Disney movies don't teach values, morals, or life lessons anymore. Is Disney moving forward or into the trash?

disney was alway shit. now it’s just a cult for tweens.

May I ask for examples?

I disagree. First of all, I’m the parent, not Disney. It’s my responsibility to show him morals, and life lessons.

My son watches all that you listed. He also loves/adores Alice In Wonderland & Cinderella! (people actually ask if he’s British, since he likes to practice Alice’s accent)

Plus he likes newer releases such as:

*Tinkerbell (teaches to believe in yourself, your own talents)
*Cinderella 3 (a Pre-Cinderella story, where the StepMom takes the wand from the fairy God mother and uses it on Anastasia. It has a good message)

He can hardly wait for the Princess & the Frog to hit theaters (and he doesn’t even like movie theaters).

@SpatzieLover Alice in Wonderland was my favorite thing ever as a little kid. I totally have it memorized.

What kind of morals and values are you looking for? Many of them now have a “be yourself, don’t give up, use your strengths” kind of theme. “Meet the Robinsons” comes to mind. I’ll take Belle from Beauty and the Beast or Mulan any day over those princesses who sit around and wait for the Prince to rescue them from their unhappy lives.

I loved how the girl in Return to Neverland defeats Hook and rescues Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. I like how the movies are attempting to become more diverse. It’s kind of nice to have those examples set in movies to back up what we tell our children at home: You can do what you set your mind to, believe in yourself, and don’t let others tell you that you can’t do anything. There are themes of loyalty and friendship, like in “Finding Nemo” or “Toy Story.”

Plus, some of them are just darn funny. I still laugh out loud every time Dory speaks Whale in “Finding Nemo.” :)

@SpatzieLover I saw five minutes of Princess & the Frog. It’s a major step backwards, not just in plot quality, but it’s basically Song of the South for a new generation. Okay, that might be a bit dishonest considering I haven’t seen the entire thing, but it looks to be going that way.

Disney just doesn’t understand it. The Pixar revolution wasn’t just about animation, but storytelling as well. They are archaic, and are dying out – unless they can recapture the magic.

The Lion King and Alice in Wonderland are two of my favorite animated movies. I sure hope they do.

Oh, Tron 2 is coming out, so perhaps we’ll get something there. The Pirates series was good, too.

What do you expect from Disney? Tokyo Story?
They’ve been regurgitating dull and childish garbage for years
And they wouldn’t know originality if it bit them in the rear end.

@andrew He likes to sit in a large throne like Queen’s Anne chair we have, where he pretend to recite (and does a fairly terrific job at it) Jabberwocky. He also reads to our dog’s in Alice’s older sister’s voice. Then says “Alice pay attention!” ;) Thanks for sharing!

@SpatzieLover I have “Goodbye Dinah! Goodbyyyyyyyyye” etched in my brain, as well as the little animation flub when alice is lying in the daisies, slowing sinking in, and the last bit of her dress disappears suddenly.

In remembrance of the Disney of old, Happy Unbirthday, everyone.

@Naked_Homer The Wizards of Waverly Place

unless it actually is your birthday, then… uh… nevermind

I don’t know where I’m going with this

@eponymoushipster In Walt’s days TV was not the main medium. Who knows what he would’ve made into a show

@SpatzieLover The Hitler Variety Hour, most likely.

@eponymoushipster – I don’t know that one. Technically they were the standard for a very long time. That has passed. Now they need serious story help. As to values, I disagree. Hercules. Mulan. Hunchback. Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast. All of them had very good value lessons.

“But it seems the children are all watching trash”.

Yeah, nice big bold statement with no evidence to back it up. Congrats.

Tell me: what are your suggestions for what kids should be watching these days? How would you improve childrens’ movies or Disney movies? What are some Disney movies these days that exemplify what you said? What of @MissAusten ‘s examples?

Do people who complain about stuff ever offer suggestions on improvement? Seriously.

