.
Avalonian, you’re not reading very closely if you think that we’re treating all Disney films the same. In any case, I am not going to debate with you, in this forum at least, the merits of Disney animation. This is very much a matter of personal taste and not one that we’re ever going to agree on. Take it up in in Cafe Society, or drop it. It’s not relevant here.
Well, blanket condemnation of all Disney animation is certainly easier and less time consuming than going through the effort of actually screening individual movies and cartoons. It’s her baby and her bathwater, and I guess she gets to decide if she wants to toss the both, but IMHO banning animation based solely on the imprint of the distributing company is silly.
OK… prove me wrong. Where did you previously discuss the merits of an individual Disney film (and by your own argument, Toy Story does not count). A direct quote would be most helpful.
Your point above is not helped by your next point…
Hmm… a thread debating (in part) the debilitating societal effect of Disney films, in which you’re unable/unwilling to discuss the details of said effect. Good luck with that one.
I might agree with you that the thread itself should be moved… given the nature of the “arguments” presented by yourself and by lee, perhaps the Pit would be a better forum for it.
Oh, wait… you’ve already got one there, too, about the same thing. :rolleyes:
Actually, we’ve seen almost all of the movies, and we’ve noticed patterns of things we don’t like: butchering or stealing original stories, reliance on popular stereotype in manners we don’t approve of, lack of varied portrayals of certain groups (such as women), lack of depth in general, reliance on a catchy tune or cutesy gags to make up for a lack of meaningful plot or personalities, and an excess of mean-spirited humor, to name a few.
At this point we have no reason to believe that Disney is going to move away from these standards enough for us to want to admit them into our home. We haven’t seen one yet we liked enough to keep, and we’ve pretty much given up hope that they’ll ever change. Hence, the blanket rule. How many repetitions does it take to conclude that a problem is endemic?
So tell what is was about Lilo And Stitch that so offended you, KellyM? The story was original, the main protagonists were female, both parents were missing(not just the mother), and both title characters showed remorse for the wrongs they had done by the end of the movie. Look, if you applied the standards of your last post to any animation or non-animation studio, you’d be hard pressed to find one to your liking. A majority of works from Don Bluth are adaptations. Warner Brothers animation is known for its slapstick violence. Why are your rules so selective that they apply only to Disney?