I should start out by saying that I love all Disney movies and have nothing against them or their subject matter. That being said, I have read a number of different blogs, articles, reviews of parents who would rather their children be a little older before watching certain movies. I've seen some stuff where parents do not want their children watching Bambi because the mother dying. And I've seen people not watching their children to watch The Fox and The Hound. - I can kind of understand the second one. I was a bit of a baby when I was younger and found the bear attack to be a little scary. What do you think about this topic?
Lion King was a very sensitive one for my daughter. She actually cried and I had to explain to her that it was only a movie, and it even forced me to give her a brief talk about life/death in the real world. I actually though that was cool, because it's absolutely necessary for us to explain that to our little ones. She's 5 BTW. We've yet to watch Bambi, but I imagine that one being sensitive for her as well. Frozen was a recent one that was somewhat sensitive to my daughter as well, even though I thought Frozen wasn't really that emotional.
@Streak This is a really good question. Granted, I don't have children now, but if I were to have children in the near future and I wanted to introduce them to Disney, I would stray away from the following until they were much older: Fox and the Hound - Not only the bear attack, but the abandonment, too. I remember watching this movie as a child and always feeling sad because the fox was sad. Aladdin - The Cave of Wonders would perhaps be a little too much on the child. The loudness and scariness that the sand-tiger can create for the eyes and ears of a child. Bambi - I remember watching this movie and never understanding what it was about. But whenever that meadow scene would pan out for a good five minutes, I remember always feeling sad and crying. I was extremely sensitive. I didn't know what happened, but I knew it wasn't good. More or less, it's the music that you should pay attention to at times than just the scenes. Children really react to the music more than anything. @terryp Your daughter was sensitive to Frozen because of the musical progression that the soundtrack embedded. It was dark, fast and sounded pretty intimidating. I've seen more children who are nine and younger cry at the mid-end of 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman' because of it's intensity in sound. Though you're right, there's nothing too sensitive in regards to Frozen. It's pretty straight-forward, but the music is so indirect that children feel it directly. (Background to information: I am a Choral Music Education major -- understanding children versus music is my everyday practice!)
I watched pretty much all of them when I was a kid and had no problem for some reason (I was 5 years old when I saw my very first Disney movie, The Lion King, and it didn't bother me...) except for Fox and the Hound, which always made me really sad and I would cry. Also the Black Cauldron was scary to me and when Gurgi went away I cried for probably the entire rest of the movie until he came back. I liked him a lot, haha.
This is going to make me sound like a terribly unemotional person, but I don't remember any of the Disney movies moving me drastically one way or another in any particular way. Sure, Ursula was scary and so what the queen in Snow White, but not to the point that I had nightmares or anything. But now that I'm older and have gone back and watched the movies that I grew up with, I can see how some people today would be extra sensitive to it. Dumbo is horribly sad - not to mention the crazy scene when he and the mouse get drunk. Alice in Wonderland has some scary parts too. I wonder - did I just not notice it as a child, or was the way that we treat children so different back then?
I personally think Disney movies have the potential to upset children but I think it's beneficial. When they are old enough to understand that a character in a movie died or something scary happened, I think that's a good time to explain to them what is going on. I was never particularly scarred by any Disney movie, although I remember The Fox and the Hound and Bambi being extremely sad! Having said that I think Disney treats death and other emotional issues very well. Better that they learn it from a children's movie than something else on TV. I grew up on Disney and nothing bad happened to me! I think kids will be fine.
The banshee in Darby O'Gill and the little people used to scare the pants off me when I was a kid. Also, my kids were upset about the wife's death in Up.
I think it depends on the kid. My brother was scared of a lot of movies as a kid, but I pretty much never was. We could never watch Snow White because he was too scared of the Queen in hag-form. I get more emotional watching Disney movies now than I did as a kid. I think because I can better understand what it's like to have bad/scary things happen to you, or what it's like to lose someone. A lot of it just went over my head as a kid. Like in the later part of Lady and the Tramp, when Jock and Trusty are basically offering to marry Lady out of pity, since she's damaged goods after her night with the Tramp. And the whole thing about Tramp being a player and a heartbreaker. As a kid I was pretty much just like "Yay, talking dogs!" and didn't really get what was happening in the story.
