The Mouse in Your House

Disney’s streaming service, Disney Plus, has crossed 100M subscribers, according to recent announcements. I guess some people are surprised by this, since it’s only been available for about 18 months. It doesn’t seem all that surprising since children exist, something that some younger journalists and analysts might not realize. On the other hand, the Mouse House has done an undeniably good job with the service, both in terms of functionality and content; the latter is kind of a no-brainer what with the Disney-Star Wars-Marvel-Pixar-20th Century Fox-ness of it all, but they certainly could have whiffed in one way or another. My family watches it every day, now that they fixed The Simpsons aspect ratio problem last summer; we’re also fans of The Mandalorian and WandaVision, both of which have their haters among Star Wars and Marvel fans, but we’re too lazy to put that much thought into it, especially on Friday nights.

There are two types of accounts on D+, a regular account and a kids account, supposedly for children under 7. The child version gives parents control over what their kids watch in the sense that the only stuff that shows up there is the unequivocally inoffensive stuff. No PG or PG13, which means no Star Wars or Marvel. Even Disney’s own live action updates of their animated films (eye roll) are not there—they are PG rated. So, until recently, kids could watch Dumbo (1941) but not Dumbo (2019) on the kids channel.

Now both Dumbos are exclusive to the regular channel. Peter Pan, The Aristocats and a few other films from the vault, have also moved over, joining other media in having a content disclaimer placed in front of them before it plays. The disclaimer warns of “stereotypes” and “negative depictions…of peoples or cultures.” Naturally, this has led to immediate (fake) outrage on the part of the right wing media and its consumers over “cancel culture.”

What Disney has done, as opposed to “cancelling” anything, is essentially re-rate these films and shows to reflect changing cultural norms. Now, in addition to the usual elements that might yield a PG or PG13 rating, such as violence or sexuality or language they’ve added depictions considered racist. (Those who seem confused about this, or express a knee-jerk reaction to it, on Twitter, particularly wonder about Dumbo. Obviously, the disclaimer in that case refers mainly to the infamous singing crows, whose entire act is essentially a minstrel show; of course, for many people who grew up with the movie, me included, the scene features a bunch of hilarious birds singing the film’s best song, with nothing apparently racist to be seen; this is because we were once children who didn’t know shit about history. Peter Pan’s depiction of Native Americans, however, is something most of us who saw it as children have probably blocked out—it’s really bad, far worse than even a lot of old Westerns, if not many cartoons of the time.)

The RW hissy fit notwithstanding, this strikes me as a pretty darn reasonable approach on Disney’s part. The films are easily accessible and unedited. Parents just have to opt in, if they’ve even bothered to set up parental controls in the first place. It’s great that they didn’t just take Dumbo down, which I would never be able to support, but which is the kind of move that would be unsurprising today. Dumbo is a towering classic, exquisitely made; one of the very best Disney movies and simply one of the best animated films ever released. Every child should see it for those reasons and also because it is truly made for them, not grown-ups or even big kids. There’s no sappy romantic princess, just a tearjerking story about a mother’s fierce love for her baby with thrills, spills, the Platonic ideal of a circus choo-choo train and, um, the drunken hallucinations of a mouse and baby elephant. Oh, yeah, and that baby elephant can fly. It would be almost unconscionable to take this from children, who, as I said, have no idea about the subtext of the Jim Crows.

I have plenty of issues with Disney, as do most thinking adults. But in this choice I find myself almost grateful. They could have just erased these movies. It does raise a question though—will they add Song of the South? The company has deep-sixed this movie into the deepest, darkest corners of the vault (except for, according to legend, the Uncle Remus museum in Georgia); but it’s a fascinating piece of art as well, in part due to its controversies and in part due to its technical achievements in blending live action and animation; it also features one of the most popular of all Disney movie songs. If the company is willing to let adults decide what movies to watch or show their kids, why not bring back a major teachable moment from its history?