September 14, 2015
EP. 86 — How Disney Movies Program Your Mind
Think about the Disney princesses of the 1930s, 40s and 50s and what they actually accomplished in their films. Snow White: Hot girl falls asleep in the forest and is almost murdered by dwarfs until they realize how hot she is. Alice in Wonderland: English girl falls asleep at lunch, has crazy dreams, wakes up. Sleeping Beauty: Do you see where we’re going with this?
When you peel away your personal experiences with these movies and just think about their base elements, a dark subtext arises. The Disney filmography from the 1930s to today perpetuates an antiquated American value structure that depicts misogyny, racism, classism and narcissism, yet as kids watching these films and parents showing them to our children, we never think twice about it. Should we be more vigilant in deciphering what these movies are really about instead of just blindly trusting the logo on the Blu-Ray case?
This week on the podcast Jack O’Brien and guest host Tom Reimann are joined by Cracked editors Alex Schmidt, Josh Sargent and Adam Tod Brown. They discuss the grim underpinnings of the Disney film library, how his earliest films are ripe with misogyny, and Jack’s secretly horrifying childhood vacation to a Disney theme park.
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