What are the first things you think of when you hear the word Disney? Kids? Cartoons? Cheerful? Family? Giddy children and colorful cartoons come into your mind, but if you’ve ever re-watched some of the Disney films – you’ve probably noticed the darkness. If I was a parent, I would seriously consider not showing some of the Disney films to my kids. Disney can be quite violent, and Disney is infamous for creating characters with dead parents -- sometimes they even die during the film! Tarzan, Finding Nemo, Bambi, The Lion King, Dumbo, The Little Mermaid, and Lelo & Stitch are just some of the Disney creations with absent moms, deceased parents, or parents who actually die in the film- even Hannah Montana’s mom was dead. Most people do not expect violence from Disney films because they are Disney, those people need to open their eyes.
The Lion King, which is filled with songs and happy times, has a shockingly violent main plot, which is usually overlooked. Simba, a young cub, is prince of the Pride Lands of Africa and is next in line to be king when his father, Mufasa, dies. His jealous uncle, Scar, would have been next in line if it weren’t for Simba, and so Scar devises a plan to kill Mufasa and get rid of Simba. Scar allies himself with the hyenas and gets them to stampede Simba. Mufasa valiantly jumps in and saves Simba in the middle of the stampede, but Mufasa gets swept back into the stampede and Simba watches as his father struggles to climb up the side of a ledge, out of the stampede, but Simba does not see Scar at the top. Scar claws and rips his brother’s paws off the edge amd Mufasa falls to his death. Then Simba, in disbelief, slowly discovers his father’s dead body at the bottom of the gorge. Scar appears and proceeds to convince Simba that Simba had caused the stampede and was the reason that Mufasa was killed. Simba runs away and is racked with guilt for killing his father for years until he becomes an adult. Simba returns to the Pride Lands later to reclaim the throne as an adult only to discover that his uncle had actually killed his father and Simba throws Scar over the edge to be killed and eaten by Scar’s old alliances: the hyenas. This story is filled with vivid colors, beautiful landscapes, and upbeat songs like “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” and “Hakuna Matata” to balance out the deceit and death, but those tunes can’t wipe out the underlying darkness that is the foundation of entire plot.
While the lion king is very violent, there is still a sense of moral balance and justice to the story; on the other hand, the Disney movie Bambi is just painful to watch. Most of Bambi is happy -- he finds love, makes friends, etc. -- but there is one unexpected, earth-shattering, tear-jerking, completely demoralizing scene: when Bambi’s mother is shot and killed. In the movie, Bambi’s mother ventures out into the meadow because she sees a little patch of grass growing amidst an ocean of snow which means that winter is ending and spring is beginning. She shares her discovery with her bright-eyed little fawn and they delight in eating grass again. Suddenly, the mother becomes alert, and immediately stands erect; her ears prick up. The music swells and she orders Bambi to run, faster, faster, and faster. She tells him not to look back and –BANG-. Bambi darts through the thicket and makes it home, he turns to celebrate their escape with his mother, and you can see his elation turn to confusion, fear, and uncertainty, as it dawns on him that his mother didn’t make it. Bambi goes all through the forest calling out for her, but she never answers his call. I don’t remember watching Bambi the first time because I was about five, but I’ve been told that I cried, and cried, and cried. I sat there for hours, silently, while waterfalls fell from my bright red face; it’s very unlikely that I saw another minute of the movie through my tears.
Another Disney flick that has a horrifying death in it is Tarzan. The movie starts out with the song “Two Worlds” in which Tarzan’s family escape from a burning ship to a jungle. Then you watch two short, heart-warming stories of a gorilla couple with a new baby and Tarzan’s family making the best of their situation by making a fantastic tree house with their own hands and ingenuity. Then you are horrified by a leopard mauling the baby gorilla before the gorilla parents can save it, and Tarzan’s parents also being mauled by, presumably, the same leopard. While you do not see Tarzan’s parents’ bodies, it is obvious that they struggled before they died and you can see bloody handprints on the floor. Then the song ends. The rest of the movie is pretty tame, until Clayton dies. Clayton is the bad guy, he wants to cage all the apes and he tries to kill Tarzan. Before he dies, he and Tarzan are fighting and Tarzan is shot. They are fighting in the middle of a thunderstorm and the flashes of light to dark and the thundering sound make the scene very frightening. Clayton is actually on the offensive and is climbing after Tarzan with a knife when he slips. Tarzan looks back to find Clayton caught in the vines thrashing around his knife, cutting the vines binding him randomly in rage. As he’s cutting furiously, one vine ends up around his neck, the only vine he didn’t cut. Tarzan yells for Clayton to stop but it’s too late and you watch Clayton’s face full of terror as he falls to his death. The vine hung him, and while Disney doesn’t show the actual dead body, Disney shows Tarzan in shock and Clayton’s knife falls to the ground in front of him. The most disturbing thing though, is that if you look behind Tarzan, in a flash of lighting, you can clearly see the shadow of Clayton’s body slowly swinging.
Dark Disney movies are not necessarily a bad thing – personally I love almost all Disney films, but people need to recognize the darker parts. Some Disney films are appropriate for three-year-olds but not all of them are! Parents should not let their kids watch anything Disney just because it’s Disney; parents should see which ones they think will be okay for their kids to watch and which ones aren’t. Disney is often criticized for being too dark for kids, but that is not Disney’s fault, people need to be more conscious about Disney’s products. If more people acknowledged the diversity of violence and other things in Disney films then it would give Disney more license to expand the types of things they produce. Disney knows that it’s now seen, mainly by parents, as something just for kids to watch while when Tarzan, Bambi, and the Lion King came out, Disney was more seen as family entertainment – something for children and adults, so now Disney has toned their movies down. While Disney’s earlier films were, on average, darker; they were also just as good if not better than what Disney is producing now and will in the future. Disney should not stop putting interesting darker things into their movies solely because they are seen as a kids company. If Disney was seen as a company that could provide entertainment for some older generations, then they could make more films that branch out of the kid’s realm, or keep producing movies with violence in them without worry of criticism.
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