The Disney Stories Debate

Part 4
A late arriving comment...

Hi,

Is it too late to get in on this? I just found your website and was fascinated by the topic. In our family we have an ongoing Disney battle because my son-in-law is rabidly anti-Disney due to the mouse's efforts regarding copyright. I'm appalled by the rewriting of stories that have a historical basis. But your original article glossed over Hercules because the author wrote that she is not familiar with the original. I am a bit more familiar with it than she; I ranted and raved throughout the film as my kids watched it on the VCR. They thought I was being extreme, but when they will read the original in later life, as I hope they do, they might think that it's "wrong" because Disney showed them a different version. I am disturbed by this, even more so when it affects the "historical" Disney.

On the original topic, I think every author who rewrites stories personalizes them, but isn't the point of fairy tales to give us a peek into other cultures and times? The cathartic effects of the early Disney was made clear to me in the seventies when my supervisor in a bank, a woman in her late 20's or early 30's, expressed to me her traumatic experience when watching Snow White as a child. My own daughter (now 23) was shown Pinocchio when she was about 3, and when Pinocchio was searching for his father, we had to leave the theater and call Daddy to prove to her that he was OK. This type of experience, I think, is what literature is about. The more recent Disney's (esp. the "historical" films) sanitize in order not to offend, but they do offend in other ways. Even in Beauty and the Beast. Why is it necessary for Belle to have a loutish suitor—and no sisters! The idea of the youngest being the best, while a slap in the face for those of us who are not the youngest, is, I think, an encouraging factor for young kids, who see that "young" doesn't have to mean "powerless." I was surprised to find Maurice Chevalier alive and lecherous in a kid's movie, but I suppose that was inserted for the adults who take the kids to the theater. Still...

Thanks for letting me vent!

Felice Eisner

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