Disney movies - mothers missing?

[EmeraldHope]

I read an article that got me thinking more about Disney movies, and it dawned on me that there is something very wrong with Disney in the sense that most all of the characters are missing what is usually very important to a child- the mother! Is this possibly a reference to the missing divine feminine, or am I reading something wrongly that is not there?


Snow White- mother dead
Bambi- mother killed
Dumbo- taken away from mother
Peter Pan- no mother
Beauty and the Beast- Belle- no mother
Anastasia- no mother
Little Mermaid- no mother
Sleeping Beauty- has mother, but is enchanted and not able to be with her
Lion King- has mother, but is exiled away from her
Alice in Wonderland- has mother , but is in a different dimension with no access to her

These are the ones that come to me readily, there may be some that have positive mothers that I am not remembering. Can anyone think of some?

I am pretty slow on the uptake it seems because a google search reveals many hits to Disney movies and motherless. I know that Disney had supposed Masonic connections, so again I wonder if it is a reference to the divine feminine? It seems kinda important, as Disney Movies are a staple for most children. There is no reference to the divine feminine anywhere is the google hits that I found, but that does not surprise me either. I know Disney did not write the stories, but he did pick them and by and large the heros/heroines are all orphaned or missing mother.

Come to think of it, a great deal of the female adult characters in these movies are malevolent.

 

[Kaigen]

Yes, you are right Daenerys, there is something in it.
Even I was remembering the classic Disney figures:
Donald Duck
Mickey Mouse
Goofy
and many others.

 

[loreta]

But I think this subject of the mother who is absent is very popular in the fairy tales. Instead of the mother you have the new spouse of the father (second spouse) that usually is very bad.

I remember when I saw Bambi for the first time and how I was very shocked and obsessed with the death of the mother of little Bambi. Do you know that some pediatrics counseled parents that Bambi was not a good movie for children? Maybe for that reason, I don't know. The fact is that you are right, mother absent and widow father. The little girl has to conquer the love of the father and to conquer her identity alone.

 

[Chrissy]

Very interesting concept Daenerys. The only movie I can think of is Mulan where a mother and even a grandmother are present. But it seems to me the only role they serve in the movie is reinforcing her to know her place as a woman and to find her a husband.

 

[EmeraldHope]

Well, in remembering some of what Laura wrote in 'The Wave, and looking a little deeper, in could be that is just the archetype of the hero's journey- heros are usually orphans. That in and of itself is sad, that in this world , for a hero to be produced one needs to start with an isolated existence.


But, then again, in Disney we often find not just an orphan, but a motherless child with an absent father and a wicked step mother of some sort.


Maybe this is the archetype of the hero because the divine feminine is missing, and it is this archetype that makes the hero by him finding it.

 

[Laura]

Hmmm. Now that you mention it, most interesting and peculiar. What about fairy tales in general? Myths, legends?

 

[EmeraldHope]

Well, Lord of the Rings has a slew of motherless characters: _ http://archive.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/100791


We know that Luke and Leia 's mother dies, but the evil father remained in Star Wars.


Athena was motherless

Persephone is in the underworld separated from her mother

Hansel and Gretel had no mother and evil step mother

Little Red Riding Hood no mother to speak of

Thumbilina separated from her " mother" by evil frog

Jack and the Beanstalk- no parents in "otherworld" of giants

Harry Potter- no parents

 

[Gawan]

As Loreta wrote it is not just Disney who did sort of remake films of classical stories. The brother Grimm stories come to mind. Parzival also (after the Eschenbach version) where he grows up without his father and alone with his mother until he likes to become a knight, well it is the other way around then, also when the mother dies then, because he left for his journey.

It is neither Disney nor Grimm:

Frodo Baggins

Eventually Joseph Campbell wrote something about it?

 

[celtic]

I have certainly notice a lot of allegorical messages in disney movies. I notice two in particular the first one is...

Aladdin and the magic carpet: which closely resembles the literature of "one thousand and one nights". In which Prince Husain Sultan of the indies travels on a magic carpet to Bisnagar in india. And also Solomon's carpet which was made of green silk with a golden weft.

