Why would you pick on Disney?

When I was about fifteen, I overheard one of my classmates announce to her friends that, although she loved Disney films when she little and they never had any negative effects on her, she would never let her kids watch them. Ever. She hated it, she said, when her parents let her little brother watch them. Because of all the subliminal dick messages.

Face was firmly planted in palm for much of the remaining day.

Disney has had some unwanted publicity regarding penises, mostly from the kind of fundie nutbags that also have a problem with Harry Potter and Pokémon because they encourage devil worship or some other bullshit. Apparently, the priest in The Little Mermaid has bellends for knees and Aladdin thinks that good teenagers take off their clothes (the actual line is “Good kitty, just take off and go”).

Frankly, this kid deserves a better parent.

I never cared enough to do more than Google for thirty seconds and then shrug half-heartedly. I am still not all that bothered.

But soon I will have a goddaughter, so I have started thinking about responsibility. A little bit. Not an awful lot. But enough. Admittedly, I will be the kind of godmother who purposely teaches her that ‘clitoris’ is a good word to ask daddy to define at the dinner table. But I also want to be the kind of godmother who introduces her to things that she can fall in love with and keep hold of forever. I’m thinking Pokémon and Harry Potter. I’m thinking Adam Ant and Amanda Palmer.

I’m also thinking Disney.

Excuse for a moment that I do not think that Disney peppers its films with dicks.  I actually think that the people who see dicks in Disney films are very sexually frustrated (most of them were teenagers) or in denial about something (a lot of them were fundies) or both. Certainly, they are reminiscent of that do-gooding douche from Donnie Darko who turned out to be into kiddie porn. Or this bitch; she seems like the kind of scumbag who wouldn’t let her poor girl watch Disney films.

Suppose for a moment that it does say ‘SEX’ right here in Simba’s dust.

Well … so the fuck what?

At least it was subtle. That doesn’t even look that much like ‘sex’.

And who is even thinking about sex during such a heart-rending moment in the film?

Kids’ shows get away with a hell of a lot more than most people ever notice. Definitely more than kids ever do. More than I ever did, and I was quite an observant and vulgar-minded child.

 

Penelope Pitstop had a vibrator in her car.

Frankly, I don’t care that I saw those things. I will happily show them to my goddaughter. And when she asks why I think it so much funnier than she does, I will answer her honestly. Dick jokes are hilarious, no matter what age you are. The countless hours of my childhood that I spent watching The Young Ones and Blackadder with my dad is testament to that.

Fuck. If I’m going to worry about what will be a bad influence on a child, I am going to worry about pretty much every other thing in the world before I get anywhere near Disney. I am going to worry about bitchy magazines that make women feel perpetually fat and ugly. I am going to worry about the fact that we live in a society in which Samantha Brick is allowed to voice her hideous little opinion on a nationwide forum. I am going to worry about the fact that people exist who give a fuck about Katie Shitting Price. I am going to worry about people who think it is appropriate to dress babies in shirts that read “Daddy’s Little Porn Star”. I am going to worry that Rihanna is considered a fucking role model.

I have written a list of things I will buy for my goddaughter. At the top of the list is Aladdin on DVD, partly because the list is in alphabetical order, but mostly because that film is fucking ace. Dicks or no.

And I just can’t deny her this pretty face!

No one this cute would corrupt anyone, surely?