I love my Disney! I always have. Even now, in high school, my friends and I have Disney movie-a-thons. They have sweet worlds where dreams come true so then, why won't a lot of the parents that I know let their kids watch some of the Disney movies?
This girl I know's mother is a professor of Native American studies at the college near me. She wouldn't let her daughter watch Pocahontas because she believes it is too racist. Now, I realize that it is racist. Most of the Disney movies are, but do we really take them seriously? I always just watched them for fun. Maybe we're too hard on Disney. But then I looked back on them. No matter what message Disney may be trying to put across, there is another message that comes across too.
I did some looking and found several articles that other people had written with their opinions. I think that many times people forget what's good about Disney and instead criticize the bad. But I agree with a lot of what was written.
Let's take Beauty and the Beast. She goes to live with the Beast (who is actually a prince under
an enchantment until he finds someone who will love him as he is) so that her father may go free. Of course Disney is showing
us not to judge people based on looks. It's showing us to treat people how you want to be treated. The musical at my school this year is Beauty and the Beast so we have all been cynically judging the true motives in this movie. It used to be quite a feminist movie back when it was in French with actual actors. Now, though, underneath the nice coating, what is it telling us? At my school and in some of the article I read, people think that Disney is telling us that even if some one is abusive, it doesn't matter because under it all they are a good person who loves you. If you just put up with it, everything will work out.
Or take most of the Disney princess's. They just wait around for people to hand them things and fall in love with the first guy to save them. I remember my sister's stage when she wanted to be a princess. She wore a dress every where and insisted on being treated like royalty. Why do people think that it's bad for someone to pretend this for a few weeks? It made her think she could do anything she wanted and she did grow out of it.
I know that no matter what people might say, I'm going to go on being a Disney geek but what about you? Do you think that Disney is putting down the little girls, making them think they have to marry the first prince that comes along and saves them? Or are we too hard on Disney?
Ps. I wrote this while watching the recording of Rent on Broadway which is so amazing and you should all watch. But because of that I might have had some senseless mistakes with my spelling and grammar. Still it's an awesome show.
