Brother Bear someone threw a firey stick and she fell in water and died (according to my 4 year old) (horrific death-hunter kills her)
Cinderella mom has died before Scene One
Snow White mom has died before Scene One
Bambi (horrific death) shot dead and left behind in the woods
Bambi II dead mother, raised by father
Mama Dumbo (horrific death) locked in a cage and taken away from him forever
Pinocchio motherless with only Geppeto
Sleeping Beauty raised by three inept aunts
The Sword in the Stone father, but no mother
Jungle Bookyoung Mowgli his surrogate caregivers are father
Little Mermaid Ariel only has father, King Triton
Beauty and the Beast only has a father
Aladdin Jasmine only has a father, the king (mother captured by bandits and presumed dead, forcing Aladdin to fend for himself)
Chronicles of Narnia no mother
The Goofy Movie Max and Goofy are motherless
(Max’s heartthrob, the Girl Next Door, has only a father)
Pocahontas No mother. One mumbled reference to “when your dear mother died.”
The Wild no mother
The Lion King No mother. Where are all the “Mom visions” like those Simba has of his deceased lion father up in the sky?
Chicken Little Dead mother
Hunchback of Notre Dame Mom was killed before Scene One
Atlantis: The Lost Empire mom is assimilated (dead)
Lilo and Stich mother dies in car crash
Peter Pan orphaned
The Fox & The Hound mother is killed by hunters
Herbie: Fully Loaded no mother
The Rescuers absent mother
The Great Mouse Detective no mother
Enchanted mother is dead
Tarzan no mother
and Pixar Animation:
Nemo (horrfic death) eaten by a huge barracuda in front of husband
No problem giving daddy all the props, but why oh why must the mommy always die?
“Unlike the mother taboo, Disney creates looming, hideous female witches, demons, octopi, dragons, and stepmother-monsters, to make sure everyone comes away with a perfectly nauseating feeling toward powerful women. They can be disposed of by bursting, melting, catching fire, being run through with swords, pushed off cliffs, or other imaginative punishments. The sound of their screams as they perish in agony is bloodcurdling. Some are even moms.”
–Kristin Lems
Too bad considering these are generally entertaining movies, right?
“…all over the world, parents sit their tender little children down in front of such scenes and convince themselves that it is the ultimate Wholesome Family Entertainment. What a sell job!” -Kristin Lems
Not as good as DreamWorks, but in looking around the web. Here are some answers random people came up with as to the question:
WHY DO ALL THE MOMS DIE IN DISNEY MOVIES?”
A: A quick way to make the audience “fall” for a character is to put that character in a traumatic situation, and create pity for the parent. What will evoke more pity than a parent dying?
Ever since the first book was put in ink (Homer’s The Illiad and The Odysee) women have been portrayed as “evil”. Combine these two points, and that is why the mothers die in Disney movies.
-Monteque
A: Wal Disney takes almost all its ideas from Children stories that are over a hundred years old. Snow White was written by The Brother Grimm, Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, Escape to Witch Mountain by Alexander Key and so on. Mothers are not a big key in most stories because they weren’t important. Mothers leaving their children was to much of a push for the Disney corrporation because they are a “family” companie. Like it or not Mommy takes care of the kids, Daddy works, and kids actually listened to them. A fantasy with and old world veiws.
Yes i know how stupid that sounds nowa days but that was the way of the world back then.
-De-Cal
A: If the young hero or heroine is going to have adventures and get into trouble, they need to have lost a parent so they can be exposed to these dangerous things.
And a lot of the princess stories explore the transition of a girl into a woman. In the older stories, such as Snow White and Cinderella, you have the good guys trying to protect the princess until she ends up with her prince and lives happily ever after.
With later princesses, like Ariel and Belle, you have the maiden learning her own lessons and finding her own independance before she has her happy ending.
It’s all for entertainment value, really.
-Da Man Against Abuse
A:
OT but god, I hate Disney movies. Such lazy storytelling. Such a cheap dramatic device to kill the mum off or to always have a parent in trouble. Even in Mulan, an otherwise interesting story that actually was from China. The only one I liked was Lilo & Stich because the family shown was a totally dysfunctional, non-nuclear family that somehow holds things together, though, true-to-form, the big sister’s uneven attempts at parenting are a highlight. The film also showed loyalty in friendship which I think is a nicer thing to hang a plot off of (Harry Potter is a good example of similar plot device). Best Disney film I have seen so far.
-DebSmooth
A: In PIrates of the Caribbean, in Finding Nemo, in Cinderella, in Pocahantas, in The Little Mermaid, in Aladdin (Jasmine’s), in Beauty and the Beast, in Bambi, and in Tarzan (both parents).
I don’t think that that is all of them…a little help please?
-Bookworm5790
A: Snow White has no mom, Arthur has no mother (Sword in the Stone), Max (Goofy movie), Nemo (Disney Pixar), Chicken Little, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Brother Bear, Lilo and Stich, In Dumbo he was horribly separated form mom… In Jungle Book Mowgli is an orphan, Tod’s mom is shot by a hunter in Fox and the Hound… … … thats all I can think of off the top of my head.
