It's arguable that Disney deserves no attention - not even the (mostly) negative kind i'm about to bestow upon it. With moral failing this monumental, it's generally best to shut your mouth and walk away. The game-ender, of course, is misogyny. The Disney canon is so steeped in it, that shunning the entire mess is eminently justified (plus, anything about a princess or prince is almost inevitably a commercial for the privileged class). But...somehow, somehow, somehow Disney created THE JUNGLE BOOK - despite a couple flaws, one of the pinnacles of human achievement! If you wish to enrich a child for a lifetime, sit them down with Baloo, Louie, and the vultures. So in the spirit of overgenerous open-mindedness, i explored the oeuvre more fully, to answer the question, "Are there any (other) Disney animated films appropriate for young children?" I didn't watch every single one, mostly just those with cultural resonance. If i've missed any gems, let me know.
How did Walt (and Roy) do it? How did Disney become DISNEY - shrine to greed and serial gobbler of rival creative entities? All i know is this. If you want the adulation of millions (and therapy doesn't dissuade you), you'll be well on your way if you can figure out how to simultaneously piss off both fundamentalists and the intellectual elite.
Some notes on the following key..."beautyism" is equating ugliness with badness, and beauty with goodness. Beautyism often incorporates ageism (again, particularly for women). "Unnatural sexuality" is repressive sexual shame, or untruths about sexual nature (and there's no lie more pernicious than "happily ever after"). "Superstitious ignorance" is a slippery thing - greek gods or magic usually don't count, because our culture treats those as fantasy. "Animal abuse" includes the obvious, plus ingestion/enslavement. Nor is the appearance of one of these elements necessarily a prohibitive thing, if shown in an honest and instructive way, like the animal abuse in LILO or BAMBI. I don't always list every single negative element; sometimes when one or two things are particularly grievous, that's all that need be mentioned (plus, no self-respecting writer could resist the low-hanging, fruity wordplay that extra letters might have messed up).
KEY
S - sexism
R - racism
C - classism
B - beautyism
A - animal abuse
D - recreational drugs
V - gratuitous or glamorous violence
I - superstitious ignorance
U - unnatural sexuality
W - it's a white, white world
M - it's a man's, man's world
italics = inappropriate for young children
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS - S,I,U,W,A,R
Is this film the reason why generations of men and women have been incapable of having a functional romance? And why men have felt entitled to sit on their asses while women work? Nope - it just seems that way. Adults should watch this, for cultural understanding and one timeless song.
PINOCCHIO - M,I
The message? "Be good for the sake of reward, not for the sake of being good."
FANTASIA - D,I,S,M
What, what, what to do with FANTASIA, a commercial flop that Walt might have been justified in believing was his masterpiece? It starts off soporifically, and the second act is a miasma of material inappropriate for any child, but i almost urge you to share the first act with children. Except...it's the only classic to feature ol' Mickey himself - the face of the franchise, and all the wrongdoing that represents.
DUMBO - R,U,A
Racist sequences (roustabouts and crows) spoil an otherwise charming effort.
BAMBI - A,C,U
One wants very much to celebrate the bejeezus out of this one, as it's arguably the most significant historical catalyst to the animal rights movement. Well done, Walt. But the fast and loose portrayal of sexuality, in either anthropomorphization or deer (half-siblings getting it on - shocking!) comes to a depressing head when the film teaches that boys must destroy other boys, with girls as the prize. Forest royalty? Noxious, too.
CINDERELLA - S,U,C
A film that inspired its own psychological complex. Ground zero for the blind, poopy journey of the worm at Disney's core.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND - W,A,D
Enchanting, if you don't mind a long hookah interlude, some egg/butter animal exploitation, and shades of beautyism. But pretty much enchanting. Share it with a mature, informed child you love.
PETER PAN - S,M,R,W
Woman, thou art catty and jealous! Plus the most appalling bit of native american racism ever?
LADY AND THE TRAMP - A,M,U
Bitches be from Venus! Studs from Mars. Sigh.
SLEEPING BEAUTY - B,S,W,I,M
The absolute nadir of all things Disney - a woman literally lifeless without a man. Um...didn't we already go down this rabbit hellhole in SNOW WHITE? If her name were "Sleeping Average" or "Sleeping Ugly", would she still be asleep?