Lion king: The story of a lion who is cast out on his own after his father was murdered. He then returns (resurrected) to save his people and kingdom from the power of scar (evil) and take back his rightful thrown. This is particularly interesting because of the grail stories reference to the power of the king.

To the Assyrians... their kingship was a sacred institution rooted in heaven, and their king was a model of human perfection seen as a prerequisite for man's personal salvation.

The notion of the king as the son of god held true only insofar as it referred to the divine spirit that resided within his human body. In Mesopotamian mythology, this divine spirit takes the form of a celestial savior figure, Ninurta, whose mythological role the Assyrian kings consciously emulated both in ritual and in daily life. The Ninurta myth is known in numerous versions, but in its essence it is a story of the victory of light over the forces of darkness and death. In all its version, Ninurta, the son of the divine king, sets out from his celestial home to fight the evil forces that threaten his father's kingdom. He proceeds against the 'mountain' or the 'foreign land,' meets the enemy, defeats it and then returns in triumph to his celestial home, where he is blessed by his father and mother. Exalted at their side, Ninurta becomes an omnipotent cosmic accountant of man's fates. It is this that the Assyrian kings emulated.

A perfect king, filled with the divine spirit, would be able to exercise a just rule and maintain the cosmic harmony, thus guaranteeing his people divine blessings, prosperity and peace. By contrast, a king failing to achieve the required perfection and thus ruling without the divine spirit, trusting in himself alone, would rule unjustly, disrupt the cosmic harmony, draw upon himself the divine wrath and cause his people endless miseries, calamities and war. The purity and perfection of the king thus had to be maintained at all cost, and it was achieved with the help of god and through the exertions of the king and his closest advisers.

I think the makers of disney is trying to tell us something.

Sorry for getting off topic.

 

[Hildegarda]

I read an article that got me thinking more about Disney movies, and it dawned on me that there is something very wrong with Disney in the sense that most all of the characters are missing what is usually very important to a child- the mother! [..]

This is the main theme in all stories for and about children up until may be 1950s (after WWII). Most traditional stories feature orphans making their way through a challenging world, with help of friends or surrogate carers. Literary tales explore that as well (Anne of Green Gables, Tom Sawyer, The Secret Garden, etc etc etc). Really, in the US children's literature and popular culture, you begin to see a complete family with attentive, caring parents, starting with "Leave it to Beaver" and Beverly Cleary. Presently it's more of a norm.

 

[caballero reyes]

Very good observation,Daenerys.

 

[clerck de bonk]

Parsifal- without father.

 

[loreta]

This is a fascinating subject.

I remember: Little Red Riding Hood, no mother. The Beauty and the Beast, no mother also.

So there is a pattern here, and all these stories are part of our education! And the education in a sense (maybe I express myself incorrectly), of the humanity. Fairy tales are universal. And Disney also. ;)

 

[EmeraldHope]

So there is a pattern here, and all these stories are part of our education! And the education in a sense (maybe I express myself incorrectly), of the humanity. Fairy tales are universal. And Disney also. ;)

I think so too. I got on this line of thought because one of the hardest concepts I had really grasping was the divine feminine. Never heard of it before Laura's work. Goddesses of any kind were just never real or present. I kept thinking over the last few years " How in the heck can I be around 40 and never really got this?" Of course, growing up in the bible belt in a very red state is probably part of the problem for me personally.


So, when I was reading this article the other day, I got to thinking about all the Disney stories and stuff I grew up with. I thought . "Now dang it, certainly, somewhere there were divine feminine role models of some sort- I am just probably as thick as two planks and never saw them" That led me to these questions here.

 

[loreta]

I read sometime ago a very interesting book about fairy tales by Bruno Bettelheim. I don't remember if he talks about the feminine side, or the absence of mothers but surely. You should read his book, me too, I have it and I gave it to a friend and the book never return at home! Bruno was an interesting man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bettelheim

But I read his book longtime ago, so I don't know if his philosophy is correct regarding what we are learning here.