I was considering the Disney corporation on my way to work this morning. I find driving to be a close second behind showers in terms of places for ideas. Clearly driving is not as valuable historically as Ugh the Caveman did not have a Corolla.
Specifically, I was thinking about the actual story behind Pocahontas vs. the animated feature. I went to see Pocahontas in theatre in Grade 8 (with a girl! And her little brother, who we were babysitting at the time. Who sat between us. And talked all the way through. It was not the most romantic outing ever). I have the Vanessa Williams Colours of the Wind song stuck in my head even now. I have no desire to paint with any of the colours of the wind and, should I see a grinning bobcat, I will remove myself at high speed from that place rather than asking him to explain the joke. I am not extremely familiar with the actual backstory but I do know she was about 13 when they met and there weren’t any duets.
Have you ever actually read any of the original fairy tales that Disney trots out in sanitized forms? How about Snow White? The evil queen eats the heart. At the end of the story she is forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance until she dies. There is a gender-switched version of Cinderella that ends with Cindereddie being poisoned by his ugly step brothers. In another the step sisters cut parts of their feet off to fit the slippers and later their eyes are pecked out. The little mermaid couldn’t talk and also every step she took was like walking on knives (which never ended). Sleeping Beauty ends early. The second part to the original has the handsome prince’s mother turn out to be an ogre who subsequently demands that somebody cook and serve the newly minted grandchildren as dinner. I think Rob Zombie could do a pretty fair job of producing a movie based on the real stories behind the fluff.
I think it’s probably wisest for Disney to stick to fairy stories and other wholly fictitious works. Their forays into real-world type stories just set up lies for children. Take Tron for example. I watched Tron pretty regularly growing up and do you have any idea how disappointed I was that I couldn’t be digitized and put into a computer? Cried myself to sleep for weeks.