The Mothers of Disney: A MamaPop Review

Sometime this week, my family and I will be hopping onto a plane and heading down to Florida for our inaugural trip to Disney World. Needless to say, it’s my expectation that the trip will be nothing short of a Princess Apocalypse. Over the entirety of their young lives, my twin daughters have been systematically indoctrinated into the ways (if not the means) of Disney Princesses… and I can only imagine that their immersion in this subculture will quickly skyrocket into cult-like proportions after they’ve spent a few days wandering through the Magic Kingdom. Please kill me now.

To prepare for the horror, the horror the magical wonders that await us, we’ve been taking a look at our absurdly expensive wonderfully comprehensive Disney DVD library — and discovering that while the Dads of Disney Princess cinema generally don’t fare too well (as I detailed on another site a couple of years ago), the Moms do considerably worse. Shall I explain? I shall, I shall.

“No more wire hangers… ever!”

• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
As the first – and, in many ways, still defining – film in the annals of Disney Princess cinema, Snow White set the standard on multiple levels. Lovely teenage girl as protagonist? Yes. Prince Charming-type who shows up and rescues her from danger and/or life as something other than a Princess? Yes. Anthropomorphic animals? Yes. And for mother figures, we get… a murderous stepmother (WARNING: DEAD DISNEY MOM ALERT!) who also happens to be A) The Queen and B) a witch. Tough combination if you’re Snow White, whose innate purity and beauty (hence the über-virginal name) apparently outshines the apparently soiled morality and graceless aging of The Queen to the degree that she feels compelled to… uh… kill her. Which, granted: a little extreme. First she sends a minion (and really, who can blame her… with a Kingdom to run, who has time to do killing themselves? Outsourcing is key.) to lure Snow White into the forest where an axe-wielding Jason Voorhees woodsman can dispatch her. And when that fails (really: SO hard to find good help these days) she whips up both a magical potion that transforms her into an unrecognizable old woman and a poisoned apple that she – pretending to be said old woman – will persuade Snow White to eat. Those are skillz, people. Murderously insane skillz, but skillz nonetheless. But as a mother figure? GRADE: FAIL.

• Pinocchio
Not even a virgin birth in this one. Pinocchio has NO mother figure whatsoever — he’s built as a wooden toy by a grandfatherly type, and then comes to life via the magic of a fairy godmother. NOTE: FAIRY GODMOTHERS/DEUS EX MACHINA TYPES DO NOT COUNT. Which probably explains why Pinocchio ends up running away from home, drinking, smoking, turning into a donkey, and ultimately getting eaten by a whale. Would a mother allow that to happen? Probably not. MOTHERING GRADE: FAIL.

• Bambi
Hmm. We don’t actually have this one on DVD. What’s the deal with Bambi’s mother? I can’t quite recall…

MOTHERING GRADE: TRAUMATIC FAIL

• Cinderella
Like Snow White, Cinderella utilizes the stepmother model. Unlike Snow White, Cinderella’s stepmother is not transparently murderous and insane. She is, instead, a far more nuanced and quietly vicious character: an unapologetic social climber who marries Cinderella’s wealthy, nobility-born father (WARNING: DEAD DISNEY MOM ALERT!) and then, after he dies, consigns her beautiful/blonde/virginal/sings-to-animals-who-make-clothes-for-her stepdaughter to a life of endless, indentured servitude, catering to her harsh whims as well as those of her horrifying offspring. The film is calculated in its cruelty, as it details scenario after scenario in which the impossibly good-natured Cinderella is systematically mistreated, physically abused (see: what happens to Cinderella’s first dress) and ultimately forced to watch helplessly as her wicked stepmother and stepsisters dangle the dream of a better life before her… and then smash it into a million pieces before her. Does good ultimately win out over evil here? Yep, thanks to Fairy Godmother/Deus Ex Machina intervention. But man: evil sure does make good’s life suck for a helluva long time before that happens. MOTHERING GRADE: FAIL

