Even though I’m continuing my boycott of all Disney creations, I’ve had a couple of friends that have seen it. Some comments from them have been favorable and some not so …

From what I gather, the plot to Hercules is that Zeus and Hera have a son that is born mortal and unless he drinks a magic potion, he doesn’t get to be immortal. Hades wants to overthrow Zeus and takes the potion away, so that Zeus won’t have a superhero … the story continues in this sort of fashion and you can pretty much guess the rest.

Let me quickly tell you the real story of Hercules (or Heracles depending on whether you are Roman or Greek) and you’ll see why Disney felt it needed to sanitize this bad story.

Zeus has an illicit love affair (read rape) and this mortal woman had a son. All of Zeus’ sons were not completely mortal or average men, and this son was no exception as he had superhuman strength and killed two snakes that Hera sent to attack the baby.

Well, we certainly can’t have a God making it with a Woman as that is Adultery (No, don’t you dare make any comparisons with Jesus … however, this is crucial to the spiritual message of story. Each Son of God is born mortal and has to earn his mortality by his growth. This spiritual progression is represented by killing beasts (that symbolically represent some character attribute in the characters shadow). If you sanitize the story, your remove the heart of the story, and now it isn’t myth.

In bringing this up with a few people, I always get the same reaction… basically, no one cares. Let me bring up a parallel …

The Celtic cultures had a number of stories about heroes who also went on spiritual journeys in true mythical fashion. However, in an effort to “sanitize” these pagan stories, monks rewrote these stories with a Christian influence, placed them all under the heading of a Romano-Brit named Arthur… the Arthurian “Grail” Legends.

While these new stories are good stories (and actually kept the mystical aspects of Christianity alive), if you want to get back to the original story, you can’t. The monks and the Church were so effective with their replacement, an original version doesn’t exist.

Many scholars have since been speculatively interpolating backward in an effort to restore the stories. But this has limited results as it generally amounts to realizing that this symbol was replaced by this new Christian symbol. As helpful as these effects are, a simple replacement like this doesn’t always complete the story.

I know what you are thinking, Disney doesn’t have that kind of power… However, ask anyone the story of Allah’din, and see if they tell you the original story or Disney’s story. No one realizes that Disney didn’t keep any part of the original. What person today will read the great book entitled, The Cathedral of Notre Dame? Why read it when we have a sanitized version that won’t make us think?

What I would rather have is Disney calling it’s new movie, “Philodor, Hero of the Greeks” and have their story. This way we can have two stories …

To prove my point, think of the symbol replacement in the Grail legends: The Goddess’ Cauldron of Resurrection (symbolic of the Earth’s regenerative womb… complete with menstrual blood) was replaced by the Chalice that held Christ’s blood… the Holy Grail. (This is not to be confused with the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Wouldn’t it be nice to have both stories instead of just one?

In June of 2003, I received the following comment from Mary:

Can we lighten up on Disney a little? The point is, they entertain millions, and they do not intend to offend anyone. Should we slam Bugs Bunny next, for the not-so “politically correct” things that were done in so many of his cartoons? Or maybe we should go as far back as the original fairy tales that spawned the Disney movies, and ponder why the “good” princesses were always beautiful, and the “bad” witches and stepmothers were always ugly…My opinion? People waste too much time trying to be PC. As good old Abe Lincoln said, you CAN’T please all of the people all of the time. It will never happen. So why not just enjoy the simple things that were meant to be enjoyed rather than picking them apart looking for hidden motives??? And to address your other gripe with Disney, if you’re looking for a story invested with historical truth, why not watch a documentary? Disney movies are supposed to be FUN.

This “thought” was written years ago … prior to the arrival of my children, and I’ve been wondering if I will recant on some of my harsh criticism of Disney.

This evening, Disney decided to play up a few hours of advertisement for its new sequel by playing the original Peter Pan. Now I was very young when I first saw this film, and now that I’m older, I was appalled (but not surprised) by the incredibly demeaning song, What Makes the Red Man, Red.

I wanted to verify this by getting the full lyrics online. Instead of finding the lyrics, I found someone else who is quite critical of Disney (see section IX. There May be One True Romance but there is No True History).

However, his criticism is slightly different than mine. He believes that Disney doesn’t go far enough to update their films. For instance, he brings up the following observation of The Lion King:

How come all the so-called good animals have light colored skin and most of the dark-colored animals are evil?

Good call. We would expect racism in the “un-politically-correct” era when Peter Pan was made, but not The Lion King.

I grin whenever I think about Disney executives laughing at any criticism knowing that since they can’t please everyone, they will instead please the ones that continue to pay them lots of money for their product. And I guess that is really the truth of doing “any good” today … if it doesn’t cost or save someone money, it just won’t get done.

In August of 2006, I received the following comment from Jessica:

I found this actually on a search for the lyrics to “What Makes the Red Man Red,” because I had heard about the controversy while reading about Peter Pan today (I was also surprised to find that I can’t find the full lyrics at all so far).