I don’t think Disney has started making trash movies. I think they have just modernized the themes a little bit.

The CEO of disney has been quoted making the statement that they are not an organization made to build the hopes, moral, and self esteem of future generations they are there to make money. Walt Disney would roll over in his grave, I am sure.

One good thing about Disney Classics.

They do not push the T&A on the kiddies like most programs and toys do these days.

chazmaz http://tv.disney.go.com/disneychannel/hannahmontana/

But their classics didnt have plump ugly heroines either.

I said, “Disney Classics.”

:-)

Hannah Montana is a whore. ;-)

thats why i added the bottom part

Ok. Got ya!~ :-)

There are Disney programs I can’t stand. Suite Life of Zach and Cody, Hannah Montana…ok, those are the only two I can think of. The acting is bad and the characters are annoying. My kids aren’t really into those, thank God. As for the content or morality, I haven’t watched enough of them to be able to comment.

I still think the animated movies and Pixar movies are great. I suppose they make non-animated movies, but I haven’t seen any of them.

Now I have this urge to go watch “Bolt.” The pigeons and the hamsters crack me up.

How about someone rounds up those “High School Musical” kids and shoots them in the face?
except for that Vannessa Hudgens girl.. she’s cute

For my money, Pixar can’t be beat. I have never enjoyed or felt safer bringing my 2 kids to any Pixar movie with out fear. The stories have something for every age. The animation beautiful and beyond compare.

@Naked_Homer Pixar makes intelligent movies, that’s why. Really, I saw adverts for the movie G-Force and couldn’t help but feel it was just catering to the lowest common denominator – and, quite frankly, children cannot be categorized so harshly. Any child can appreciate the magic in Wall-E or Toy Story, you don’t need to spell the jokes out for fear that they might not understand.

I appreciate what Pixar does on so many levels.

Did you know that most children don’t understand half of the jokes that are being tossed out by animated cartoons?

@Grisaille – Cheers to that!
@Sabotage82 – Absolutely! I grew up enjoying the Flintsones and LooneyTunes. And not the 80’s edited versions of Looney Toons either. I see them now and think “there is now way in hell I understood those jokes.” I just loved animation!

@Naked_Homer Even more recently, Cartoon Network in the 90s (not sure about now, Blondesjon should chime in on this) had some really, really amazing stuff. Sometimes deep, philosophical; sometimes hilarious, thinly veiled crudeness. Ren & Stimpy was amazing at the latter.

@SpatzieLover GA for the sentance “I’m the parent not Disney”

In the newer Disney films I can still pick out various morals and easy to understand life lessons that we are used to in the older ones. Disney is changing with the times and for the most part it’s doing a good job. I don’t think Finding Nemo is necessarily a better story than Sleeping Beauty (for example) but it certainly is better animation. For the most part I certainly think Disney movies are getting better and better. They may be running out of the traditional fables and fairytales to base their movies on (unless The Incredibles was a fable from years gone by?!?!) but I don’t think they have turned into meaningless tripe by any stretch of the imagination.

If you don’t think Disney movies don’t teach moral lessons any more, I’d ask you to check and make sure those were Disney movies you were watching. Disney’s mission is to make moral points. That’s how they keep the movies in the family movie category.

My problem with Disney is that all their movies fit into very few formulas. The major formula is the fish out of water movie. All the princess movies are about this, and the car movies, and maybe more. I get it. I get it. Tell me another story please. Or if you want to tell this one again, please don’t make it so obvious. There has to be more subtlety to tease out of the issue.

I call this “Disnification,” and it doesn’t make me happy. That having been said, the most recent Disney movie I went to (I forget which one it was), did not seem like a Disney movie, and I was so grateful for that. Hmmm. Maybe it wasn’t a Disney movie after all. I saw G-Force, but I don’t remember what I might have thought was good about it. I did hear that Up was good, but I never saw it.

@daloon you really should see “UP”... it’s an amazing piece of work.

