Disney Fail

Movie night isn't every Friday night, but we've been doing it more and more often. The kids really do look forward to that big heaping bowl of fresh popcorn (old school...none of that fancy shmancy microwave stuff.) Sadly though, we are running out of new movies to watch. How many times can one person watch...and enjoy...Cars or The Black Stallion? We do, however, have quite a number of movies supposedly suitable for children that our kiddos have yet to watch. Last week we dusted off our old copy of Aladdin. They sat through most of it, but the yawns seemed to come earlier than with the modern digital cartoons. Tonight we decided to bust out The Lion King. It is a cartoon and it is created by Disney. Those two things hand in hand usually equal a kid-friendly movie. Obviously, I was wrong. As for me, I still have a hard time watching the whole 'murder-a-parent' moment when Mufasa bites the big one to visit the ol' Pride Rock in the sky. What I was not prepared for was being bombarded with questions about what happened to 'Simba's daddy', as my children called him. Well, naturally they explain in the movie that he is dead and that is when I had two children curled up under under my arms, lips pouting out in the staple 'sad face' moment and then have them tell me that they didn't like this movie. Could someone please explain to me what exactly Disney finds so horrific about having two living, healthy, happy parents? Seriously. Let's think about this. Finding Nemo's mom was killed by an evil baracuda. Belle didn't even mention a mother. Cinderella's mom and dad died and her stepmother was evil. Lilo's parents (Lilo and Stitch) died in some kind of accident. Not even Andy from Toy Story has two parents but just a mom. Oh, and let's not forget the most notorious moment when Bambi's mom was gunned down by a hunter. And don't even get me started on Tarzan showing the deaths of not only the parents but the innocent baby Gorilla. I know that it's how the book was, but let's try and clean it up a little for the kids, Disney. Sheesh. There's nothing so wonderful as watching a cute little baby gorilla being attacked and eaten by a leopard. Ahh...heartwarming, isn't it? I still can't manage to explain that one to Alex. So tonight when Alex told me he didn't like Lion King because the dad died, I had a hard time disagreeing with him. Not only was it a movie night Fail, it was a major Disney fail. As much as I like the movie myself, I'm not sure I feel good about letting the kids watch it again anytime soon. Sorry Disney, but you need to learn to love the parents. I understand keeping it real, but if that's really what they were striving for then why do the ants in A Bug's Life only have four legs when they obviously have six in reality? You can't really sum that up with 'the circle of life.' Disney fail.