STLtoday - What does Disney have against mothers?

Uma boa pergunta: o quê Disney tem contra as mães? Um artigo interessante e que merece ser lido.

What does Disney have against mothers?

By Aisha Sultan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/15/2008
My Disney discomfort hatched with an innocent question from my daughter, then 3 years old: "Where is Belle's mommy?"

The princess who loves to read seemed to be raised by a single, dotty father. No explanations for her missing mom. And she's far from the only motherless Disney character. Parental abandonment runs like a river through the original fairy tales from which Disney characters were drawn, and the theme continues to the most recent blockbusters. Snow White's mother dies in childbirth or soon thereafter. Ariel the Mermaid's mother never makes an appearance, and Jasmine's departed one gets fleeting mention. Pocahontas is on her own. And we all know about Cinderella's stepmom issues.

Given the Disney princesses' rock star status among little girls, I started to wonder: What does Disney have against mothers? Many of us can recall the iconic heartbreaking scenes when Bambi's mother is killed or Dumbo's mom is torn away from her baby elephant. Nemo's mom is cruelly eaten by a barracuda.

The theories behind Disney's "matricidal obsession" range from Disney creators devaluing motherhood to crass commercial and emotional exploitation of a sappy formula — that works.


"Historically, there's a good reason why in traditional fairy tales there aren't any mothers," says Jack Zipes, author of "Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre." At the times when many ancient fairy tales originated, mothers frequently died young or in childbirth.

But that doesn't explain the continuing popularity of Disney's dead/absent mommies and the plethora of modern single dads in the movies. The lack of a nurturing mother figure is even more pronounced when considering the prevalence of scary older women — the Sea Witch in "The Little Mermaid," Cruella De Vil in "101 Dalmatians," the stepmother and witch in "Snow White," the jealous witch who curses Sleeping Beauty and the stepmother in "Cinderella."

The fairy tales that endure resonate with us because they tap into our deepest fears, capture a struggle to which children can relate and deliver a happily ever after. We connect with dysfunctional families. We fear losing our parents or orphaning our children.

Zipes says the role of mothers has stirred reactions since the beginning of storytelling: "There is a very deep, evolutionary psychological problem in a lot of these tales, and that's why we keep coming back to them. Because they raise issues we still haven't resolved."

I find the absent mommies more disturbing than the dead mommies. It bothers me when they are invisible, like Belle's mom — gone for no reason and unneeded. At least the deaths are seen and felt as tragic events, signifying a life-changing moment for the characters, which they eventually overcome. But when the moms just don't show up, it feels cold. It plants a haunting seed of doubt in a 3-year-old's mind that we can abandon our children even when there are no barracudas chasing us.

I don't remember how I explained Belle's lack of a mommy. Little girls fancy themselves as these princesses, and I wanted to create a backstory with a loving mommy character.
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But I just didn't know how to spin that Disney magic.

STLtoday - What does Disney have against mothers?.