While I agree that Disney is certainly changing to appeal more to the “tween” market and that the current programming may not be as revered as their older classics, I don’t think everything they make is completely full of fluff. While not every episode of Hannah Montana is filled with morals, there are certainly a few that I can think of that serve to teach kids quite a few lessons- there are episodes where characters learn not to lie, about forgiveness, and humility. The movie itself is about not forgetting your roots, which I think is an important lesson for anyone (child or adult) to learn. Even High School Musical aims to teach kids about thinking outside the box of school stereotypes and learning that not everyone should “stick to the status quo.”

The Disney/Pixar movies are loaded with values, morals, and life lessons.
Think about Monsters, Inc., Toy Story, and Up.

What i like about Pixar is the level of dedication by the people in Pixar, and the fact that it’s original stories.

the problem in your statement is ‘anymore’
when did Disney ever make anything of value?
that’s just my opinion

@Simone_De_Beauvoir thankfully someone finally said it

@RedPowerLady finally? did you see comment number one in this thread?

I disagree with the last 3 posts.
Disney movies, especially the older ones (think Pinocchio) are full of values, morals, and life lessons.
I know some people are jaded, or think it’s cool not to like Disney, but I love it.

@eponymoushipster yes, yes, I plagiarized your answer. happy now? i can totally give you my gold star

@eponymoushipster Oh apologies, I usually avoid the comments that sound obscene. I suppose I have sensitive ears.. umm… eyes.

@filmfann

Also, what about Mulan? One of the greatest animated movies I’ve ever seen. Also, The Emperor’s New Groove is pretty great. Even my mom likes that movie.

@filmfann well I did say ‘in my opinion’

@RedPowerLady you consider tween a dirty word too? nice.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir yeah, that’s it.~

@DominicX – I love the Emperor’s New Groove.

@eponymoushipster and @Simone_De_Beauvoir – what is it about Disney you don’t care for? I am just curious.This isn’t a lead up to some debate.

I myself like Disney and what Walt did. He was a pioneer in animation and family entertainment from Disneyland to The Show. It became more and more and more commercial but I am excited to take my kids to Disney World once.

I am not as hot on Disney as I once was. I was accepted into their animation internship program and had a meeting with a professor. She and I talked and it really opened my eyes. But I still appreciate what he brought to the world for when I was a kid and for my kids to enjoy if they like.

@Naked_Homer i personally feel Disney is a cult. There are actual works out there that draw this comparison. It has icons, a temple and so forth. People are super fanatical about disney, buying every little product that has a disney/mickey logo on it, make repeated trips (which they compare to religious pilgrimages) to the parks and so forth.

the movies themselves are nothing to get excited about. i understand that 50–60 years ago, Snow White or Fantasia was groundbreaking. but that was 50–60 years ago. It’s all mindless tripe now.

@eponymoushipster

Well, I agree that buying everything with the logo on them is a little strange, though my mom is in love with things with Mickey on them and has a collection, but she also collects old magazines and glass insulators from telephone poles. People probably visit the parks because they’re…well, I don’t know…fun?

And I’m just curious, how do movies like Mulan, Aladdin, and The Emperor’s New Groove represent “mindless tripe”? What exactly is “mindless tripe” and what is the alternative that is so much better than it?

@DominicX there’s nothing behind it. there’s no passion. it’s all contrived in order to sell products. have you ever read the history of pixar? they truly love what they do. the characters are built around how they can market them.

@Naked_Homer
we discussed it some here
http://www.fluther.com/disc/51737/why-would-a-parent-not-want-their-children-to-watch-characters/

@eponymoushipster

How do you know that? Do you know what the writers, animators, and designers are thinking?

And I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mulan or Emperor’s New Groove products and yet they are two of the most highly-rated newer Disney movies. Pixar movies have a lot of products, though.

