Fairy Tales Don't Have Happy Endings
I'm a Disney fan. Huge. I mean, I live in New Hampshire and have an annual pass. That should tell you something. Growing up, my kids went to every movie within a week of it being released. We bought clothes. We went to the Broadway shows.
What we never did was go back and look at the real version of the tales Disney adapted. You see, most of them didn't have the same ending depicted in the Disney films. The Little Mermaid dies, Pinocchio kills Jiminy Cricket but does eventually redeem himself, Sleeping Beauty is raped by the King while she is sleeping and gives birth to twins. In Shakespeare's version of The Lion King (a.k.a. Hamlet) everyone dies.
You get the picture.
Maybe we should have talked about it more. Maybe it doesn't matter.
What brought this up was a post in a Facebook group of Disney fans. The post was a link to a photographer's work trying to draw attention to certain contemporary issues by depicting Disney Princesses affected by them. The Sleeping Beauty one actually tied in very well to the original story. I thought Tiana as a victim of police brutality was good since I thought the film subtly addressed racism, but most people fail to see it.
There was a "trigger warning" on the post and I'll say the same thing to anyone who follows the link at the end of this post. Some of the things could be tough to see. No one had to go see the pictures.
Yet people objected to it being in the group. Some even objected to the project existing at all.
I agree that awareness is needed, but like others, I don't feel it belongs here. Disney is a happy place for many, some of whom have faced one or more of these realities, and who belong to this type of group to escape the horrific memories for a while.
Raising hand here. That's me. And I looked at all the pictures, even the last one that had to be clicked on that will give me nightmares, because ... yeah.
I don't escape my memories at Disney or through anything Disney. We made so many memories at Disney when my children were growing up. There's memories of my daughter all over the place there. Sometimes it's so hard to be there - a memory will creep up and I'll feel the tears form in my eyes.
And like I said, you don't have to look if you don't want to. So your opinion is misguided.
I don't understand why something that has managed to remain pure in the eyes of little kids has to be morphed into this. There is definitely a place to explain these issues, but this isn't it.
If you let your "little kids" surf the internet without parental guidance, you have bigger problems than them coming across this post. In fact, of all the things they could come across, this is probably the most innocuous.
The person who posted the link had cleared it with the Admins. Even with my close ties to at least two of the depictions, I have no objection to it. It's art. Not everyone will like it. I actually think it's quite well done. I also think it's good for the children who grew up on these movies to see it. Perhaps thinking about Beauty and the Beast ending in abuse will make a girl think twice about "making him love me so much he changes" which doesn't happen.
You can't sanitize the world to fit your view or even what you think should be viewed. I think most Adam Sandler movies are crap - that doesn't mean they shouldn't be made because that's my opinion. If you want your Disney "pure", simply don't look. But to call on the post to be deleted or that the photographer shouldn't have created the project simply because of your objection to it is quite narcissistic.
I do recommend you view this with caution, but I think it's a brilliant piece of art.
https://www.shannondermodyphotography.com/pagepp/
What we never did was go back and look at the real version of the tales Disney adapted. You see, most of them didn't have the same ending depicted in the Disney films. The Little Mermaid dies, Pinocchio kills Jiminy Cricket but does eventually redeem himself, Sleeping Beauty is raped by the King while she is sleeping and gives birth to twins. In Shakespeare's version of The Lion King (a.k.a. Hamlet) everyone dies.
You get the picture.
Maybe we should have talked about it more. Maybe it doesn't matter.
What brought this up was a post in a Facebook group of Disney fans. The post was a link to a photographer's work trying to draw attention to certain contemporary issues by depicting Disney Princesses affected by them. The Sleeping Beauty one actually tied in very well to the original story. I thought Tiana as a victim of police brutality was good since I thought the film subtly addressed racism, but most people fail to see it.
There was a "trigger warning" on the post and I'll say the same thing to anyone who follows the link at the end of this post. Some of the things could be tough to see. No one had to go see the pictures.
Yet people objected to it being in the group. Some even objected to the project existing at all.
I agree that awareness is needed, but like others, I don't feel it belongs here. Disney is a happy place for many, some of whom have faced one or more of these realities, and who belong to this type of group to escape the horrific memories for a while.
Raising hand here. That's me. And I looked at all the pictures, even the last one that had to be clicked on that will give me nightmares, because ... yeah.
I don't escape my memories at Disney or through anything Disney. We made so many memories at Disney when my children were growing up. There's memories of my daughter all over the place there. Sometimes it's so hard to be there - a memory will creep up and I'll feel the tears form in my eyes.
And like I said, you don't have to look if you don't want to. So your opinion is misguided.
I don't understand why something that has managed to remain pure in the eyes of little kids has to be morphed into this. There is definitely a place to explain these issues, but this isn't it.
If you let your "little kids" surf the internet without parental guidance, you have bigger problems than them coming across this post. In fact, of all the things they could come across, this is probably the most innocuous.
The person who posted the link had cleared it with the Admins. Even with my close ties to at least two of the depictions, I have no objection to it. It's art. Not everyone will like it. I actually think it's quite well done. I also think it's good for the children who grew up on these movies to see it. Perhaps thinking about Beauty and the Beast ending in abuse will make a girl think twice about "making him love me so much he changes" which doesn't happen.
You can't sanitize the world to fit your view or even what you think should be viewed. I think most Adam Sandler movies are crap - that doesn't mean they shouldn't be made because that's my opinion. If you want your Disney "pure", simply don't look. But to call on the post to be deleted or that the photographer shouldn't have created the project simply because of your objection to it is quite narcissistic.
I do recommend you view this with caution, but I think it's a brilliant piece of art.
https://www.shannondermodyphotography.com/pagepp/
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