Are Disney Movies Bad for Children?

[United Kingdom of Muffins]

I grew up on the cartoons of the 1950s and 1960s. Leave It To Beaver, Andy Griffith, The Jetsons, etc., I'm not dead and I haven't killed anyone, if I can take "that", why can't modern children handle tiny bits of the ewwweness of real life and develop actual social skills? Cartoons don't have to be clean because life isn't clean.

So you are 50 now?

Actualy 15. My Dad just hated new cartoons so bad, he just started me watching them. I got hooked.

[The Sector Union]

Spongebob is full of sexual innuendo and other adult references. For that reason it's one of the only cartoons I enjoy.

"Look Gary, doubloons!"

*shows Gary two bars of soap*

"Don't drop them!"

*wink*

I found that joke to be quite funny when I went back and actually understood what he was talking about.

Also, the part where Spongebob watches a video of a Sea anemone twirling around implying it was a pornographic film. Gary catches him and Spongebob turns it off scared.

[Altito Asmoro]

So you are 50 now?

Actualy 15. My Dad just hated new cartoons so bad, he just started me watching them. I got hooked.

Oh...I love The Jetsons and Flinstones. Too bad my TV Cable has no more access anymore to Boomerang. I also like Snagglepuss and Tom Cat

[Transhuman Proteus]

I grew up on the cartoons of the 1950s and 1960s. Leave It To Beaver, Andy Griffith, The Jetsons, etc., I'm not dead and I haven't killed anyone, if I can take "that", why can't modern children handle tiny bits of the ewwweness of real life and develop actual social skills? Cartoons don't have to be clean because life isn't clean.

I think they can take it, of course I loved horror and sci-fi and British comedy and all the rest from a fairly young age, have plenty of friends who were the same.

I'm not really sure if cartoons are necessarily cleaner though. At least there are quite a few that seem a fair bit weirder or twisted then some of the older shows (your Flintstones and Jetsons and so forth), or at the very least operate on multiple different levels (or do a lot of the "you'll get it when you're older" type thing). This is the age of Spongbob, Adventure Time, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Fairly Odd Parents, Grossology, MLP etc, following in the footsteps of 90s hits like Ren & Stimpy, Angry Beavers, Daria etc.

Lots of kids have also taken up cartoons more aimed (at least nominally) at more mature audiences - South Park, Family Guy, American Dad. There was a not insignificant South Park saturation I found when I got to High School (this was in kids 12 & 13 up to 18). And The Simpsons of course.

[Forsher]

What the fuck is twerking?





Oh gods, am I old now?

No. It's a niche thing. Or at least in middle of the road socio-economic areas in New Zealand. I know this because I watched half my class look in puzzled when instructed to "twerk".

I made them hop backwards.

Yes. Yes, you are officially old.

Twerking is basically when a girl shakes her ass. Up and down. Usually to a beat. Making the ass, you know, shake. And jiggle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twerking

You see, back in my day we called that "dancing".

It's slightly more complicated than that.

Well the Lion King seems pretty solid to me.

Except for the whole "darker skin toned villain" thing, where Scar was noticeably darker. However since they're all animals, I don't think kids will translate those ideas to real world people.

On the other hand Scar had a quite dark lair and there is that whole dark place thing also. I'm going with dark = evil and light = good on that.

Don't remember the dark place? Here's a handy-dandy meme to refresh your memories.

I've never seen it, only heard of it.

Not sure what you're trying to say...

Lion King was based on Kimba the White Lion. Even the plotline same.

3rd Rock From the Sun reckons that the plot is a rip-off of Hamlet...

Now, I haven't actually seen very many Disney films (excluding the cool ones like The Aristocats, Robin Hood, the Jungle Book, The Great Mouse Detective, Home on the Range, Lady and the Tramp, the Lion King and, I'm pretty certain I finished watching Tarzan also... bit of a theme here) but they do mangle a lot of stories (Winnie the Pooh doesn't actually wear a shirt) so, definitely on that count.

[Altito Asmoro]

Winnie the Pooh doesn't actually wear a shirt

So what does he wears?

[Forsher]

Winnie the Pooh doesn't actually wear a shirt

So what does he wears?

Nothing.

The only bear that I can think of that wears clothes is Paddington.

Gopher, of course, they made up completely.

It's really rather sad.

[Altito Asmoro]

So what does he wears?

Nothing.

The only bear that I can think of that wears clothes is Paddington.

Gopher, of course, they made up completely.

It's really rather sad.

But he wears red clothes in animated series and movies.

[Forsher]

Nothing.

The only bear that I can think of that wears clothes is Paddington.

Gopher, of course, they made up completely.

It's really rather sad.

But he wears red clothes in animated series and movies.

Which are Disney.

I advise reading the books so you can see that a) he wears nothing, b) he is sometimes called Edward Bear and c) notice that Gopher is non-existant.

It's like how Irene Adler's case in Sherlock Holmes has a strong tendency to not involve royalty, photographs and fires when adapted (although, when put in those terms, Sherlock is remarkably accurate). The original story is quite different. (A better example would be the Moriarty obsession... he's quite a minor character, really.)

But the main point is that Disney mangled Winnie-the-Pooh. I'd be willing to bet a lot of its fans have never heard of "A A Milne".

