to ask what is wrong with Disney movies?

[bubbleymummy]

A lot of people have mentioned hating them on recent threads and I'm just wondering why.

Well by that logic would you ban all fairytales too msrisotto?

I love The Emperor's New Groove. Not a princess in sight and one of the main character's wife and children kick ass.

But my favourite animated film of all time is The Iron Giant which is Warner Bros. Not sure how I'm going to watch that with DS without blubbing horrendously at the end. Even thinking of the word 'Superman' sets me off.

"I also banned DD from attending a Disney Princess party. Felt it was good for her to question this utter tripe at the age of 4."

I am all admiration. Haven't had to do anything like this yet, but have been fortunate, I think, that most of DDs friends are boys or prefer puppies, etc, etc.

I'm not banning anything bubbley! I am simply expressing my concerns about what these specific fairy tales are teaching kids.

Noblegiraffe, I love the Emperor's New Groove too, it seemed to go a bit unnoticed and as the main character is a pompous ruler who turns into a lama, and a fat bloke, there's little to turn a girl into a princess.

As for the Iron Giant, OMG, I still cry. The first time my dd2 watched this, she said 'why do I feel all funny inside, mummy?' I think it was the first time she was ever properly moved by a film.

Actually, I have banned the reading of certain fairy tales to my DD. She will read them, I am sure, once she is a bit older, but I want her to be old enough for me to be able to talk to her about them properly. Many fairy tales truly are grim.

i dont mind the cartoons but i can't bear their live action films like herbie, mighty ducks. i'd rather tear my eyes out

i always said i'd never go to disney as DH family goes yearly and it just seemed so tacky, expensive everything that other posts say but i did go for my honeymoon and i was converted

DS will only watch toy story 3 and cars ad nauseum , tried finding nemo a few weeks back and within 10 mins he was in tears and ejecting the dvd

hes a tough 3 and a half year old!

eviltwins aww @ cheesemaker, thats lovely

My DD3 wants to be a ballerina, I am trying to get her into being a dentist or a surgeon but she's not having it

i am also in awe of the princess party ban!

i saw such a party at a health club last week. nasty plasticy dresses with dangerous looking plastic high heels on approximately 7 year olds. i will be banning those effing shoes at the very least.

i hate HSM because its so irritating :-P

Cars is brilliant and kept DS entertained for the first 6 weeks of DD's life. Hearing the music takes me back

:) I've firmly believed that into each life, some rain must fall.

What is the upside to a disney princess party?

Nasty plastic shoes, nasty polyester dresses, nasty crowns, underpinned by the nasty thought that the main objective for my beautiful DD would be to win a spotty prince. YUCK!!!!!

As for the Iron Giant

Ah, another 'Disneyfication' of a great English book.

The original was 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes. Well worth catching

Mymblesson - Can't blame Disney for that...Warner Bros. produced The Iron Giant.

I've read The Iron Man, Mymbleson; have you seen The Iron Giant? The script was approved by Ted Hughes.

I love the Cold War setting, the anti-gun theme and the message that you can be whoever you want to be - i.e. a good person (note, not whatever you want to be).

"Nasty plastic shoes, nasty polyester dresses, nasty crowns, underpinned by the nasty thought that the main objective for my beautiful DD would be to win a spotty prince. YUCK!!!!!"

Quite. Don't understand why people think I'm "not allowing dd to be a child", etc, by trying to steer her away from this rubbish.

Most 5 year old girls don't see the nasty plastic and polyester aspect of dressing up - they see the sparkles and glitter.

There's nothing wrong with disney movies if you see it from a childs eyes. I never grew up thinking that I had to be pretty and useless to get ahead in life and I loved them!

Sorry msrisotto - I wrote that post hurriedly! Banned was too strong a word. I just meant do you feel the same way about the messages in fairy tales?

"I also banned DD from attending a Disney Princess party. Felt it was good for her to question this utter tripe at the age of 4."

