Disney films are a fundamental part of childhood. Before you even enter school and the social realm of society, you are watching and lapping up Disney films like there is no tomorrow. At least I did and every other kid on the block seemed to be doing the same. It wasn't until I went to watch Disney Pixar's most recent addition to their vast collection of Princess movies, 'Brave' that I realized how odd it was to be watching a Disney movie, which was not about the importance of the female/male relationship. 'Brave' is a breath of fresh air for a Princess movie as she does not find true love at the end, but instead builds up a better relationship with her Mother. Whereas all the Disney films I watched growing up consisted of a young Princess being tricked or preyed upon by a wicked Step-Mother or Witch until eventually saved by her 'true love'. And the Father figure (if alive) is usually protective, some characters might have seemed controlling, and everything they did was out of love for their daughter.
Well I know that Disney Princess films are based on Fairy Tales, but as a little kid, other than your parents, you get your ideas and views of the world from TV, Movies and books, like Fairy Tales and Disney. And maybe I am reaching here but I think this idealization of the male figure as being the protective Father or the handsome 'true love', has led to a epic disappointment among women. I once heard that everyone has some sort of 'daddy issues', and I am starting to think Disney might have helped contribute to these issues.
For example in 'Cinderella' her loving, doting Father wants his little girl to have a Mother so he marries for his daughter's sake. Unfortunatley her Father then dies and the woman he had married turns into an evil Step-Mother character but Cinderella is ultimately rescued by a handsome Prince. So while poor Cinderella didn't have the easiest of times the two most important male figures in her life, were in essence the ideal. Whereas her mother figure is long dead and subsequently replaced by an evil Step-Mother, and same goes for Snow White. But these girls at least knew one thing and that was that their Father's would have done anything for them.
Then you have 'The Little Mermaid', Ariel's Mother is also long since deceased and while Ariel has her ups and downs with her Father, he is protective out of love for her. And he had good reasons to be protective as Ariel almost became a shrivelled up little...whatever those things were, by Ursula, an evil Witch-type, until her handsome Prince resuced her. Then her over-protective father lets her (his 16 year old mermaid daughter) leave behind her home and become a human to be with her Prince forever, just to make her happy.
And then you have 'Beauty and the Beast', again Mother long since dead and her father while slightly eccentric loves Belle more than anything and vice versa. Belle even gives up her own life for her Father, and then he tries to save her, but to no avail as he is a small non-threatening Disney Dad. But all ends up well for Belle as while she is living with a beast, he is acutally a good person deep down and a Prince. What are the chances? (In my opinion he should have stayed a beast as was far better looking than the Prince we met at the end.)
Then last but certainly not least is 'Aladdin', where we have Princess Jasmine and her beloved Father the Sultan. But instead of a threatening Step-Mother, there is a creepily thin and tall Jafar. Whose power comes entirely from his stick thing, because I am sure if he didn't 'mind the gap' when getting off the underground he would slide straight on through. The Sultan in my opinion is the most lovable of Disney Dad's and I often would hope my Dad would wake up resembling the dear old Santa-like Sultan. But that never happened.
'Aladdin' is different though as it doesn't even have a female Mother-type character and Jasmine is not the lead of the film as we spend our time following the eponymous hero Aladdin.
I also grew up watching 'Full House' (which ran on ABC - part of the Disney family), where once again the mother is dead. This actually started to become somewhat of a theme for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, if you remember 'Two of a Kind' and 'It Takes Two'. Instead you had a loving and protective Father, Uncle and Best Friend of the Dad, and while the viewers felt bad for the girls' in the show for being Motherless, they made it seem like so much fun to have 3 adult males taking care of them. Totally a flashback to 'Three Men and a Little Baby' and subsequently 'Lady', which were beyond epic films. If I had to be abandonded by my Mother as a baby, if she had left me on Tom Selleck's door step, I think I would have coped, as long as he never shaved that moustache.
I also watched Disney - ABC produced '8 Simple Rules' when I was in my teenage years and the over-protective Dad was the whole plotline, but only towards the daughters. The episode often had the Dad, Paul (the great John Ritter) questioning his older daughters about their behaviour, when the youngest child, the son could run free, no questions asked.
In real life I don't know anyone who has such a overprotective TV-like father. But I have met a lot of people who bang on about their 'daddy issues' and it makes me wonder... Did Disney form the ideal of what a father was supposed to be? And when their own fail to live up to those Fairy Tale ideals are we left angry and disapponted with them? Do we set impossible standards for our dear old Dad's?
In regards to the Prince-issue I know many girls have been left heartbroken, when the man they thought was their Prince turned out to be nothing but a toad (or rat). I mean come on, we can all relate to a Taylor Swift song. And she has said she believes in true love and Fairy Tales, and I have often heard people dismiss her attitude saying she is living in a Disney fanatsy. And maybe they are right. Maybe a lot of girls are living in this Disney fuelled fantasy waiting for a handsome man to save them from whatever they need to be saved from, and if he has a handsome stack of cash to go with the pretty face then all the better. I mean isn't that why people are mooning over Kate Middleton's story, because she is what they term the real life Fairy Tale. Even though her before life was hardly a Snow White or Cinderella situation.
Now maybe all I am saying is just my own crazy theories running rampant. It just seems in the past Disney was putting emphasis of the Father figure. Even in 'The Lion King', Simba and his dad Mufasa shared a deep bond. But his poor mother was obviously not so important that after Simba thinks he killed his dad, he runs away. And I know he was probably worried about his Mother's reaction if she knew he killed Mufasa, but he doesn't even seem to think about her well-being. And when he makes the triumphant return he cares more about being with Nala. Now for this neglectful attitude towards Simba's Mother (I can't even remember her name she was that forgettable and unimportant) I should look towards Shakespeare and not Fairy Tales. As we all get that 'The Lion King' was a loosely adaptded children's version of 'Hamlet' with lions. And thank god they made Nala a strong lioness, can you imagine if they decided to create her as an 'Ophelia' character. Now that is one lady who was rife with 'daddy issues' and pulled asunder by her toad-Prince.
To me it seems that Fairy Tales and older Disney films made the Mother characters either passive or non-existent, so this leads to no expectations from their children. Whereas the Father is built up into a fantasy leading children to find faults with their own Dad in comparison. Same thing goes with the Prince, I think that sometimes we girls forget when we day dream about love that our Prince is first and foremost a human, so there are bound to be flaws. But to be honest in my opinion all the Disney Princes always seemed too boring and perfect, well except for the Beast and Aladding but they were so obviously the stand out ones because they were unique. And every girl loves a bad boy, but that is a whole different kettle of fish.
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