Why I encourage my son to avoid Disney

 I know, it sounds drastic. Don’t worry, I'm not going to launch into a ridiculous diatribe about how Frozen has a hidden gay agenda or is turning girls in to glittery, sparkly princesses who need a prince to save them, or that Miley Cyrus grew up and dared to climb out of her Hannah Montana box.

 To most people my age, it seems, this is a completely unreasonable stance. Everyone pities Tristian, whose crazy, crazy mother doesn’t want him to watch Disney movies. I have yet to find anyone who responds with “oh, thank god, my kid isn’t allowed to watch them, either.” (I have hope, though—surely someone else is bothered by this, right?)

 In the interest of being a pretty laid back mom, I have tried to adopt a more moderate view of the world and it’s evils. With my son, I am trying a more balanced approach, believing that he should not be sheltered constantly from American culture, or taught to fear and judge or overreact to everything he will see. 

 There are a lot of problematic movies and shows out there, I’m sure that Tristian will see his fair share of those. But what is it about Disney movies, specifically, that I find so offensive?

 When I was little, it was made clear to me–as I’m sure it was made clear to many others–that my primary job in life was to grow up and go to college so that I could get a nice, smart boy to marry me. No one ever said that, of course, but it was clear that that’s what people, girls, did, and once they did that, their lives would be good and middle class and easy. I know that it sounds stupid, but part of me is still trying to get over the fact that this is just not true, that even if you win the lottery and marry someone totally awesome, life will still be hard. That you have to work at relationships, and even when you have a great relationship it’s still hard. That even if you’re rich, life is still hard, because life’s not fair, and bad things will happen and you’ll have to deal with it, and sometimes all the money in the world can’t make that better.

 It’s never mentioned that life doesn’t have to be easy to be good. 

 I believe that films aimed at kids should be about finding your place with your family, or with your friends. The Incredibles was awesome. Spy Kids. Quest for Camelot. Sure, they’re less common than the yay-a-prince films, but they’re better. They’re more interesting, and there’s more to them–they require stronger characters and more of a plot than “we saw each other and fell in true love and lived happily ever after”. 

 A couple months ago, my six year old sister was watching a popular Disney Channel show called "Good Luck Charlie." Being too tired to haggle with her over the remote, resulted in a huge realization as to why the hell bullying statistics are so high! In the show, the main character girl is obsessing over this super hot guy that showed interest in her as well. Then, she finds out he plays a trading card game in the park with her little brother and is disgusted by him. I thought she would learn a valuable lesson about it at the end, but nope. Her lesson was that nerds are losers.

 I COULD NOT BE MORE DISGUSTED.

 Parents.  Are you watching this garbage?

 I certainly had not done my research. It's Disney. How the hell do you go from Bubble Guppies, to this absolute trash? I so very wrongly figured that a company like Disney would not be promoting cruelty, bullying and sexism in their shows for young, impressionable children. I was completely mortified as I watched.

 These shows are laced with terrible social behavior. Like the scene in a different one, where the “nerdy” boy walks up to a pretty “popular” girl and asks her out…she threw her bowling ball and ran away screaming.  

*Cue audience laughter*

 That's supposed to be hilarious? I'm sorry, but I don't find that funny one bit.

 

 There were so many examples of rude, mean responses to difficult social situations for kids, followed by the character shrugging it off, recorded laughter, and the characters moving on without showing any realistic emotions. No anger, no hurt feelings. Comedy.

 I started to become more and more angry with Disney the deeper I dug into these shows. How in the world will we teach our children to be kind and put a stop to cruel behavior in schools when THE DISNEY CHANNEL is showing these bullying behaviors followed by laughter and no emotional response? 

 Just when I thought I had seen the worst, there was a scene that actually made me want to cry. I wanted to cry for every single little girl that watches this show. A pretty/coincided girl, conspiring to create a room-sized walk in closet for all her makeup! and clothes! and shoes! She was asked by two boys to help them with a math problem. She does. 

To which they exclaim, “Thank you, you are a genius!”

The girl is offended.

The boys hurry to fix their "horrible" mistake with “Oh! I mean you are SO beautiful!”

 ….and she prances away, satisfied.

Excuse me while I throw up.

SHAME ON YOU DISNEY.

 It’s hard enough to raise kids who will have the moral fortitude to stand up for themselves and for each other. It’s hard enough to get a moment to catch my breath and feel like my son is safe and entertained for 30 minutes under the DISNEY umbrella without unwittingly downloading vain, cruel, and damaging sexist garbage into his impressionable brains.

  I think with parenting comes great responsibility. Just cause we grew up watching those movies doesn't mean they are okay. Things do affect our children. The first six yrs of their lives and the experiences they have and things they see, shape their minds and who they become. There's so much research that talks about this. Children's innocence is robbed from them so early nowadays. These movies can get pretty violent and scary and for what? To teach what lesson? Children are sponges when it comes to absorbing information and they are constantly learning from what they hear and see. We have a huge responsibility to protect them as much as we can. Therefore, as with all T.V. + movie viewing, it should be well-supervised and given the opportunity to discuss the themes and clear up any misconceptions in our precious little one minds.