Disney's Cool, Guys

I'm starting to get really sick of people tearing into Disney. I'm sick of people calling it evil and ripping apart every movie they make as designed to put evil messages into the minds of small children and undermine their self-confidence and instill hetero-normative ideals in them before they have a chance to make up their own minds. Mostly I hate it because people seem to do it not because they actually hate Disney, but because it the "in" thing to do nowadays.
Like people who claimed that Disney was bad for making the Princess and the Frog movie because "they're only making a black princess so they can make money!"
Um...duh? Disney is a company. Companies do stuff to make money. But a rant about the concept of "selling out" is a topic for another post. I'll use lots of words like "pretension" and... well, "pretension". I'll use that word a lot.

Anyway. Disney hate. It's a little unwarranted, in my opinion. I will allow that some of the movies had some weird values and not-that-great messages when you looked at them closely- Ariel leaving everything she's ever known for a man she's spent all of five minutes with, Belle never getting to go on those adventures in far off places like she wanted. I'll admit that. Disney isn't perfect.
And you know what? I went through that phase. I hated Disney with the best of them. I went on long, feminist rants about how the princess films were instilling in girls the idea that her only goal in life was to find a man and get married.

Then I watched Beauty and the Beast with some friends, and I remembered.
I remembered the first time I ever saw that movie, the first time I ever saw Belle. The realization that the hero of this movie was a girl with brown hair and brown eyes, and who loved to read more than anything? I remember the emotions I felt as if it was yesterday- I like to call it the "Disney feeling". A feeling of pure and undiluted joy and excitement, the feeling that I could do anything or be anyone.

Belle was my hero. She was the person I wanted to be like more than anything. She was brave, she was confident. She didn't take shit from anyone, whether that person was a bone-headed jerk who only wants to marry you because you're pretty or a ten foot tall beast-man capable of ripping you limb from limb if he feels like it. Let him rant and roar and threaten to break the door down- you stick to your guns and you stand up for yourself.

I remember watching these movies and it never once occurred to me that marriage was supposed to be my goal in life, or that my place was subservient to men or whatever else it is people think these movies teach young girls. I learned to be brave. I learned that even if an entire village full of people sings about how strange you are, you can still be confident and love yourself.

People need to give small children more credit. They aren't little blobs of clay molded only by what they see on the bright flashy box in front of them. They're influenced by the books they read, the people they talk to, their parents, their friends... No one work and no one medium is going to corrupt a child beyond repair. Watching a bunch of movies where the girls get married at the end is going to convince a small child that her only goal in life is that and only that. Children are humans. They think, they dream, they form opinions that don't necessarily conform with the opinions of the people around them- lord knows I have.