The Disney Phenomenon

       

I have watched almost every Disney movie ever made. When I was a little girl, it was Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. I loved them all. However, I never wanted to be them. When I read The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson  I remember thinking that I didn't understand why she wanted to leave the ocean...I had always wanted to be a mermaid.
My parents took my sisters and I to all the Disney movies and every Sunday night we all sat down and watched the Wonderful World of Disney on TV.
The tradition was continued when I had my first son. It wasn't until I had my daughters that I began to rethink my views on Disney. I think that it was The Little Mermaid that first started to make me uncomfortable showing this to my daughters, then it was Belle in Beauty and the Beast and others. The messages were clear; wait for your "prince." A man will make you happy and complete. A man will save you. The heroine was always beautiful and the princes were always handsome so beauty belongs with beauty. This is not the type of women my husband and I were raising our daughters to be. This was not the message we wanted our sons to hear either. Even though I disagreed with the messages that were conveyed in these movies, I still let my kids watch them....I even bought them.  I didn't go overboard with the Disney thing but they did watch them all the same.
My husband and I took our kids to Disney World one year. It was interesting, my kids liked Disney for a few days but they enjoyed the water parks more and the other excursions that we took along the Gulf Coast way outside of the Disney influence.We never even finished using up our tickets. When we asked our kids if they had a good time they said yes but once was enough. They would rather not go back. For myself, the Disney experience left me again with mixed feelings.
Now that I am older and my children are pretty much grown, my kids and I have had discussions on the Disney Phenomenon. They see the wrong messages given in many of the movies. Other messages are communicated as well such as how ugly people are bad. Many of the movies are racially biased like Linda Christensen points out. I also agree with Christensen when she points out these problems to her students and she encourages them to do something about it.
Today I watched Brave for the first time and I was surprised and encouraged by what I saw. This was a different Disney movie. Merida is a different type princess. She is not waiting for her prince to come and save her, she is happy with who she is. I found it refreshing that Merida was kind of messy and disheveled. I also liked the fact that this was a conflict between mother and daughter....and they worked it out. I was hoping that they were not going to pull out a handsome prince at the last minute and ruin the whole thing. I am still not a Disney fan but Brave was a step in the right direction.