But she is not questioning it as you are as a parent are banning it,
If you wanted her to question it you should have let her experience it as you cant question something unless you know what it is.
All you have done is make a disney princess party into forbidden fruit and the forbidden is often the most disirable .

The Princess and the Frog has a magical sedating effect on DD and for that I love Disney!

oh some of this is so funny.

I am as un-girly, anti Disney princess as they come.

dd1 I had no problem with - she has no real likes/dislikes, will wer trousers or a dress, is active and sporty (but then, the whole concept of merchandise goes over her head as she is ASD)

dd2 on the other hand, is a princess in making.

she certainly hasn;t got htis form me - she just likes dresses (the sparklier the better), glitter (a girl can never have too much glitte, I am learning), and all things girly.

she just does.

but pmsl that her ambition in life is to grow up and marry a prince - she does all the activities that dd1 does, she just wears a sparkly dress.

she runs and plays (even sparkly dresses wash ), but she is very taken by all the nasty merchandise. (she has very little of it, I have to say - a couple of Alice bands, a Minnie Mouse dress (fave colour is red!), and just recently her heart's desire was a Rapunzel doll, which she got for her birthday)

I do worry about the misogynistic messages that are buried deep - but I do enough cynical laughing, and we laugh together at how silly a girl would have to be to not want to run about and get muddy etc to, hopefully, counteract that.

I think perpetuating the myth that all little girls need to do is to be pretty, and a prince will come rescue them from their sad little life and they'll live happily ever after is not desirable, it is damaging.

I realise that that is not solely down to the powerhouse that is Disney, but they certainly contribute greatly to that.

The Disney princess behemoth is simply insidious- it is everywhere, and ensnares girls from birth, trapping them in this false world where only beautiful things/people are good, women are subservient to men, the only goal in life is to marry and marry well, we can win things just by being beautiful rather than working hard for them. Don't get me started on the 'Barbie' books (non-disney I know). HSM? Pah- well if we could just perform our way through life, everything would be fantastic, world poverty would end, war would be over

Disney is saccharine, falsely sweet; stories and characters with wide-ranging human characteristics are sanitised and divided into good and evil, white and black.

Fairy tales are scary, grim, odd, funny, cruel, disturbing, wry... but they are also learning experiences, to help children make sense of the world, and our history. They are also not aimed at 3yos, but older children. I cannot read "The Little Mermaid" (Hans Christian Andersen) without breaking down, and I certainly cannot read it to my daughter- the heroine gives up her life, everything she knows for the Prince she falls for, wants to marry even after only a brief glimpse of him, she even gives up her tail and gets legs instead, meaning she is forever barred from her home beneath the waves ... and then he abandons her and marries someone else the betrayal is staggering, and a small child cannot possibly comprehend the message in this story. I hate it.

Mulan however is a good film, with a strong female role model, who is driven by familial obligations that override gender, has to work extremely hard to succeed including overcoming prejudice- what messages would you not want your child to take from this film? Hell- I just love the songs!

I grew up in a house that banned Barbies and I had no TV anyway, so Disney was a complete no no. Unfortunately, the messsage that what little girls look like matters is far more pervasive, and from very early on, I knew that the blonde pretty ones in pink dresses were the 'best' (and I wasn't one of those). Despite dressing me in gender neutral clothes, giving me a bowl cut and banning all princessy stuff, I craved sparkles, glitter, make-up and still do to some extent. You cannot fight this with simplistic bans which serve to signal 'this is something very important, so important you are not allowed to take part in it or process it yourself' (although obviously I think it's sensible not to hold those type of parties yourself if it is not your family thing).

great clips msrisotto. funny in a sinister kind of way.
fairy tales are all horrible, abandoned children, murderous stepmothers, uncomfortable footwear.
They are part of our cultural consciousness (aaagh can't spell that word.)though and hard to avoid. Disney is just retelling the stories with an unhealthy dollop of saccharine.
Josie Jump on the other hand I'd like to strangle...its' BALamory time...

very wise advice onetoomanycornettos