What happened to Disney movies?

♫How high does the Sycamore grow? If you cut it down, you’ll never know♪

Ah, Disney songs. There are few things in life that give me as great pleasure as blasting them from my laptop and singing along, or move me as much, bringing back so many memories. I know, I know, am I so obsessed with Disney that I would be a Disney princess for Halloween then speak about it again in this post?

Well, yes… I won’t deny that I do love Disney. For all of its big corporation characteristics, its unrealistic and unattainable childhood dreams so deeply inculcated within us since our births, its stereotypical and standardized representations of different people, its formulaic story lines, I love Disney. That is to say, the old Disney. The old Disney where we cheered on the mice as they sewed ribbon onto Cinderella’s pink ball gown; where we urged Prince Eric to kiss Ariel then cringed with their boat got turned over; where we became fearful as Jafar gained power and made everything his in the kingdom. Where we learned life lessons of looking beyond appearances in Beauty and the Beast, to ignore social class distinctions in Aladdin, to keep fighting for love in Hercules, to keep an open mind about others in Pocahontas. Where we learned how to be strong even as a woman from Mulan, to pray and care for others in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, to be a leader and take responsibility in The Lion King. These are the morals taught by such movies.

What are Disney movies like nowadays? They’re filled with fodder for teenyboppers, featuring favorite artists like Hannah Montana and talking about everyday life and everyday things sometimes not befit for children. There are little clear moral values and lessons, there are no inspirational and scene-fitting songs. There lacks the sweet simplicity of childhood movies and in its stead is a complicated plot involving love triangles, dating mishaps and disobedient children. It just isn’t the same.

I’m afraid for the future generations. Those children who won’t know who Aladdin is or what Mulan did for her family. Those who don’t grow up having learned the tragedies that sometime overtake a family, like in The Lion King, or those who don’t understand the importance of painting with the colors of the wind (of course, highly metaphorical). Kids don’t seem to learn from the media anymore. When they do learn, it’s about boys and makeup and dating; it’s about how to skip class or make peanut butter sandwiches. It’s not about the broader life-integral lessons anymore, it’s about the normal day-to-day things.

While, yes, many academics have made the case for culture being the ordinary, perhaps the media industry takes that too far in this day and age, using this as an excuse to just produce the same formulaic, unstimulating fodder for an audience who no longer uses its ability to critically think or function. Where, because what is portrayed on the screen are the everyday images we are used to, we stop analyzing or critiquing them in an edifying manner. We don’t really learn anything. At least these Disney movies, as removed from reality as they were, still managed to teach us core values still inherent and relevant in society today, and which we carry within our hearts to this day.

It makes me sad to know that these movies ended with my generation. I think we were at the peak of the cycle of awesome Disney films and of course, as the crest has ended, so has the trough come. Maybe I’m being nostalgic, but I’m also speaking the truth. Greater inspiration will seldom be found than from great old Disney movies.

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Gabby Park likes to wear maroon tights and go swinging in the playground.