[Chinese Regions]

Kimba the White Lion is now confused.

I've never seen it, only heard of it.

Not sure what you're trying to say...

KImba the White Lion, the first ever anime (that aired on tv) in colour, similar to lion King but a bit more environmental. But the titular lion, "Emperor of the Jungle" has whitest fur and mane.

[Hathradic States]

Not really, I think.

[Mkuki]

I've never seen anything wrong with them. Maybe it's the songs that have numbed me.

I'm gonna be a mighty king, so enemies beware...

[Tsuntion]

Eh, it depends. Aladdin definitely has some racism going on. Atlantis? Not so much. The Lion King? Eh, the jury's out.

Atlantis's problem.

[Bottle]

Children who's understanding of the world is not yet formed are seeing these movies where beauty is equated with goodness and dark skin and foreign accents are equated with evil.

Do you have any proof of this being the case? I watched quite a few Disney movies while growing up, and I never found this to be true.

I would also dispute those points, given there were villains who fit the "beauty" category and most villains didn't seem to have foreign accents.

It's not Disney-specific, but there is actually a long history of evidence that even small children absorb the message that white people are Good while black people are Bad. Ken and Mamie Clark did their classic doll experiments in the 1940s or 1950s, finding that both black children and white children think that white dolls are the good ones and black dolls are "naughty" or such. There was a documentary called A Girl Like Me done some time in the last 10 years that recreated the experiments and found similar results.

[Khadgar]

"Look Gary, doubloons!"

*shows Gary two bars of soap*

"Don't drop them!"

*wink*

I found that joke to be quite funny when I went back and actually understood what he was talking about.

:p

There's drug references in there too along with police brutality and other such things. It's an adult cartoon masquerading as a children's show.

No, it's a kid's show with some safely adult humor the munchkins won't get. Rocko's Modern Life was like that, so was Animaniacs. Both of which got so much crap past the censors I'm amazed that the censors weren't fired.

[Altito Asmoro]

There's drug references in there too along with police brutality and other such things. It's an adult cartoon masquerading as a children's show.

No, it's a kid's show with some safely adult humor the munchkins won't get. Rocko's Modern Life was like that, so was Animaniacs. Both of which got so much crap past the censors I'm amazed that the censors weren't fired.

Bu Animaniacs was produced by Steven Spielberg!

[Ifreann]

Not really, they are just movies that are trying to tell a story. I don't think the makers of these films set out to degrade women or any group of people.

Which hardly means that children won't take bad lessons away from watching them.

---

I grew up on the cartoons of the 1950s and 1960s. Leave It To Beaver, Andy Griffith, The Jetsons, etc., I'm not dead and I haven't killed anyone, if I can take "that", why can't modern children handle tiny bits of the ewwweness of real life and develop actual social skills? Cartoons don't have to be clean because life isn't clean.

If things that aren't Disney movies didn't cause you to kill people or die, then Disney movies aren't bad for children in any way.


Logic. Not even once.

[Transhuman Proteus]

There's drug references in there too along with police brutality and other such things. It's an adult cartoon masquerading as a children's show.

No, it's a kid's show with some safely adult humor the munchkins won't get. Rocko's Modern Life was like that, so was Animaniacs. Both of which got so much crap past the censors I'm amazed that the censors weren't fired.

Indeed, that's my read as well. And gee I loved those two shows.

[Surfistan]

Not necessarily, they are animation movies based upon faery tales, so the sexism/racism is periodical. Them girls are underweight though, needs more meat.

I'd love some new Dreamworks animations though.

[New Riverclan]

Disney movies are NOT bad for children!

[Stattr]

My dad always stereotyped them... And i am with them... One of my you ger sisters barely eats and she loves princesses... It's scary...

[Ifreann]

Not necessarily, they are animation movies based upon faery tales, so the sexism/racism is periodical...

That's a pretty worthless excuse. There are shitloads of pieces online comparing older versions of fairy tales to their Disney adaptations. Disney changed loads of things. If there's racism or sexism or anything else objectionable in Disney adaptations of fairy tales it's because Disney put them there, or left them there.

[Surfistan]

Not necessarily, they are animation movies based upon faery tales, so the sexism/racism is periodical...

That's a pretty worthless excuse. There are shitloads of pieces online comparing older versions of fairy tales to their Disney adaptations. Disney changed loads of things. If there's racism or sexism or anything else objectionable in Disney adaptations of fairy tales it's because Disney put them there, or left them there.

Guess I'm wrong then.

[Charellia]

Children who's understanding of the world is not yet formed are seeing these movies where beauty is equated with goodness and dark skin and foreign accents are equated with evil.

.....Aladdin

There you go, you're statement is invalid because in that movie everybody is dark skinned and the heroes are not white

So....yeah try again please?

The hero's are still lighter skinned than the villains, same with Mulan, same with the Lion King (replacing skin with fur).

[Khadgar]

.....Aladdin

There you go, you're statement is invalid because in that movie everybody is dark skinned and the heroes are not white

So....yeah try again please?

The hero's are still lighter skinned than the villains, same with Mulan, same with the Lion King (replacing skin with fur).

The lead female character dresses like a harem concubine also.