I remember the good old days. Men were men and unfortunately women were also men. But I digress. What I’m talking about are the days of Disney princesses. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those weirdos who wears “I’m a princess” pink t-shirts from the Disney Store nor have I ever had a poster of Belle, or Jasmin, or that anorexic chic from “Hercules” on my wall (but I’m pretty sure my husband has). But what’s happened to the fairy tales and magic Disney once produced? Now all we see are, entertaining all be them, computer generated stories with plots that zip along a mile a minute and characters who are sassy and, lets face it, usually ethnically pigeon-holed and a bit annoying.

Long Time Passing

I remember being six and going to see “The Little Mermaid”. Now, all jokes aside, that movie had it all for a young dreamer like myself. Romance, action, gadgets and gizmos a plenty, whosits and whatsits galore, and most of all, a heroine who I could, in some small way, relate to (it was the fins I think…). Then it was “Beauty and the Beast”. That movie was magic from head to foot. It was what everyone needed; an escape to provincial France and a great evil villain. Belle was every girl’s role model; sweet, a good singer, and a 14 inch waist. We all wanted to be her. Disney came out with a few more wonderfully crafted princess movies. The mid to late nineties saw “Aladdin”, “Pocahontas”, and my personal favorite “Hercules”. But then…an abyss. With the arrival of “Toy Story”, a great little flick, Disney started its shift into the world of computer animation and with that came the death of the fairy tale. Even its latest “princess” movie is a parody of older, better films.

And In the End

My point. I remember the first time I realized that I no longer had the youthful imagination to sustain a “Barbie” session with my playmates (bare with me, I’m getting to the point). I launched “Barbie” off a wooden board into my swimming pool and then ran her over with her own plastic speed boat a la James Bond. True story. That was the end of my childhood. I’d like to argue that with the genesis of Disney’s computer animated cartoons, it also lost a chunk of it’s childhood and moved into a new era of slightly magic-less, plastic peopled movie making. Don’t get me wrong. I like what they’ve done recently, for the most part. But I would like a nice, old fairy tale here and there to remind me that I can still sing all my problems away as long as I have a chorus of forest animals to back me up.

Ps

I’ve wondered for a long time why Disney has stopped making movies out of fairy tales. One reason I’ve come up with is that kids today just won’t take it. They want quick moving, disjointed plots with lots of action and no sentimentality. Not to say that this generation hasn’t cut its teeth on classic Disney movies. But the new stuff the Mouse Ears churn out seems to speak to a group that won’t stay around long enough to see a prince serenade his love from the bottom of tower. Or a sassy genie teaching them that being from a lower class economic status is bad. Ah…the good old days.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.