• Alice in Wonderland
With an absent mother and a chastising older sister, Alice retreats from the world and into a hallucinogenic fugue state where everything looks like a Tom Petty video and the only real maternal figure is the murderously insane Queen of Hearts. From a parenting standpoint, this basically qualifies the film as Snow White 2: Electric Bugaloo. MOTHERING GRADE: ‘SHROOM FAIL

• Peter Pan
Wait… the mother’s alive in this one? And she’s nice? Not sure how this somehow slipped through the cracks, but them’s the facts: before the three kids leap out the window to join Peter Pan in Neverneverland for all kinds of whacked-out adventures, we get a few minutes to see them in their comfortable London home — where an adoring mother and a brusque-but-also-loving father (who is later demonized by having his voice become the voice of Captain Hook) are doing their best to give them a safe, wonderful childhood. Lots to snark about in this film, but mother figures? Not an issue. MOTHERING GRADE: PASS

“What do you mean, you don’t have any hors d’oeuvres left?”

• Sleeping Beauty
Aaaaaaaand justlikethat, it’s back to business as usual at Disney studios. The mother is alive in this one, but she’s basically useless — she gives birth and immediately fucks up the invites to her Sip-And-See (y’like the way I did that?), thereby pissing off mother figure #2 Maleficent (Witch, Bitch, All-Around Unpleasant Neighbor) and causing her daughter to be cursed with inevitable death and/or death-like slumber… which she deals with by outsourcing all mothering duties to three nannies (magical Fairy nannies, but nannies nonetheless) for the next 16 years at an offsite location. I guess that’s more or less the medieval version of sending your kid to boarding school. Eventually, Maleficent finds virginal Princess Aurora, does the killing/eternal sleep thing, and then we go through that whole Prince Charming/Dragons/fight-to-the-death-then-a-magic-kiss-thing before everyone is finally reunited and lives happily ever after. But really: craptastic mom in this one. MOTHERING GRADE: FAIL

• One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Peter Pan only has a few minutes in which the parents appear – which means that the dog movie is, by definition, the greatest exception to the rule of awful parenting in Disney films. The movie offers not one but two (2) fantastic mother figures in human Anita and dalmatian Perdita, both of whom are unerringly kind, present and attentive, fearless in the protection of their offspring (whether same-species or otherwise) and relentless in their dedication to the well-being of their family. This movie has by far the best parental figures – of either sex – you’ll find in any Disney movie, and (for my money) it’s the single greatest film Disney ever made. MOTHERING GRADE: TWO HUGE PASSES

• The Jungle Book
Somewhere deep in the rain forests of the Indian subcontinent, an abandoned infant ((WARNING: DEAD DISNEY MOM ALERT!) is taken in and raised by wolves (not that there’s anything wrong with that) (and yes, the wolf mom is kind but she’s only in the movie for about a minute) before a panther and a bear try to return him to the world of man. Other animals try to eat him. Repeatedly. At no point is a mother figure present – either in person or in inspirational memory – as ALL of the helpful animals are male. Really, it appears that with The Jungle Book Disney decided that Disney-for-boys means Disney-with-no-women-whatsoever. MOTHERING GRADE: FAIL

• The Aristocats
A minor and deeply forgettable Disney film that basically comes off as a “let’s remake One Hundred and One Dalmatians, but use cats this time” waste of your time. Is there a mother? Yeah, Dutchess the cat mom. Doe she die? No. Is she awful? No. Can I remember a single thing about her? No. Meh. MOTHERING GRADE: LUKEWARM PASS.

Tentacles and testicles: not actually the same thing

• Robin Hood
No mother figure, but really… it’s not really about kids in the way that most Disney movies are about kids. MOTHERING GRADE: N/A

• The Little Mermaid
I’m skipping ahead a few movies here, but let’s be honest: with the exception of a handful of cauldron-loving die-hards, I think most people would agree that the long stretch between The Jungle Book in ’67 and The Little Mermaid in ’89 represents an extended remix of suck for Disney animated films. That said, Disney came back (at least commercially) in a big way with The Little Mermaid — and for our purposes, it represents a true return to form as it contains a virginal teenage girl who reacts to her lack of an actual mother (WARNING: DEAD DISNEY MOM ALERT!) by gravitating toward an alternate maternal figure/sea witch/vaguely vaginal octopus who oozes sex while promising her love and happiness… but delivers, instead, danger, heartbreak, and multiple attempts to kill her father and fuck her boyfriend before being fatally pierced via not-at-all-deafeningly-Freudian-overtones by the prow of a ship. The end. MOTHERING GRADE: FAIL

