Saturday, December 15, 2007

disney on the dark side?

i got a sleeper from my visiting teaching companion with pooh bear on it... didn't think twice to look at the size cuz it looked like it would fit lily really well.. and it did.. it is slender like her and just the right length.. today i looked and its sized 6-9 mos! lily still fits in her 0-3 mo outfits! shes only 11 or so lbs. this quickly reminded me of my disney anti family theory... there are only 3 disney movies i can think of that have a nuclear family as its focus... hercules, 101 dalmations and kind of peter pan (but not really at the focus and they run away from that family). now there are probably more but i can't think of any... also, like lily's outfit, look at the women in these movies! they would fit in lily's outfit... minus their boobs of course. do your kids disney clothes fit when they are meant to or is this just me? does disney mean to send these messages to kids or is it mere coinsidence? oh and if you can list any more movies that have a nuclear family let me know, but you will find that the majority are about pretty disorganized families.. with this, hidden dirty messages in their movies and x rated gay days at their parks what is disney saying about the family?

6 comments:

lindsey said...

btw this isn't to be taken too seriosly... i love disney

Audra said...

I always have problems when my mom buys my kids Disney stuff. It is always sized bigger than it is. So, if I am not careful I will put something that is 12 mo in with the normal 12 mo stuff and the girls never get to wear it. I need to put it in with the 6 mo stuff, because that is when it really fits. I have had the same issues. I do not think it is anti-family, I think it is pro-get-you-to-buy-something-for-your-kids-that-is-too-small-so-you-go-back-and-buy-another-one-when-your-child-outgrows-it-immediately! That is my theory at least. I always wear a smaller size at Old Navy... so it makes me feel good about myself. So when I try on clothes at Old Navy I feel happy, when I try on clothes at other stores I feel sad because I realize I am actually a size bigger than I thought... so if I just go back to Old Navy I feel better!

Katie said...

You are right about the no complete families thing. I remember thinking about that when I was growing up - since their movies are usually loosely based on classic fairytales, I wonder what the families were like in the originals, and if Disney changed them at all. If not, it could be that it is a reflection of the low mortality rates in the days when the fairytales were created or because fairytales were just kind of depressing and scary back then. If Disney did change them, I think it is because it makes things more "dramatic." Oooh, 101 Dalmations, there is one with both mom and dad, in both the human family and the dog family. Also, Lady and Tramp, which is funny, because it is also a dog movie. Dogs get both parents but human kids don't!!!!!

Linda, Mom and Granny said...

Hey! I commented about that...what happened? Oh well.
The Incredibles family is a nuclear family...and they have more than 2 kids!

James said...

Maybe the lack of nuclear families is due to wanting to avoid making characters that don't have anything to do with the story, or would prevent the story from moving forward.

This is almost like in some sitcoms where the kids conveniently disappear when they aren't needed for the story (like on Everybody Loves Raymond, where they even made fun of themselves for doing that).

I think Disney kept the basic premise of most of the fairy tales but softened the rougher side, such as in Cinderella when the step mother and sisters get their eyes pecked out by birds at the end.

In the end, it is probably just a mixture of marketing and Walt's vision being destroyed by greedy people.

Just playing devil's advocate here, at least on some parts.

Audra said...

That is true James... acutally the Disney versions are so tame compared to the origionals. I was reading out of Grimms Fairy Tales to Nolan and Cinderella was not so bad (although very different) until I came to the last paragraph and it said something like, "A bird lit of each of Chinderella's shoulders as she went into the castle to get marries. The step-sister presuming they were still in good favor to attend the event stood one on each side of Cinderella and the birds pecked the eye out that was closest to the bird, so they switched sides and the birds pecked their other eye out and left them to go blind in the world because of their pride and greed" or something like that. I started reading it before I realized and then couldn't stop of Nolan would wonder, so I was hoping he just was not paying that much attention... I was so wrong! He said, "Why did they peck their eyes out?" to which I think I told him his misunderstood or something... poor kid!

So, yeah, when you think of the origionals it is more tame.

Oh, and I have my own beef with Lady & the Tramp. It just teaching good girls that they can change the bad boys and although the bad boys can lead them down the wrong road for awhile they will always eventually come back, save you, get their collar and licence, and you live happily every after... yea, right! I shall blog about that sometime!