FOR THE LOVE OF FAIRY GODMOTHERS, WHERE ARE ALL THE MOTHERS?

YAY!  EXAMS ARE FINISHED! MORE TIME FOR BLOGGING! Did Walt Disney have mother issues? Is there a secret document somewhere that says almost all Disney heroes must have at least one missing parent? Is there a sign in a Disney studio somewhere that says “No Moms Allowed”? Well to be fair, it isn’t just Disney. It’s a lot of coming-of-age type stories that think they have to sacrafice parents for the hero’s development. In some stories it is very necesary that the character’s parents be indisposed. However, it happens a lot more than seems necesarry and this is one of the reaons my five year old cousin has trouble watching movies. I recently saw Hotel Transylvania (which i will note for those who don’t know is an animated kid’s movie NOT made by Disney) for my birthday. Guess what? tragic dead mother backstory. Not that i’m against these per se, but like with romance stories it does not need to happen in every movie. With few exceptions almost all movies I have seen involve a) single parent families b) characters who never had parents or c) parents are indisposed in some way. As much as I hate to give Twilight a compliment, at least Edward and Bella both have functional parents. well, the functional part is debatable, but the writer seems to have intended them to be seen as functional. And if the story were done well, it could have been a good coming-of-age story about Bella’s transition to adulthood without killing off her parents. If it were done well I mean. The werewolves have a tendancy toward single parent families though. Let’s look at the Disney movies one at a time.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: we don’t even know what happened to Snow’s parents. The opening narration simply tells us she has an evil stepmother.

Pinnochio: He never had a mother. His father built him all by himself. It is the ultimate single-father family.

Dumbo: one of few Disney movies where there is a single-mother instead of a father. They never tell us where his father is. His mother is in elephant-jail but gets out at the end of the movie.

Bambi: a whole genertion went into shock when Bambi’s mother got shot. Eventually it became a surprise when parents don’t die in kids movies. We don’t even see her get shot, she just kinda disappears. He is then raised by his father who hadn’t had anything to do with him until that point. The death is never really dealt with. The next scene begins with birds singing. I’m not sure whether the death had a purpose story-wise other than to shock people.

Cinderella: Mother not really mentioned, father dead by the end of the opening narration. Prince Charming only has a father.

Alice In Wonderland: I don’t really lke this movie. It lacks heart. There are no characters that seem to care about eachother. Alice’s family situation is unimportant as she spends the whole movie in a dreamworld. My innocent inner-child absolutly refuses to allow me to buy the idea that it’s drug-induced. The lady we see Alice with at the start of the film may be her mother, sister, other female relative, tutor, babysitter, or family friend. Their relationship is never explained.

Peter Pan: a bunch of runaway kids live in Neverland and barely remember their parents. Shockingly Wendy and her brothers have both their parents and both parents are functional. However, the kids spend most of the movie in a fantasy world where there are no parents. At least there is a song honouring mothers.

Lady and the Tramp: both main characters are dogs and have no parents. Lady is owned by a nice married couple who have a baby and GO ON VACATION ALMOST IMMEDIATLY AFTER THE BABY’S BIRTH! I suspect the only reason the movie involves two parents instead of just one is because Darling getting pregnant is an important plot-point. That and it was partly inspired by Walt giving his wife a puppy for christmas.

Sleeping Beauty: Prince Phillip is raised by a single father. Aurora has both her parents but is raised by three fairies. I am convinced the reason Aurora doesn’t have a single-father family is because the mother needed to be around for the birth celebration, and it would have been awkward to kill her for no apparent reason in the timeskip. They didn’t bother to realistically write the mother character. Maternal instinct dictates she should’ve been waiting by the castle doors to see her chid after sixteen years, but she instead does absolutely nothing in the movie.

101 Damations: a vey big exception to the “let’s not involve parents” rule. The movie is about parents going on a journey to rescue their kids. Of course they run away from their owners to do it, which is sort of like running away frm parents in order to fulfill the mission.

Sword in the Stone: Wart is stated to be an orphan. He doesn’t say how long he’s been an orphan or how it happened. He is studying to be a squire and is semi-adopted by the man he works for. There is no maternal figure to be found in the film. Just a semi-adopted father who sometimes isn’t very nice.

The Jungle Book: Mowgli is found alone in a wrecked boat. There’s no telling what happened to his parents. He’s adopted by a family of wolves. Mama wolf never has a line, papa wolf has a few. After leaving the wolf pack, Mowgli never mentions them again. He spends the rest of the film being taken care of by two male animals. There are few female characters but at least the little elephant has a mother.

