Relationships

Overview

of Parent

Although known for happy endings, Disney animated movies are no stranger to upsetting plot twists; namely with parents. Many of the most popular Disney animated films share a common theme of parental absence or even death. Parent-less themes are quite common in Disney movies and are often the catalyst for the main protagonist’s character traits and personality development.

Several movies such as Bambi and The Lion King feature on-screen portrayals of parent deaths and the devastating effects on the children as the central theme. Single parenthood is also common in movies such as The Little Mermaid or Toy Story where the main character seeks parental guidance through maternal or paternal substitution. In other cases such as Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast, the child fills the role of the missing parent. In several movies featuring single parents or orphaned children, parental substitution can occur through interactions with animals or nature such as in Tarzan and Pocahontas.

The following pages will examine the role of parental influence on the characters and storyline.

Psychological Roles of Parents

Many of the heros and heroines from Disney animated films grew up in an unstable family. Of the unstable households, several characters are orphans and many others grew up in a home without a loving mother. The single mothers that are portrayed are often evil in some way.

Killing off a parent in the story or growing up in a single parent household provides adversity in the plot for the young main character. Mothers are often the victims because they are so strong willed and might distract from the young character’s journey. (Disney Keeps Killing Movie Mothers, 2008)

If the mother is considered to be “good,” she is usually deceased or does not play a major role in the movie. (Balraj and Gupal, 2013) If, however, the mother figure is evil, she takes on a major role in making the child’s life unbearable.

Sometimes the father left behind to raise the child is too foolish or distracted to care for the kid as needed. In these cases, the young main character must assume a more adult role. Examples of this theme include Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Jasmine from Aladdin. Both young women act more like wives than children to their fathers because the men are incapable of taking care of themselves.

The motherless children learn to stand strong against adversity, beat fears and obstacles, and discover themselves. Mothers can serve as a leaning post for the child, and her removal from the movie allows the main child character to grow. Although faced with heartbreak, the characters learn to survive and flourish despite missing a parental figure in their lives.

Lee Unkrich, a former Disney animation director, stated that the missing parent theme present in many of Disney’s films opens up possibilities in the plot for the main character to experience emotional richness. He said, “When you’ve got the mom and the dad, the tendency is to just think everything is perfect.” (Pols) Removing one of the parents from the story allows for an off-kilter scenario that allows the characters to grow and reach their full potential.