@DominicX you really need to read that book before you keep going with this. Disney has a marketing plan, where basically they’ll make any film, regardless of how strong the story is, as long as they see it as pheasible, regardless of the quality, to produce multiple direct to DVD sequels of lower quality, with different vocal talent. Pixar actively fought this with Toy Story 2, and you see the results.

As for Mulan or the other movie, yes, there are plenty of products. and if they don’t have them in the local walmart, you can bet they’re at the disney store.

@eponymoushipster

Well, those two movies don’t have any sequels and the products are not at all as popular as Pixar movies and the classic Disney characters and yet the movies remain very popular. I’m also implying that just because a movie has products made after it, it doesn’t diminish the quality of the movie. I’ve seen a lot of movies, okay? A lot of live action non-Disney movies that are considered classics and I still love those two movies a lot. They are good movies “irregardless” of who made them and what products are associated with them.

And I believe you, don’t worry; I don’t need to read it, but I might if I ever find the time to.

@DominicX

Mulan II
The Emperor’s New Groove 2

they may have some value, but when the marketing overshadows the story itself, it seems kinda distasteful. especially when it’s aimed at kids.

yes, pixar has products, but i don’t feel the same “vibe” from pixar as i do from disney. that’s all.

@eponymoushipster

lol…did not know those sequels existed, but just as well, because no one knows about them nor likes them it seems, so where’s the gain in making these crappy sequels?

@eponymoushipster – I can see that vibe now cough MOM cough. But back before Disney World I didn’t really think it was that way. That was part of what was wiped out for me in my discussion with the professor.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – Great points. One of the things I love about Pixar and films like Shrek is that they don’t adhere to many of the story objections you brought up. Unfortunately the marketing side we will have a hard time escaping.

@DominicX that’s why Pixar fought so hard against Disney’s business model when it came to Toy Story 2. they didn’t want to cheapen the characters and the story. they saw what happened with these direct to dvd movies. I mean, Cinderella 3 – really? c’mon.

Tom Hanks actually balked at it at first when he found out Disney was going to do it and not Pixar.

@filmfann I completely agree with you. I also love Disney and believe that people have gotten somewhat jaded towards them.

I’m pretty well-schooled in the art of media deconstruction, having worked both on screen and studied semiology in college. I can’t stand being in Ikea for more than 20 minutes. I don’t have a ton of mainstream media tastes, and my critical eye is pretty well developed.

I spent eleven hours at Disneyland.

Now, granted, a lot of that had to do with the company I was keeping, but throughout the whole park I was constantly amazed at how I didn’t feel overwhelmed. It was fun! The climactic firework and water show was a wonderful spectacle. I “felt the magic”.

Despite the monolithic corporation, I feel like I got a little gist of Disney’s vision of producing “magic”. And I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

@eponymoushipster My son really enjoys the plot of Cinderella III…as it was a direct to DVD & we could get it through Netflix, Disney didn’t actually get any dineros from us ;)

@andrew Watching Alice In Wonderland after reading the book is a “magical” experience. It’s the same for Beauty & the Beast with us. Both are quite true to the originals.

@andrew Perhaps this is could be attributed to sensory overload, rather than true vision? I’ve never been to Disneyland, but I could only imagine that the place is entirely built head-to-toe as an authentic, magical experience.

I suppose the question is: at what point do we say that our mind is being enveloped by an environment’s stimuli, rather than attributing artistic merit to what we perceive to be a true vision? How much of a work’s effect is deliberate, and how much of it is just our mind giving in to the pressure of its quality?

Mayhaps that is deliberate and the purpose of Disneyland in itself. Hmm.

Disney has made a science of drawing people in and altering how the view things.

Take the blue pill, @andrew. otherwise Dr J’ll end up with Mickey ears and a $6 hotdog in one of his tentacles.

@eponymoushipster Sorry, I spent all my money on skinny jeans and my fixie…oh… oh wait…

@andrew hahahah. you’re the one with the fixie… as for skinny jeans…

I call it the “disnification” of a story. Disney usually takes stories and just makes them into boring morality plays. You know the whole story within one minute of the beginning of the movie. There are almost never any surprises. It’s like pablum for people who have a taste for that sort of thing.

