I am a Rat
...big nasty motherfucker with balls THIS BIG!
Watched The Secret of NIMH with Dee today. I was afraid it might be a bit scary for her, but it wasn't as bad as I remembered and she seemed to enjoy it.
If you're not familiar with the story, it basically revolves around a mouse who's husband has recently died who must enlist the help of some genetically modified escaped lab rats who can read, work with electricity, plumbing and even magic to move her house and save her sick son before the farmer's tractor plows the whole thing under.
I had also been unaware that Wil Wheaton voiced one of the mice (the bratty one).
Now... about that mouse's husband...
Don Bluth and his crew made this movie right after they escaped left Disney to start their own enterprise. In fact I think it was this movie that prompted that move because Disney thought it was too dark to make any money.
But have you noticed this theme among Disney films? It sure seems that a lot of them seem to start with the death of a parent or at least imply the death of a parent. Let's see...
- Snow White (1937) - Wicked step mother - implies the death of her natural mother
- Bambi (1942) - Bambi's mother shot by a hunter
- Cinderella (1950) - Wicked step mother - again implies the death of her natural mother
- Treasure Island (1950) - Haven't seen this in a while but the general concensus among some of my friends whom I polled by IM is that Jim was an orphan
- Pollyanna (1960) - Both parents (missionaries) dead
- The Sword in the Stone (1963) - Arthur's an orphan
- The Jungle Book (1967) - Mowgli's parents died in a bizarre canoeing accident (there was probably alcohol involved)
- The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) - The kids were orphans
- Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) - [SPOILER] IIRC these kids start out as orphans but find their parents at the end of the film. (so this one probably doesn't really count)
- Pete's Dragon (1977) - Pete's an orphan on the run from abusive adoptive parents.
- The Rescuers (1977) - The kidnapped girl is an orphan.
- The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) - Kid's parents still dead.
- The Lion King (1994) - Simba's dad gets trampled to death by stampeeding... what were those things anyway? Wildebeasts?
- Tarzan (1999) - Tarzan's parents die in a treehouse.
- Dinosaur (2000) - We even have an orphaned dinosaur.
- Finding Nemo (2003) - Nemo's mom and about a thousand siblings die in the first five minutes.
There's probably more that I'm missing or can't find info on right now. Granted this is a very small portion of the films Disney has made over the years but I also didn't count a lot of the movies where the kids have a single parent and no mention is made of what happened to the other parent. Additionally, a lot of the stories for these films is not original Disney material either and "orphaned" by no means that the parents are actually dead.
Anyway, just thought I'd share. If you know of any I'm specifically missing, please let me know.
posted by Rick at 1:56 PM
1 Comments:
Particularly in the case of Bambi and Lion King the parent dies so that the child can take it's rightful place and grow as an adult. Simba can not be the lion king if his dad is alive. And Bambi won't grow to be a big strong buck with mom always around.
With the fairy tales it's a little more complicated, but basically in order to be able to safely express negative feelings about a parental unit the story teller uses a step-mother rather than a biological mother. Notice in Cinderella the woman is good to her own children.
Also, having a mean step-mom usually drives the child away thus leading to thier independence, growth as an individual and recognitions of their strengths, much like the dead parent does in the other stories.
(Sorry, I was an English major in school and fairy tales was my favorite assignment in one of my Lit classes. The evil stepmother and food was the topic of my paper.)
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