Disney—a mirror of the times?

Snow White

We own a number of the Disney classics, mostly the ones with damsels in distress (i.e., Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc.,). We currently have seven girls in our home, five who are 11 and under.

We do not allow our girls to watch the more modern princess movies, and for good reason. Of course, not everything even in the older pictures is godly, but considering the slide from the earliest editions to the most recent releases, these films seem to record the slipping of our entire culture from one in which virtuous womanhood and manhood was truly celebrated to one in which virtue and integrity are derided or thought to be "archaic".

Here are a number of adjectives which describe the princess Snow White, released in 1937: kind, sweet, demur, serving, giving, caring, lovely, and good.

Disney's princess Cinderella, released in 1950, can be described as a kind, sweet, patient in tribulation, hopeful, cheerful, hard working, a lovely young woman.

The Prince meets Sleeping Beauty

In Sleeping Beauty, released in 1959, it is the prince which is showcased by being dashing, manly, strong, courageous, self-sacrificing, conquering evil, loyal, and committed.

Flash forward to the present—the heroines are rebellious, saucy, sarcastic, bossy, sexy, brazen, conniving, narcissistic, cynical, pagan, and strong. The heroes are clumsy, ignorant, sarcastic, lazy, stupid, and cowardly. There is a modern view of redemption in these films—ultimately, after being drug through all sorts of negative attitudes and behaviors.

After viewing Snow White, I feel cheered and somehow more hopeful. Although there is more humor in the newer films, the sweetness has vanished, and so has the hope. The earliest of the Disney princess movies was done in an America still influenced by the blessed Gospel of Christ. Altruism could be displayed on the screen and believed because similar individuals existed in real life, in the parents and grandparents who had weathered the Great Depression, then WWII and Korea with Biblical codes that caused us to be liberators from the hands and schemes of tyrants and mad men.

John Hancock

If the media of our age is any indication of the feelings and mores of our present society, then we should be indeed melancholy. What is there left to believe in, to hope for? The youth of today must become cynical in order to survive. There are no heroes left—we have purposely tarnished the memories of those we used to admire. It's no wonder we can elect a president with neither the skills nor the scruples to occupy the highest office in the land. In our hunger for a hero, in ignorance of what a real one really looks like, we fell for a traveling medicine-man, offering a panacea of "hope and change".

Jesus Christ is the only Way, the only Truth, the only Life (refer to John 14:6). No matter how they have tried to rewrite history, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been the catalyst that brought mankind out of barbarism and has elevated both men and women. It is His supreme sacrifice and holy, surrendered life that gives us all hope. By the Holy Spirit we may each, imperfectly, reflect God the Father's Kingdom on earth.

Bonding time for mother & daughter

And, yes, there are still heroes and heroines—I meet them on the Internet every day, all over the world. We are standing when we have been told to bow. We are taking back our children and our homes. We are teaching them to be virtuous, moral, loyal and self-sacrificing people. We are changing the way we view scholarship and science. Just as Daniel and his companions astounded the eunuch by prospering because they lived by God's principles, we are astounding the watching world as God is blessing us in spite of the difficulties we each face.

More than the mere noise of voices, we speak with our very lives.