Are there skeletons in this Royal’s closet?

Not sure how this film got into our collection. It was not one that I grew up watching so I know that I didn’t buy it for my kids. Most likely it was one of their grandparents that slipped it in when I wasn’t around. Regardless, The Artistocats has quickly become one of my daughter’s favorite Disney movies. It does, like most Disney movies, have some catchy tunes and fun characters but I must say I get bored a little to quickly with it. That being said, there is one thing that always kind of bugged me. If you don’t know the story, Duchess is a ‘long-haired purebred white Turkish Angora cat‘ who lives with her three kittens and a rich retired opera singer who is slightly mental. I say that because the old woman plans to change her will to leave all her money to her cats when she dies.

Duchess is a single parent. This is not necessarily a major plot point unlike most Disney movies, save for the fact that it opens her up to finding love at the end. However, this fact raises some major questions with me as to who is the father of her three kittens–two of which look nothing like her? Do we need to call Maury? Her daughter, Marie, is the spitting image of her while Toulouse is completely orange and Berlioz is completely black. I am not a cat expert, so I had to do some Googling on this one and I wasn’t pleased with the results. One site I found said that if kittens from the same litter look markedly different, it is often because they have different fathers. Oops! Looks like the cat might be out of the bag for ole’ Duchess. She acts so prim and proper and talks about being a lady when it seems that she might have been on the prowl in the not too distant past. Another theory is that the father could have potentially been a mixed-breed cat which could explain the sibling differences. Yet, I don’t see how Duchess could have encountered such a cat. She is a pure-breed and would most likely only be surrounded by other purebreds for the purposes of breeding. So such an encounter with that type of cat would had to have been on the sly. I mean, she only ends us meeting Thomas O’Malley, ‘The Alley Cat,’ because she is kidnapped. But, who knows? Maybe this wasn’t the first time she had met Mr. O’Malley…Toulouse does bear a striking resemblance to him after all…

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Image & Quote Credit: disney.wikia.com

Why didn’t she leave the country?

Mother Gothel never moves the flower. It makes total sense that she would be worried the transport could have killed the life-giving plant. (Not sure how she kept it growing when it was hidden from the sun under a basket…but that is another post.) Then, the flower becomes a little girl and Mother Gothel immediately springs into action kidnapping the young bud and fleeing to a land far, far away where no one would ever be able to find–wait, she didn’t? She decided instead to take the stolen treasure to a tower in the heart of the forest adjacent to the castle where the kidnapping occurred?!? Sure, it is a secluded glen but Rapunzel can see the lanterns that are launched each year for her from her prison window. That is way too close for comfort. I know all evil villains must have a fatal flaw, but this just seems downright senseless while every other action by this woman is crafty and amazingly cunning. Tricking Rapunzel for 18 years. Manipulating the Wonder Twins. Even breaking into the castle by herself to kidnap her prize. And after all that, she chooses to move across the street? Either this is arrogance or pure stupidity. Looks like Mother doesn’t know best…especially when it comes to real estate.

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So, how did the Beast learn his lesson?

I’ve already discussed how I think the punishment did not fit the crime in regards to the curse placed upon The Beast and his servants. So I won’t go into that again here. (If you want a refresher, read my Enchantress: Beautiful or Terrible post). However, regardless of the fairness of the sentence, the real question is did the Beast learn his lesson? I offer that he couldn’t have. And here is why…first we need to go back one more time to the stained glass prologue that opens the movie. The Beautiful Enchantress disguises herself as a haggard, old woman to perform her test upon the Young Prince. There are two really important adjectives about her that inform us as to the the nature of experiment being conducted: OLD & HAGGARD. From these critical descriptions we must believe that the appearance of the enchantress is of the utmost significance in understanding the nature of the Beast’s heart. He was ‘repulsed’ by her appearance and is even warned by the woman right before he fails that beauty is found ‘within.’ When this doesn’t sway him to see through her unattractiveness, he is cursed with becoming the thing he despises–ugliness. So it would make sense if he is cursed because he can only see beauty on the outside, the way to undo that curse is to be able to look past something that repulses him and see inner beauty, right? Wrong. He simply needs to find someone who is both beautiful on the outside AND the inside and get her to look past HIS ugliness. WHAT? So the the main character flaw that the Beast was being punished for has no bearing on how he finds redemption?Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to say that both lifting the curse and not learning his lesson at the same time would be easy. He may have had to break a few laws like kidnapping and imprisonment and maybe even need to feign innocence by pretending he didn’t remember how to use a spoon. But surely by the time Belle fell for him and lifted the curse, he would be able to see from her shining example how he should treat others? Unfortunately, that makes no sense. I am sure that the Young Prince was a beast to everyone around him long before he was physically turned into one. There were probably numerous people who were able to look past his horrible nature to love him and that never changed his heart back then. So why would this time be any different? Maybe if the Enchantress would have just appeared in her natural blonde-bombshell state and seen past his human-beastliness it would have saved everyone 10 years of pointless cursedness….

