DVDizzy Forum

Has this been brought up before? For whatever reason, I happened to think about it today. I notice it's a pattern. Either a family member, parent or such, is missing or gone when the movie starts, or dies during the course of the movie. I just find it curious, kind of interesting to contemplate, as to why, and who. It's almost tradition for the films. lol. For instance...

Brother Bear - Koda loses his mother; Kenai his brother
Treasure Planet - Jim's father isn't there, if I recall
Lilo & Stitch - Lilo lost her mother and father
Tarzan - he was raised by apes
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - no family that I recall
Pocahontas - remember her dad, but did she have a mother?
The Lion King - Simba's dad is murdered
Aladdin - he was an orphan, no family
Beauty and the Beast - she had no mother
The Rescuers Down Under - Cody's father had died
The Little Mermaid - Ariel had no mother
Oliver & Company - Oliver was an orphan
The Great Mouse Detective - Olivia's parents weren't there
The Fox and the Hound - Todd's mother was shot
The Rescuers - Penny has no parents, is an orphan
The Aristocats - There's no father, but Thomas O'Malley (sp?) comes in
Dumbo - no father
Bambi - his mother is shot
Pinocchio - no family, but Gepetto (sp?)
Snow White - I'm guessing she had lost her family

Anyway, that's not all of the animated classics, of course, but...anyway, I wonder if the stories just...happen this way. Or if it's intentional? So the characters can have something big to overcome, or change them, or...and the death/absence works for the films, and I love the films. But it would kind of be nice to see at least ONE film where the character had a complete, intact family. lol. Mulan did, didn't she? I can't remember. Oh, and 101 Dalmatians did. That's the clearest example. No loss of family members in that one. In fact, an over-abundance of family!

I am not sure it is fair to include Pinocchio in that list.

Yeah.

Since he wasn't actually a kid to begin with. But he became a real boy in the end, though!

He's a special case, let's say.

Disney's idea is to remove all family-figures that could potentially help the situation. It's supposed to make the hero rely on their own strengths to see themselves through.

It's completely unrealistic though: no matter what is happening in your life, there will always be someone who can help you besides, well, YOU!

You know what. I have heard this sometime before on this forum. I think that all of those Disneys were perfect. And it makes no matter that the familys were missing in these classic Disney's.

Disney relies on fairy tale structures. Many fairy tales present children as orphans or place their family in jeopardy as a way of illiciting interest and sympathy from an audience of children.

Also:

Cinderella - No Parents
Peter Pan - No parents
Sword in the Stone - No mother
Jungle Book - No Parents

Sword and the Stone Rocks wrote:Also:
Sword in the Stone - No mother

Wasn't Arthur adopted? I think he didn't really have a father either.

Sword and the Stone Rocks wrote:Also:

Cinderella - No Parents
Peter Pan - No parents
Sword in the Stone - No mother
Jungle Book - No Parents

Cinderella as i recalled had a father but died and the stepmother. Jungle Book I don't remeber what happened to his parents.

jambo*rafiki wrote:That's the funniest thing; just the other day my friends and I were trying to come up with examples of Disney classics containing full, intact families for their main characters. We came up with 3:
Hercules
Mulan
Lion King II
I didn't think of 101 Dalmatians. That was a good 'spot'. Oh my god, that's the corniest joke I've ever made in a forum . . .

Yeah, it's funny - people have made a lot about Lilo and Stitch being this great step ahead for Disney, showing a disfunctional family. When you put it that way, I guess all of them were "little and broken"!

However, I guess the difference was that Lilo and Stitch showed a disfunctional family that wasn't going to live "happily ever after" once a prince came along, but rather would remain disfunctional. Lilo and Stitch goes one step further and says "Hey, that's all cool too - it's broken but it still works".

jambo*rafiki wrote:That's the funniest thing; just the other day my friends and I were trying to come up with examples of Disney classics containing full, intact families for their main characters. We came up with 3:
Hercules
Mulan
Lion King II
I didn't think of 101 Dalmatians. That was a good 'spot'. Oh my god, that's the corniest joke I've ever made in a forum . . .

"Sleeping Beauty"... Aurora is the only Disney princess to have a father AND a mother!

Oh, and during the production of "Pocahontas", they were thinking of giving her a mother, but discarded it because, in real life, Powhatan must have had many daughters with different wives. So, they turned Pokey's mother into a spirit.

A few months ago, one of my friends IMd me and another of my friends, and asked us this trivia question:

Only 3 Disney animated movies feature both a mother and father present that both live throughout the entire movie. (Hint: One of the movies have 2 sets of living mothers and fathers).

After a bit of brain-racking, we found that 4 qualify. Joe got the one that wasn't included in the official answer (Sleeping Beauty). Care to guess the other 3?

-Aaron

awallaceunc wrote:A few months ago, one of my friends IMd me and another of my friends, and asked us this trivia question:

Only 3 Disney animated movies feature both a mother and father present that both live throughout the entire movie. (Hint: One of the movies have 2 sets of living mothers and fathers).

After a bit of brain-racking, we found that 4 qualify. Joe got the one that wasn't included in the official answer (Sleeping Beauty). Care to guess the other 3?

-Aaron

Hercules
Peter Pan
Mulan

This is just going by the "official answer" that came with the question. Peter Pan was one of the three, the others were not. I can't remember it now, but there was an explanation for why Mulan & Hercules didn't qualify. I haven't seen them more than once, or recently enough to remember.

-Aaron