101 DALMATIANS - I,W,B,A,D
A schizophrenic swirl. On the one hand, children who watched this grew up to create PETA. On the other, Cruella De Vil epitomizes Disney misogyny. She's single! She's successful! She's...UGGGGGGGGGLY!
THE SWORD IN THE STONE - S,M,A,C,B,V,D,I,U,W
A Disney decafecta of infamy! What, they couldn't squeeze in a little racism? And by the way, Walt - squirrels? Not actually monogamous (nor humans, as it turns out).
THE JUNGLE BOOK - M,S,C
The pinnacle of Disney moviemaking, music, and magic. A lightning strike of writers, illustrators, and performers. When everything goes amazingly right, even an appalling ending becomes somehow perfect. Walt's last major work. How much healthier might western civilization be if they'd shuttered the studio for good? Ironically, that's exactly what might have happened had the film not been a hit. Talk about a faustian dilemma - you can have a world where all the Disney atrocities of the following decades never existed. The price? A mediocre JUNGLE BOOK. Hmm. Give me a minute...
THE ARISTOCATS - A,S,C,R,U,D
Phil Harris and Sterling Holloway (Baloo and Kaa) are back! A fine effort, but for gaping moral failings - one only need look at the title to realize something unfortunate is about to happen. And indeed, the violence inherent in a classist society is in full, horrific bloom. Curiously, in anthropomorphizing cats, Disney paints a picture of romance that is true to neither feline NOR human.
ROBIN HOOD - I,C,W,M
Stealing okay! End justifies means! Civil disobedience! Phew, heady stuff. It's a shame the film is dripping with classist and religious trappings.
THE MANY ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE POOH - A,M
The anti-animal messages of Disney often come wrapped in a seemingly pro-animal package - beneath this wildlife love-in are casual consumptive exploitation, and a positive portrayal of mounting dead animal heads as trophies.
PETE'S DRAGON - D,U,M,B
I know, i know...no one places this in the Disney animated canon. Well, i do! For is the dragon Elliot not one of the most adorable animated characters ever? The fact that the rest of the film is live action, is neither here nor there. Plus, i have misty, sweet memories of this, as the only Disney film i saw in a theater as a child. More importantly though, this film is the overlooked, historic convergence of Disney and...Helen Reddy! Surely the presence of the "I am woman, hear me roar" songstress will shelve all the usual misogynistic nonsense, no? Well...no. One is hopeful for a bit, but...no.
THE RESCUERS - B,A,D,I
In the most unintentionally ironic Disney moment ever, the show opens with a female choir singing "Who Will Rescue Me?" Oy. Plus an arch-ugly villainess and a forlorn orphan girl being assured she's "pretty enough" to be adopted.
THE FOX AND THE HOUND - M,A,W,V
A hopeful parable for racial struggles, plus another bambiesque blow against hunters. If you don't mind a little violent mansworldism, share this one with a mature child.
THE BLACK CAULDRON - V,W,M
A surprisingly dark occult tale, of passing interest to Tolkien fans.
THE LITTLE MERMAID - S,C,U,M,B
Insipidly infuriating. You might want to hate this with every fiber of your being - and you should. If the Alan Menken songs weren't so infernally irresistible, might Disney finally have slid into oblivion? Share the soundtrack.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - W,A,M,B,I
Disney's anti-sexism baby steps, clothed in a self-defeating product. In trying to deliver a non-beautyist message, they trip over their own feet...ah, the enchantress isn't REALLY ugly, ah, Beast isn't REALLY ugly!
ALADDIN - R,V,M,S,C
The formulaic prototype for modern children's animated movies - visuals and story for kids, plus snarky jokes only adults will get. Am i the ONLY one who finds this approach patronizing? The only Disney film in which racism is integral, not merely incidental.
THE LION KING - S,C,U,M,I
I've never so hated any other film i'd never even seen, as the poster crystallized all that was unforgivably amiss in the Magic Kingdom. At the center is a male, heroically looking destiny in the eye. Off to the side and below, is a subservient female in awe of his amazingness. The first Disney film to consciously leave behind Walt's unspoken judeo-christian-muslim ethics. While this may be progress, reincarnation is hardly an improvement over resurrection...and with a heavenly shaft of light beaming down on a newly anointed "prince", it's arguably a regression. Plus, another hero gets it on with his half-sister - not unnatural, just amusing!