 

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Non-Definitive, Completely Biased Ranking of Disney Dads

This post is going to be a little different format from my typical pointless questioning. With Father’s Day just around the corner, it’s got me thinking about being a dad a little more than usual. When it comes to Disney, most of the father examples provided to us are what I would consider lacking. The ones that tend to be the best are often killed off as fast as they are introduced. So when I think about the question of who is the best Disney Dad, I decided it was only best to create a list of 15 Dads and rank them. Why 15? Because Father’s Day is on June 15th this year. (that’s not true…just a happy coincidence.)

(15 Disney Dads ranked Best to Worst)

1. James – The Princess & the Frog
This father is the perfect example of a good dad that is gone too quickly. He pops in, gives some good fatherly advice and then dies a hero. This guy is my number 1 because he doesn’t just talk a good game, the way he lived his life instilled values in his daughter that made her strong & self-sufficient.

2. Marlin – Nemo’s Dad in Finding Nemo
Sure he is over protective but after the loss of his wife and other kids, you can’t blame the guy. Stopping at nothing and facing his fears to find his kid across a whole ocean is definitely commendable. Rapunzel’s dad should’ve watched this movie on how to respond to a lost kid…Oh, and his jokes are terrible. That’s a prerequisite for an awesome dad!

 

3. Pongo – 101 Dalmations
I have to say that Pongo is along the same caliber of dad-ness as Marlin. When his kids are taken, he and his wife do everything in their power to save them. He also is willing to adopt 84 other puppies and raise them as his own. He is dad to the bone. (sorry for that)

 

4. Mufasa – Simba’s Dad in The Lion King
James Earl Jones’s voice can make anything sound more grand than it is.  This fact leads us to believe that Mufasa has this thing parenting down. Most think this dad should be number 1, but I have to disagree. Unfortunately we can see from Simba’s ‘Can’t wait to be King’ song, that he is learning more from Mufasa’s actions than his words.

5. King – Elsa & Anna’s Dad in Frozen
This dad has gotten a lot of slack for isolating Elsa but as I discussed in my previous post, that might not have been the worst idea for the Kingdom’s sake. That said, his isolation actions punish Anna as well and create lots of ‘daddy issues’ that result in an engagement to a scoundrel and the freezing of a kingdom.

6. King Triton – Ariel’s Dad in The Little Mermaid
Not only is he running a Kingdom but also raising six girls on his own. This would be a hilarious 80’s sitcom come to think of it. Triton gets grief for being prejudice against humans but I think we can assume this is well founded. His harsh treatment of his daughter’s fondness of the dark side is a little misguided but can’t fault him too much for it. However, I don’t understand him giving up so easily against Ursula (see post) nor changing his whole belief system regarding humans because of one good encounter with Eric.

7. Fa Zhou – Mulan’s Dad
At the end of the day, this guy is a product of the culture. His treatment of his daughter is based on societal norms. We find it limiting and wrong but that’s because we are looking at it from a western, twenty-first century perspective. So, let’s calm down. Plus, he is the coolest looking bald guy in all Disney movies for sure!

 

8. King Stefan – Sleeping Beauty’s Dad
So he’s willing to not see his daughter for 18 years in order to hide her and keep her safe. Then he has her brought back to the palace the last day BEFORE the curse ends? That’s a mix of amazing fortitude and poor planning. Couldn’t he have had the celebration the next day?