The Aristocats: surprisingly we have a single-mother family. Father never mentioned, but the kittens get a new dad by the end of the film.

Robin Hood: One of the first of these where the main character is an adult. No parents mentioned but it doesn’t seem too strange since he’s an adult.

The Rescers: The main characters are adults so the lack of parents isn’t a big deal. The little girl that they have to rescue is another Disney orphan.

The Rscuers Down Under: the little boy has a mother but we never see her.

The Fox and the Hound: Todd’s mother gets shot at the begining of the film. Both fox and hound are orphans. Todd is raised by a widow. Copper has no maternal figure.

the Black Cauldron: two teens with no parents. Taran is apparently raised by some old guy who may or may not be related to him.

The Great Mouse Detective: main character is an adult but the film begins with a very tramuatising scene of the little girl’s father being kidnapped. Nother point for single-father families and another point for tramuatic parental seperation.

Oliver and Company: orphan kitten. Not surprising since it’s based on Oliver Twist. He’s adopted by a little girl so at least we can give a point to maternal figures. The girl who adopts Oliver has parets who are never around. She is looked after by a male butler. I give half a point to single father families.

The Little Mermaid: Single-father who is arguably mildly abusive. No mother mentioned. Neither of Prince Eric’s parents are mentioned. In the prequel Ariel’s mother is introduced and then killed off imediatly. The only reason Ariel’s daughter in the sequel has both parents is because it’s a sequel and Disney didn’t want to kill Ariel or her prince.

Beauty and the Beast: single father again. No mother mentioned. Beast’s parents are not mentioned either. There is a sinle-mother family in the form of two minor characters Ms. Potts and Chip. It isn’t explained if Chip has a father or not. Mrs. Potts may or may not be married to one of the other servants.

Aladdin: parents? what parents? Alladin meets hs father in one of the sequels and explains that hs mother died when he was a kid. The original script gave him a mother but the story wasn’t working so they got rid of her. Jasmine, of course, has a single father.

The Lion King: Simba has both parents but only the father is involved in the story. After the father dies, Simba runs away. Scar gets him to run away by telling him his mother will be disappointed in him. After running away from home, Simba is raised by two male characters.

Pocahantas: Single-father again. This time the mother is mentioned and can be considered a character in the movie because her spirit is in the wind. John Smith has no family and says he’s never belonged anywhere.

Hunchback of Notre Dame: Quasimodo’s mother is killed ONSCREEN! we actually SEE her die. He is raised by an evil man. Esmerelda’s family isn’t mentioned.

Hercules: SHOCKING EXCEPTION TO THE TREND! he has two functional sets of parents all still living at the end of the film. His fathers play more of a role than hs mothers though. No parents mentioned for Megara.

Mulan: Another exception to the trend, Mulan has two parents and a grandmother. However, Shang gives us another example of a single-father family. And his father dies by the end, so points to the parental sacrafice trend.

Tarzan: Three of Tarzan’s parents die by the end of the film. His biological parents are killed by a leopard at the begining and his adoptive father is shot at the end. His adoptive mother still lives though. Jane has yet another trademark single-father family.

Emperor’s New Groove: Kuzco’s parents were probably murdered by Yzma. Surprisingly Pacha is the patriarch of an “average” family with 2.5 children (his wife is pregnant).

Atlantis: Milo gets double points for being an orphan and raised by a single father (in this case his grandfather). Kida has a single father. Her mother was taken by the giant crystal thingy. Right before her father dies, he explains that the crystal thingy takes people to stay strong. Possible in-joke explaining why all these parents are being sacraficed at the great Disney alter? I doubt it but i enjoy reading it that way.

Lilo and Stitch: Stich is in the same situation as Pinnochio, he was created by a male and never had a mother. Lilo is being raised by her sister. Her parents are implied to have died in a car accident caused by malfunctioning winsheild wipers. AT least she is being raised by a maternal figure.

Treasure Plannet: shockingly this involves a single-mother family. And the father didn’t die, he just left.

Brother Bear: three brothers with no parents mentioned. Our main protagonist murders the mother of our secondary character.

Home on the Range: no parents but then the characters are adults.

Chicken Little: sinlge father family. Mother is shown in a picture. It isn’t explained how she died, nor does it seem all that important to mention her at all. She is simply mentioned to be dead and it has no bearing on the story. It’s one of Disney’s trademarks.