POCAHONTAS - V,A,I,M
A more human portrayal of a woman...yet why does the first montage of her frolicking in nature feel a little like, um...indian porn? Is it just me? Kudos for a non-patronizing view of native americans (better late than never). Yet the feel-good ending feels like a betrayal of history. And the "new" Disney spiritualism steps farther over the line than the old. Talking to trees, and having them respond? Okay, there might be some merit there. Using the power of "faith" to have two people unfamiliar with each other's language, suddenly able to converse perfectly...can that be good to teach children?
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME - C,R,U,M,S,I,V
The first Disney to make religion its subject matter. Sexual repression, genocide, divine homicidal intervention...of course! Call the kiddies!
HERCULES - I,M,V
The first Disney based entirely on "mythology" (what religions become when people stop believing). A child is born divine, lives as a mortal, inspires the love of a fallen woman, dies, is resurrected, then returns to Earth. Sound familiar? Of course, it's Hercules! A cloak of mythology doesn't earn a "get out of superstitious ignorance" card.
MULAN - S,M,V,I
It takes about six minutes to hate this film with a passion. The flaw in showing a woman succeed in a man's world, is that you have to first teach children that the world belongs to men - save that dose of reality for older children. And gosh, if you gut it out longer than six minutes, you can hear a man disparage other men by calling them women!
TARZAN - W,U,M,V
Um...why is he the only ape wearing a loincloth? And how can it be a white, white world in...Africa??
FANTASIA 2000 - A,U,I
Really? I mean...really? A Noah's Ark sequence? No joke? Is this how far the carriers of the flame have strayed? As catastrophically flawed as Walt was, the core of his vision was about providing children with a gift of magic, in which no one would be left behind or made to feel unwelcome. All the vision needed was some tender tweaking. Instead, for each step forward, his inheritors always manage one step back and three to the side. The other sequences are charming. One even starts to hope that for once Disney got almost everything right. And then...a segment constructed to make 20 million non-jewish/christian american children squirm. To say nothing of the billion-plus alienated worldwide. Shame, Mr. Eisner. Your vanity shames us all.
THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE - I,C,B,M,S
Look! An ugly older woman hiking her skirt! The men are petrified! Oh, she's just getting a dagger...
ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE - M,V,S,A,D
Violence makes it inappropriate for children. Misogyny makes it inappropriate for anyone. A shame too, as it's the only Disney film to address America's capitalistic rape of the world.
LILO AND STITCH - I,A
A fantastic film spoiled by an appeal to an invisible, all-powerful being. Take that away, and the magic is more alive than you ever would have imagined it could be forty years post-Walt.
THE JUNGLE BOOK 2 - M
Given Disney's record, fans of the original are amply justified for avoiding this like the plague. Yet...come watch a minor miracle. It's good. On par with the original? Not within within a kazillion kilometers. But incontestably...good.
BROTHER BEAR - I
THE SWORD IN THE STONE showed us a child transformed into animals...through the magic of an amusing magician. Children understood it was fantasy. Here, a child is transformed into a bear, though...nature? God? Will this confuse a child's perception of reality? Maybe not - but that's an answer not nearly sufficient to the responsibility at hand.
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG - D,U,M,B,I,C,A
Disney offers a love note...to itself! Everybody should want to be a princess, and everyone should wish upon that star. The first african-american Disney princess is notable for being...the first african-american Disney princess. A love note to the american dream, as the plucky, underprivileged heroine happily works two jobs (Of course! Nothing unromantic or unfair there! Leisure time? A social life? For fools!). And a love note to "happily ever after", of course. Sigh. Can you FEEL that love tonight?
(Much gratitude to Mark Pinsky's "The Gospel According to Disney", for inspiring and shaping this article. Pinsky's book is brilliant, not least of all for keeping the reader almost perpetually stumped as to the author's own biases. Not one writer in a thousand is so impartial, i suspect.)
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