 

 

9. The Great Prince of the Forest – Bambi’s Father
If people don’t even realize that you are Bambi’s father until his mom dies, maybe you are being a little too aloof. This buck’s cold attitude toward Bambi can be seen by many as helping Bambi into manhood…but I think there could be a better way to do it.

 

10. King – Rapunzel’s Dad in Tangled
I give this guy a lot of credit for honoring his lost daughter for 16 years but the rampant security issues in his castle are one of the main contributing factors to his daughter’s kidnapping in the first place. Also, you would hope that if his guards scoured every inch of the countryside they would have come across the tower that held Rapunzel. He really needs to shore up his ship.

11. Aristocrat Widower – Cinderella’s Dad
Points to this guy for understanding the importance of a mother in a young girl’s life. But even more demerits for both being duped by and willingly marrying Lady Tremaine.

12. King – Snow White’s Dad (not pictured)
This guy apparently read from the same playbook as Cinderella’s dad. He’s not even technically in the story, but we know that he was married to Snow White’s mother and then after her death, remarried a smoking hot queen who was evil. If you have kids, you might want to take them into account when choosing a step-mom…

13. Mr Incredible – The Incredibles
For being a super hero, I can’t say that this guy is very extraordinary when it comes to fatherhood. I get that he is in a rut for having to hide his powers, but becoming a father mean sacrificing…it’s just part of the gig. And he doesn’t really get this even at the end. He has his happy ending because he gets to go back to crime fighting. I think it is just icing on the cake that his family is with him.

14. George Darling – Wendy, Michael & John’s Dad in Peter Pan
I don’t think you could consider George a very ‘present’ father. Letting his pre-teen daughter live in a nursery with two younger brothers while a dog serves as nursemaid wouldn’t win him any parenting awards by today’s standards. But what can you expect from a former lost boy right?

And the worst father award goes too……

15. Sultan – Jasmine’s Dad in Aladdin
If you read my previous post on this guy, you probably saw this one coming. Only thing left to say is that while he does choose to allow his daughter to marry for love, he does the opposite of the King in Frozen and potentially sets up his kingdom for ruin. A street rat does not a great ruler make.

I know I haven’t exhausted the Disney dads with this post…that’s why I called it ‘non-definitive’. I may do another one…who did I miss that should have definitely been included in the next 15?

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Image Credit: disney.wikia.com

Didn’t he fall for the wrong sister?

I don’t think fans of the movie Frozen are going to like this question but I am going to ask it anyway. Recent Disney movies have trended towards more character development so I typically hold them to a different standard from their predecessors. When you look at most relationships between Disney Princesses and their Beau’s, all have something in common: true love. They also typically have something else in common: the two love birds have no apparent similar interests besides being in love with the other. Sure, most of these movies are quick snapshots into the lives of these characters and usually feature a flurry of activity like fighting dragons, wicked sorcerers or even snow monsters. These characters are so busy trying to stay alive, they don’t have time to share that they enjoy collecting trash from sunken ships or prefer to eat bugs over meat…yet they somehow fall in love. Now, I get that besting a catastrophic occurrence can bond survivors, but I really don’t understand why when Disney had a chance to pair two characters together who were so obviously a good match, they chose instead to fall back to their old ways. So I ask, why didn’t Elsa & Kristoff get together?

To help solidify the validity of my question, I have put together a few proofs that Disney made the wrong coupling. First, Kristoff is a young man that from birth has been connected with ice. Not sure why as a boy he was working as a ice harvester, but it is something that he apparently both enjoys and excels at enough to stay employed in through early adulthood. And this not just a job for him, it’s his passion! He really loves the stuff. When Kristoff first visits Elsa’s ice castle, he is in a state of euphoria. He sighs and says ‘flawless…I’m gonna cry.’ Then when he is told to wait outside by Anna, he replies ‘oh, come on! It’s a palace made of ice. Ice is my life!’ It’s his LIFE. And although she doesn’t say it in the movie, it’s always been Elsa’s life too even though she hasn’t been able to enjoy it until now. I don’t know of two previous Disney love interests that could say they both shared such an identical affinity for a particular thing like these two do. But, they don’t end up sharing a harrowing ordeal, so of course they could never end up being the other’s true love. It does make me wonder though if Anna transforming into ice at the end had anything to do with securing Kristoff’s affection…I guess that would have one upped the ice dress huh?

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