-Taltos_Dragon
A:
I didn’t think about it until you mentioned it here… kinda depressing actually. Though when you look at the original stories (especially those like Grimms) even if the have retained a bit of the “sad” parts, there are a lot more greusome detailes (wisely) left out!
Read a great article on subject with more trivia below:
Disney’s Dead Mothers Club
I’m not sure of many things in this world, but I’m convinced of this one: Walt Disney Studios has something against mothers. In a striking number of Disney movies – in fact, in most of the animated films, the mother gets bumped off before the film begins, or early on in the action. As far as Disney is concerned, the only good mother is a dead mother.
I take this rather personally, because I am a mother, and have read the Disney books and seen the Disney movies with my children. Naturally, I’m always looking for a “cuddle moment” – when the kids and I can say “Awww,” looking at the close mother-child relationship, and feel a rush of recognition in it. However, time and time again, we see something sinister instead: dead mothers, or protagonists apparently not of woman born. It is noteworthy that Disney deletes all reference to the most primary human relationship.
Put briefly, the Disney message is: there is no such thing as a mother; having a mother is not a factor in your life in any way; remove Mom from any of your feelings, thoughts, or behavior. Not a frame or a word is wasted on Mom stuff. (Dad, however, is another story; you’ve got to have a Special Relationship with him, or you won’t get anywhere in life.)
I first recognized Disney’s compulsion to bump off moms when, as a young child, I saw Bambi. I remember my delight as Bambi and his mother scampered about in the meadow, and I can still feel my astonished pain as Bambi’s mother is shot dead and left behind in the woods – a violent tragedy for which I was neither prepared nor helped to work through. At the strategic moment, Dad (the Prince of the Forest, conveniently) came along and off they went, never looking back. Mom dies, and you just run away, no regrets. In a movie intended for small children, that scene is downright sadistic.
A similar fate befalls Mama Dumbo, in another heartwrenching scene equally inappropriate for small children: little Dumbo the elephant loses his mother early on, when she is locked in a cage and taken away from him forever, her helpless trunk reaching out to him for one last motherly caress. Even discussing it last week with another mother, we both burst into tears just thinking about it. Yet, all over the world, parents sit their tender little children down in front of such scenes and convince themselves that it is the ultimate Wholesome Family Entertainment. What a sell job!
Then there’s the category of Long Gone Moms. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the mom has died before Scene One, and we encounter only a depraved Wicked Stepmother. Ditto with Cinderella.
Ole Geppeto the Woodcarver can’t seem to come up with a mom for Pinocchio in the movie of the same name, but a Blue Fairy does some motherly sorts of rescues and magic for a brief time and then makes a final farewell. Pinocchio wishes to be a real boy, but never to have a real mom.
Sleeping Beauty fares little better. The Queen Mom and her husband, the king, earnestly “wish for a child,” and finally get one who comes with a curse (made by a powerful woman villain). Young Aurora is sent away at birth from her parents to be raised by three inept aunts. Later, when they all come back from a hundred-year sleep, where is the joyous reunion with Mom?
Granted, these ancient stories have been handed down from days when mothers died young, often during childbirth. The stories were meaningful to those who were left with stepmothers who mistreated them; after all, bloodlines establish inheritance, and stepmothers wanted to position their own blood offspring to inherit money or power. But there are hundreds of ancient stories on diverse themes. Why did Disney choose these?
More recent Disney movies have swelled the ranks of the Dead Mothers Club still further.
In the movie recounting the young King Arthur’s exciting boyhood, The Sword in the Stone, there is a father, but no mother. Likewise, young Mowgli in The Jungle Book has lost his human parents, but even his surrogate caregivers are father, not mother, substitutes – Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Panther.
In The Little Mermaid, Ariel the mermaid has only a father, King Triton; we are never told what in the Deep Blue Sea happened to Queen Triton, or whatever her name was. Belle in Beauty and the Beast lives with her dotty father, an inventor, in the woods, and it’s anybody’s guess if she ever had a mom, or was merely one of her father’s previous inventions.
Princess Jasmine, the female lead in the movie Aladdin, has only a father, the king, and a – male – tiger companion. The only way we even know she had a mother is when her dad tokenistically recounts, “You’re just like your mother.” Exeunt mom.
Even Max and Goofy in The Goofy Movie are in a momless world. We relish Goofy’s well-meaning incompetence as a single dad, and when father and son take a long trip, no reference is made to a dearly departed or otherwise-occupied mom of any kind. The father-son bond is all that matters. Even Max’s heartthrob, the Girl Next Door, has only a father!
When Pocahontas came out, I thought, well, this is a whole new world, so to speak; the rules have changed. If the lead character can be a strong, serious, woman who turns down romance to help her people, maybe there will even be a mother. No dice: no Mom. There is one mumbled reference to “when your dear mother died,” and the plot proceeds apace.