I’ve noticed that a lot of people, especially those very into historical fact, etc, have a problem with Disney movies. While I can definitley understand the disappointment in someone taking stories and changing them into something different, it also happens in movies all the time. Whenever you see the “Based on a True Story” in the beginning of a film, you can pretty much count on it to be very far from the original, if you look into the actual story. While this may not be true in all cases, it’s pretty well known that Hollywood and movie-makers in general have the habit of beefing up stories a bit more than they should.

But I have also discovered something different about Disney movies and their stories. To me, the kids see the movie when they are young. If they like the movie enough, they get older, get interested in it, and look up the real story. Children learn about the real story of Pocahontas in school, and find out the less-than-glamorous turn out for her, so it isn’t as if most of them go on in life with complete misconceptions about the story. I became interested in Greek mythology after Hercules, and was hardly insulted or phased by the incredible changes from the real story to the child-friendly one.

For the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney made Frollo much more evil than he is in the book. Being that it was a movie directed at children and families with children mostly, I think that because kids don’t often take the time to think deeply into movies or their villains, they wanted to make him a more clear-cut villain, so they can really define “This is the bad guy.” However, I also have a friend who loves the Disney movie and has gotten into the actual tragic story, and has simply accepted that they are different and both entertaining in their own ways.

I do also have to agree with Mary as well on a lot of her points. Looney Tunes was incredibly politically incorrect, not to mention violent, but people don‘t seem to get very riled up about it. Disney is made to entertain, and spark interest and magic in people and imagination. That is really what it is all about— imagination.

For the political incorrectness in Disney’s Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie in his book (which has also been argued over as far as the political correctness goes) made the Indian’s the same way Disney did, only without an accompanying song. However, people need to keep in mind that Neverland is what someone makes it. Also in the book, Barrie says something along the lines of: In John’s Neverland, there was a beautiful lagoon over which flew flamingoes, while in Michael’s Neverland was a flamingo over which flew beautiful lagoons.

The Neverland in Barrie’s and therefore Disney’s film is the Neverland of a child. A child who knows no better and thinks of Native Americans as Red Skins is going to have them that way in their Neverland. Neverland is not meant to portray Pirates or Indians or anything as they are or were in real life, but as they are in the imagination of someone else.

It definitely also seems to me that people do spend too much time concentrating on the political correctness of things. Why can’t people just enjoy something for what it is? It isn’t like the companies sit there in meetings and decide, “Okay, so we are going to insult black people here, and how about an Arab or two? Sound good? Great! Let‘s get to work!” All the fuss about political correctness doesn’t seem to help anything. In fact, it makes me much more parnoid, thinking that if I slip up in the slightest way around someone with darker skin or something, I will get accused of being racist. It doesn’t promote friendliness but instead makes people grow farther apart and be more nervous around each other.

I just realized how old the entry is compared to this comment, and I apologize for the lengthiness. Sorry, and thanks.

Thank you so very much for your comments. Yes, it is true I wrote that blurb many, many years ago in a far more critical attitude. Hearing that you actually became interested in mythology due to watching Disney’s movie relieves my primary concern.

Disney’s motivation, like most other Hollywood movie makers, is actually to make money. Entertaining people just motivates us to give them money. And this is capitalism and all fine and good. We can’t fault Disney for being prejudice, racist or whatever when that is the cultural norm. However, once the cultural norm has “progressed” and Disney is slow to catch up, then prodding is in order. And like Mattel’s redesign of the Barbie doll, Disney has been upgrading its offering.

Of course Disney gets a bad wrap primarily because it influences children, and we want the movie to match the level of the child. When someone gave us “Finding Nemo”, it nearly gave my 3 year old heart attack during the scary parts. However, now that she’s 5, the Bruce-bit is a part she finds funny … but we now have to fast forward it for her 3 year old brother. But this is the job of parent’s to pre-screen and pay attention to such overt things.

However, I’m really glad to see that Disney has been paying attention to all the complainers, as the heroines have gotten more color and more of a backbone. Now that I have kids (and my siblings constantly donate their old Disney flicks to us), I’ve had a chance to see more of them. Milan was quite the improvement… as was “Lilo and Stitch” and “Brother Bear”.

But it did concern me when my daughter, at the ripe old age of 3, would finish telling the endings of stories that she hadn’t heard with the phrase, “and they got married and lived happily ever after”. It was at that point that I tried to balance things out with stories that have alternative endings. BTW: I’m still waiting for the cartoon-adaptation of the Paper bag Princess.

Concerning Looney Tunes, I agree as well. Of course, my memory of my childhood is foggy and rose-colored, and so I was excited to show a collection of Bugs Bunny cartoons when my sister gave us a DVD. I then had to answer things like “why did he hit him?” and “why doesn’t the gun kill him?” I suppose the reason why Warner Brothers doesn’t get attacked is that they aren’t making those movies anymore. They’ve been producing quite bland movies ever since Animaniacs went off the air. Guess maybe I should see if I could get a copy of those to see if their appropriate for children.

Thanks again for taking the time to write, it makes me feel a lot better about such things.