Did you ever really, really watch a Disney movie? Like watch it in the eyes of an adult who, after years of experiencing life, realize you were watching some hardcore horror disguised as children’s entertainment?
I did .. I think we all did.
Do not get me wrong. There is plenty of amazing stories, kindness, and lessons for humanity. And death. Horror. Terrible monsters that would fascinate and scare the mind of a young child.
Sean Braswell made this point in a 2015 article:
From the evil queen’s desire to kill a beautiful maiden in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), to the wooden puppet in Pinocchio (1940) who must die to be reborn as a real boy, to the fawn in Bambi (1942) witnessing his mother’s (off-screen) murder, the Grim Reaper looms large over many Disney tales. And while death is a fixture in some of the greatest children’s literature, including Grimm’s Fairy Tales — on which several of Disney’s biggest hits were based — Disney’s animations take the dance with death to a whole new level. In the somewhat disturbing “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence inFantasia (1940), for example, monstrous demons and bare-breasted female ghouls join skeletons and other nocturnal creatures to plot the invasion of a small mountain village
Disney’s personal encounters with death continued to multiply during that period. As his daughter Diane would later recount, in the early 1930s, a fortune-teller informed the famous animator that he would die at age 35, prompting a burst of productivity from the paranoid Disney, and leading him to avoid funerals for the rest of his life. Perhaps the most scarring incident, however, was the tragic, accidental death of Disney’s mother, Flora. In 1938, following the success of Snow White, Disney bought his parents a home in North Hollywood. Shortly after moving in, they complained of gas fumes coming from the furnace, and Disney promptly dispatched some studio hands to fix it. The furnace was not fixed properly, and Flora died from asphyxiation a few days later.
That is an interesting portrayal of history that is so often not thought about.
But even since ole Walt was frozen (rumor there) there have been some additional nightmares presented to kids without parents really realizing it.. such as the RETURN TO OZ. And the Black Cauldron in 1985..
There are some really weird Disney movies out there..I count the following on the list I’d say are creepy or morbid more than any: Pinocchio. Bambi. SNOW WHITE for sure.. Sleeping Beauty. Little Red Riding Hood..
Goldilocks and the Three Bears gets a mention, too.
CRACKED presented a list last year backing up the premise of the scare tactics in Disney films.. Such as creepy facts about Peter Pan.. The Disney classic Bambi, based on a children’s book written by a part-time pornographer ..
And a creepy set of movies.
It formed a generation. It created a class of people worried about threats from Communists and then terrorists.. fear and scare…
Scary stories to tell in the dark came long before the books in the 80s..
Disney brought them to us.
With happy Mouse ears.
And then Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.