Mom is never a player at all, not missed, not remembered – where are all the “Mom visions” like those Simba has of his deceased lion father up in the sky, in The Lion King? Where are the memories of mother love, motherly advice, motherly ways?
And who is mothering these protagonists? Everyone in the world but Mom. It may be a friendly fish, a cricket, a chipped teacup, seven dwarves, friendly birds, rabbits, skunks and baboons – all of the male gender, of course. There’s not even room for a helpful sister figure. The message? Who needs a mom when you’ve got a friend.
Up on the wall somewhere in the Disney Studios’ inner sanctum there must be a sign: NO MOMS ALLOWED. There cannot be even a benevolent, mild mom. No moms at all.
However, in the area of the Disney villain, Disney shows real evenhandedness, perhaps even preferential hiring. VILLAINS CONSIDERED AFFIRMATIVELY, the other sign might read. Unlike the mother taboo, Disney creates looming, hideous female witches, demons, octopi, dragons, and stepmother-monsters, to make sure everyone comes away with a perfectly nauseating feeling toward powerful women. They can be disposed of by bursting, melting, catching fire, being run through with swords, pushed off cliffs, or other imaginative punishments. The sound of their screams as they perish in agony is bloodcurdling. Some are even moms.
What sort of effect do 50-plus years of Disney-sponsored fantasies have on our society and our world? When will the lie be put to rest that Disney films are “the best in children’s entertainment?” And when will mothers and motherlove be given a face and a voice that reflect the reality of human experience and our basic needs?
The solution? After I read her this essay, my seven year old daughter said solemnly, “Maybe there should be more mother animators.”
c 1995 by Kristin Lems
221 – C Dodge Ave.
Evanston, IL 70202
847-864-0737
Some Blogs had something to say:
So maybe the answer to all this maddness is in this question:
Here are some Trivia on Walt Disney’s Mom~
A: What year did Walt Disney’s MOTHER die?
After Snow White Walt Disney bought his parents a house. His mother called him and complained of a gas smell/problem with the house. Walt sent people over to fix it but they did not do a good job. She ended up dying of asphyxiation a few days later. People say he felt guilty about it for the rest of his life. Sad. -Magenta
There is an even a Wikipedia page dedicated to the topic: Disney Mothers
Here’s the facts:
Walt and Mum
Walt Disney’s mother and father, Flora and Elias, were married on New Years Day 1888. For their Golden Wedding Anniversary, riding on the success of Snow White, successful son Walt gifted them with a home in Toluca Lake (Hopeland), CA. The Disney’s loved their new home, except for the heat. Apparently the furnace wasn’t very good, and Mrs. Disney complained about the fumes. Jinx.
Enter good son Walt, who had studio workers install a new gas furnace in the home. I have always heard that Walt fixed it himself, but can not find documentation to support that. In the night of November 26th, 1938, Father Disney woke and found his wife laying on the bathroom floor. He himself passed out trying to transport her.
The next morning Alma Smith, the maid, came to work and upon entering the kitchen, became faint. She opened the doors and windows, and went to check on Mr. and Mrs. Disney. Mrs. Disney was dead, and Mr. Disney and Alma were taken to Hollywood Hospital where they recovered.
Mr. Disney was released in time to attend his wife’s funeral at Forest Lawn Glendale, at the Wee Kirk Church.
Police attributed the tragedy to a faulty connection in the gas furnace which had been burning all night.
Walt never got over the tragedy. This is where it happened.
Sited from here.
So, there you have it. Of coarse there a handful of movies that Disney did with both parents. So one can only speculate, unless a Disney executive come on here and explaines it-what is the meaning behind all the mothers being dead, killed or absent in most Disney films?
Courtesy of: Angela dreams
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The Never Fairy
January 9, 2009
Actually, there IS a mother in “The Chronicles of Narnia”
Peter Pan is not orphaned, unless you count by his own voliton.
And in “Enchanted” the mom is not dead, they’re divorced.
Correction from author: The Enchanted story line is the Cinderella premise. The Princess characters mother is dead.
The Peter Pan one is up to opinion, but most believe she is dead.
Chronicles of Narnia-the mother is not dead, that is correct. She is absent.
Random Fact Lady
May 26, 2009
Umm just a couple corrections.
There is a mother in Lion King. Her name is Sarabi, she definitely appears in it, even though she doesn’t play a huge role. Simba probably doesn’t have any mom visions, because he didn’t think he killed his mom unlike his dad.
Also in Tarzan there is no mother present but there is a strong surrogate mother figure in it, characters name is Kayla.
powerfulmothers
December 3, 2009
Authors notes:
In reference to: “Also in Tarzan there is no mother present but there is a strong surrogate mother figure in it, characters name is Kayla.”
–Surrogate mother is in place because THERE IS NO MOTHER.
Additionally,
Peter Pan is the only Disney cartoon movie that features both parent characters alive and present throughout the entire film. Although Peter Pan’s mother is absent.