Meet The Robinsons: Lewis grows up at an orphanage but hs parents aren’t dead. He is the child of a teenager who got pregnant and couldn’t take care of him so she left him at the orphanage. Wilbur has both his parents, one of them is Lewis from the future.

Bolt: the dog doesn’t have parents. The little girl has a single mother but plays a character who has a single father. Best of both worlds.

Princess and the Frog: surprisingly her father gets killed off near the beginning and not her mother. Her father is still the important one story-wise. Naveen has both his parents but they’ve kicked him out so he’ll start looking after himself and stop being a spoiled brat.

Tangled: Rapunzel is raised by a very abusve maternal figure she thinks is her mother. She finds her real parents at the end and they are given little personality, so we can ascribe any personality we wish to them. Eugene grew up in an orphanage.

TinkerBell series: this is set in Neverland so of course there are no parents. Fairies are born from a baby’s first laugh.

Enchanted: I have no idea where Giselle came from, she just lives in a cottage with a bunch of animals. It’s anybody’s guess how long she’s been there and how she got there. Edward has a wicked stepmother, his parents are probably dead since him getting married will automattically take the crown away from the stepmother. Little Morgan is being raised by yet another single father but surprisingly her mother isn’t dead, she just left the family. Robert has been dating Nancy for five years and Morgan is six years old, so Morgan’s deadbeat mother left when she was a baby.

Mary Poppins: the children have both their parents but neither of them around much. The kids spend most of their time with nearstrangers. Mary Poppins’ entire goal in the movie is to convince the parents to take their own kids out to fly a kite instead of leaving it to others to spend time with them. Yes, the plot is resolved by Mr. Banks taking his kids to fly a kite.

The Parent Trap: Single parent families, the movie. The incrediby messed up parents get divorced and each take one child. For eleven years they each never let their kid know they have another kid somewhere. Each one is a good enough parent that it feels weird they show no interest in knowing how he other kid is doing. Each kid wants to know their other parent, instead of beig upset by the abandonment. They switch places and hatch a scheme to get the parents back together. The servants, grandfather, and dog, figure out the ruse before the parents do. Someday the kids will be tramuatised by the realisation their parents were the ones who didn’t know them well enough to figure out than an entirely dfferent kid came back from camp.

Pirates of the Carribean series: every major character who has parents mentioned at all have single- father familes. This includes Jack, Will, Elizabeth, and Angelica. Some of those fathers die by the end too.

Most other Disney movies (animated or live-action)with few exceptions: the main character is raised by either a single mother or a single father. Or have no parents, like Wreck-It-Ralph. the only exceptions that coe to mind are Highschool Musical, where we never see Troy’s mother, and The Haunted Mansion, which is a more honest exception.

Pixar has less parental deaths but Finding Nemo is a notable example of one where a mother is killed off at the beginning

Well known Non-Disney movies:

Land Before Time: mother dies, raised by grandparets. he meets his father in movie #10. All his friends appear to have single-parent families by the end of the series.

Puss-in-Boots: orpahns

Spy Kids: parents get kidnapped and are also seperated from the kids in the sequels. At least none of them die.

Shrek: Shrek’s parents aren’t mentioned. Surprisingly, Fiona has both parents but her father dies by the end of the series.

Ice Age: i’m not entirely sure but i think a mother dies in that one.

Examples from non-children stories (by which i mean mostly teen-young adult. i’m only twenty-one years old):

Dawson’s Creek: filled with ridiculously uninvolved parents.

Charlie Bartlett: single mother. father in prison.

Harry Potter: parents die at the beginning. raised by uncaring aunt and uncle. At least Ron has both parents.

Hunger Games: Katniss and Gale both have dead fathers, part of the reason they have to look after themselves. Katniss’s mother is also partly insane. Peeta’s mother is abusive (at least this averts the all-too-prominent assumption that women can’t abuse men). His father is a nice guy but one presumes the abusive mother is why Peeta chooses to live away from his famiy in the second book. His family all die in the third book.

Ender’s Game: Like Hunger Games, the premise is kind of about kids being seperated from their parents. Ender mentions his mother a little but mostly misses his sister more than his parents. Bean has lived on the streets all his life but finds his parents in the end.

Star Wars: Anakin seperated from his  single mother. Luke’s guardians die. He finds his father later but barely thinks of his mother. Leia’s parents are also killed off quickly. Padme has parents, there was going to be scenes of her introducing them to Anakin, but they were cut out of the film because, who needs parents?