• Beauty and the Beast
Virginal teenage girl? Check. Loving but ineffectual father? Check. Big hairy threatening male presence that wants to… um… oh, right: read books by candlelight and ballroom dance with her? Check. ::rolls eyes:: DEAD DISNEY MOM AND NO OTHER FEMALE FIGURES? Check. Ah, Disney. How you continue to delight and surprise us. MOTHERING GRADE: FAIL

• Aladdin
Same as above, only with a slightly less hairy male lead. MOTHERING GRADE: FAIL

• The Lion King
A bit of a change-up, as it features a live mother (Simba’s mom, whose name I can’t remember and/or be bothered to look up) who loves her husband and child… but who, after the death of her husband and the disappearance of her son, decides to MARRY HER BROTHER-IN-LAW EVEN THOUGH HIS NAME IS SCAR AND HE KILLED SUNNY VON BULOW. I realize that back even as recently as the 1800s stuff like marrying one sibling after the other went belly-up wasn’t terribly uncommon, but from a current day vantage point? That’s creepy as hell. Let’s put it this way: I don’t have a brother, but if I did and I was trampled to death by wildebeests and my kids disappeared and my wife reacted by hooking up with my brother and going on with business as usual? Not a fucking doubt in my mind that I’d come back and haunt them both. Not in “Mufasa appearing in the stars” fashion, either. We’re talking full-Poltergeist here. MOTHERING GRADE: RELUCTANT BUT KIND OF CREEPED-OUT PASS

Reminder: please kill me before my daughters begin to date.

• Pocahontas
Let’s put it this way: if Pocahontas didn’t have the de rigeur DEAD DISNEY MOM, what do you think the odds are that she would ditch her family, her culture and the super-hot-with-6-pack-abs-dude-who-loves-her in favor of Mel Fucking Gibson? None. This movie sucks. MOTHERING GRADE: FAIL

“Squeakity squeak squeak squeaker.”

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove
Male protagonists. No mother figures. No application here. MOTHERING GRADE: GROUP FAIL

• Lilo & Stitch
For my money, this is by far one of the most interesting animated films Disney ever made — and one that deserves far more attention that it gets these days. Yeah, it’s got the DEAD DISNEY MOM, but it also has one of the most conflicted and fascinating surrogate moms in the Disney canon in the person of Lilo’s older sister Nani, who struggles to keep what’s left of her family intact in the midst of emotional and financial stresses that would cripple most people. Lilo and Nani are sisters, and they fight all the time and drive each other crazy… but when push comes to shove, Nani steps up as a surrogate mother in as big and as big-hearted a fashion as any real mother in the Disney canon. MOTHERING GRADE: STRONG PASS

• The Princess and the Frog
Another departure from the Disney Princess norm, on multiple levels. That’s a good thing. And while the result may not be quite as powerful or memorable or girl-empowering as Mulan… The Princess and the Frog does have a living, loving Disney mom who supports and encourages her daughter to work hard to build the life she wants — but also to make time for a life beyond that work. For my girls? With two working parents? That’s a pertinent and important lesson to absorb. MOTHERING GRADE: PASS

• Tangled
In many ways a return to the standards of Disney Princess-dom, although apparently they didn’t feel compelled to kill the mom off this time. And while the surrogate mother who raises Rapunzel is, for all intents and purposes, a wicked stepmother on a par with Cinderella‘s standard-bearer, the film also makes clear from the beginning that there is a real mother out there who mourns for her long-lost daughter and dreams of nothing more than her return — which makes the happily-ever-after finale that much more gratifying and emotionally resonant. MOTHERING GRADE: PASS

• • •

Yeah, I know I skipped a couple of movies, but those are the ones I haven’t seen and let’s face it: this post is already waaaaay too long.

So: what are your thoughts on Disney’s portrayal of mothers? MamaPop wants to know.