I know some people I like and respect really enjoy Disney stuff, but it really bothers me when someone does like Disney. I’m also not fond of Disney theme parks. I’ve never been to one, and don’t want to go. Disney commodifies other cultures and myths, and that just rubs me the wrong way. It seems to me that Disney dumbs down things that don’t need to be dumbed down. Disney is condescending to people, and especially to children. Children, I think, are much smarter than Disney gives them credit for.

The Disney world is all innocent and naive, and it’s a lie, in my opinion. Things are never as straightforward as Disney tales suggest. Morals are never so clear as Disney portrays them. Disney takes real things and repackages them in bright, beautiful packages, and in doing so, takes the heart and soul away from the stories. It is a kind of insular, American thing. Often, it is cultural appropriation. It is disrespectful.

It usually cheers me when I see something Disney flop. It makes me feel better when folks see through what Disney is doing. I suppose you could say I have rather strong feelings about this. Ya think? ;-)

Let’s not forget about the disney sweatshops filled with poor and unprivileged children making 12 cents an hour just to make your kids some cheap plastic toys. Where’s the morality in that?

Fuck disney, Pixar is where its at.

@PretentiousArtist – Yeah, who knew that the “It’s a small world” ride characters were all real kids? hehe

Are we forgetting that Disney and other such companies make most of their films etc… for children and not adults? Yes we have the fun of taking them to the cinema and wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy all the films we take them to see, but we aren’t going to because we are not the target audience!

I have seen some good films and some terrible ones in the past, ones I would watch over and over again (and have done) andones that I wouldn’t even consider buying the dvd, but I know that my 11 year old daughter and I are not always going to agree on what is a good programme/film and what doesn’t as we have different tastes as individuals and as adult/child.

@sakura – That is one of the coolest things about Pixar films is that their stories are easily enjoyable by both.

Seriously, everyone should read To Infinity and Beyond, about the history of Pixar and their philosophy. It’s a great book to read, in any case – and beautifully illustrated. If you’ve watched the Pixar Shorts DVD, it’s a great companion to that. It goes in to far more detail than the commentaries on the disc.

@eponymoushipster – Their shorts were technical triumphs let alone fun stories! Thanks for the book hookup!

@Naked_Homer yeah, exactly. those shorts were oftentimes attempts at new skills and technology. the book explains a lot; you’re welcome!

@eponymoushipster Wow, I didn’t realize that Ed Catmull was one of the founders of Pixar. The creation of the Catmull-Clarke subdivision surfacing algorithm was a huge thing in the 3D graphics industry.

@Shuttle128 pretty cool book, eh?

@eponymoushipster – darn book is on hold and I am 23 on the waiting list!!!!!

@Naked_Homer damn, dude. you’ll see that sometime in fiscal 2011…

The computerized cartoons never taught me anything, yet the drawn cartoons have. I.e. Aladdin tells us its the inside that counts. Never judge a book by its cover. The Lion King in a way tells the story of God sending Jesus to the world. It also teaches that the past doesn’t make who you are today. What does finding nemo teach? Where to find my fish if I lose it?

@stefanie92 Interesting. Did you watch Finding Nemo? I thought it was about perseverance, not letting a handicap (remember his tiny, malformed fin?) stop you, friendship, and loyalty. Admittedly, the part about all drains going to the ocean may not have been entirely true, but I do think sea turtles would sound like surfers if they could talk. ;)

@MissAusten Whenever I see a turtle or a picture of one I can’t help but say “Duuuuudddde!” to myself!

I agree. A lot of Disney movies that have come out in the past 10 years or so have been pretty trashy, with even crude jokes and violence in them. I am saddened by the change too. And the Disney Channel offers silly shows like “The Suite Life Of Zack and Cody” and others, which are nothing but mindless, stupid, non-sensical “comedy” with no values being taught.