Twilight: as i aready mentioned, at least Edward aand Bella both have functional parents. However, Bella lives with only her father and i suspect part of the reason is because it saves the trouble of having to write two parents (not really a criticism of Twilight, since a lot of stories do this). It also provides a reason for Bella to move from Phoenix to Forks.

Save the Last Dance: simmilar set-up to Twilight. Girl moves from her mother’s home to her father’s and meets a boy. The difference is this time, like in many of the Disney examples, the mother dies at the beginning.

Breakfast Club: all dysfunctional parents.

Now let’s discuss reasons why coming of age stories insist on doing this. First of all most Disney movies are adaptations and have it this way because it was like this in the original story. So the question is why does coming-of-age fiction in general do this.There is a concept i learned in a introductory Folklore class where during transitional ceremonies, a person goes through a period where they are seperated from one stage of life then they go thrgh a ceremoy ad then they re-enter society. An example of this is a graduation ceremony where a person is in transition, not quite a student or a graduate. The idea of a coming-of-age story is to seperate the protagonist from the life they had before, put them through a series of tests, and then let the settle into their new state of being. If you’ve ever looked up Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, you find that a hero’s journey is usually divided into departure, initiation, and return. Many storytellers feel that to make a character grow, seperation from parents is required. In real life, this is part of the idea of going to college. But does it have to happen in every story? I despise Twilight but if it were well-written it would be a good story of transition from childhood and living under a parent’s roof to marriage and parenthood without having to ever forcibly seperate Bella from her parents. And in eal life, not everybody feels a need to live away from their parents in college to become independant.

Of course there are some stories where the parental seperation is necesarry. Ender’s Game has a plot that is very dependant upon kids, especially Ender, having no contact with their families. Harry Potter would not get into the dangerous situations he does if he were worried about the effect it wuld have on his caring parents. A lot of the examples I have given have plot points that rquire parental blood sacrafice. The death of Anakin’s mother is one of the reasons he turns evil. Sometimes adventure simply requires independance and not having someone to look after the character.

Another reason for the abundance of single parent families is that it is more efficent and economical. If Bella lived with both parents, every scene where she interacts with her father would be lengthened by having to consider the mother too. If all the Disney movies had two parent familes, they would all require someone to write and animate another character. It is just easier to tell a story where only one parent is involved where possible. Some stories need both parents but others, for instance The Little Mermaid, the story only requires one parent and it is easier to just have one. In Twilight, Bella has both parents and both are significant in her life but for parts of the story that only require one parent, her father fills the role on his own.

The reason this is done even in movies where it does not need to be is because it has become tradition. Another possible reason is much darker. They do it to mess with us. They know parental seperation is a deep-seated fear people, especially children, have. They also know it is a reality most people will face eventually. I think that deep down we need to be messed with. We need fiction to show us what we fear and in some twisted way we want it. That’s my interpertation anyway. This my second post implying I have a masochism when it comes to my fiction. Am I weird? Of course most stories involve suffering, I can’t be the only one who likes it.

Pixar, even though they made Finding Nemo, are not so fanatical about this parental seperation thing. They’ve actually done two films with realistic two-parent families: The Incredibles and Brave. One of my favourite things about Brave is the very realistically portrayed family. Merida gets aong well with her father and shares laughs with him, he does things her mother, Elinor, disapproves of, but he tries not to take sides when she gets into disagreements with Elinor. Merida gets along with her younger brothers but thinks they get away with too much, this is how older siblings usually feel about younger siblings. They do favours for her but sometimes need to be bribed to do it. They like her but also like to pick on her. The center of the film is Merida’s relationship with her mother, Elinor. Even though the two have such a hard time communicating, they are able to predict eachother’s words and actions so well that there is a scene where Elinor imagines a conversation with Merida by talking to her husband, while Merida imagines a conversation with Elinor by talking to a horse. They are able to predict eachothers word exactly as if it were a face-to-face conversation. They now eachother so well yet still have trouble understanding eachother. Elinor genuinly wants what is best for Merida, unlike, say, Mother Gothel in Tangled. To ELinor arranged marriage desn’t seem that terrible, she is in an arranged marriage herself and isn’t unhappy. Merida wants more freedom and less responsibilities and is not completely opposed to getting married, just wants to be ready for it on her own time. She doesn’t dislike her mother, just finds her a little too overbearing. All of the family relationships in this movie are very realistic. The most realistic i think i’ve ever seen in a movie.

say, wanna hear about a really good christmas movie that you probably haven’t seen? I swear it’s really good even if you don’t like Barbie. don’t get me started on the Barbie version of A Christmas Carol…………………………………………….