zelda_queen | Top Five Promoted Disney Protagonists (Reply)

Hello I'm ZeldaQueen, and if there's snark, I'll take it!

In one of my previous reviews, I brought up Disney's habit of taking neutral or good characters and turning them into unrepentant villains. Now, it seems only fair that we take a look at how things are the other way around. Given the times and cultures the source materials sprang up in, it stands to reason that Disney would try to...erm clean up the morality issues. Let's take a look at the top five characters that Disney promoted to heroes. Why top five? Deal with it.

Number Five...

Pinocchio from...uh, Pinocchio

Way up there in Disney animated cannon, Pinocchio was one of the first full-length films done that didn't feature a sparkly princess (let us just ignore the Blue Fairy). Instead, we got the titular Pinocchio, a wooden puppet who could walk, talk, sing, and dream of being a real boy. And damned if he doesn't go through all sorts of crazy hijinks and adventures, which probably permanently scarred most of the youthful audience. Yeah, don't pretend you don't remember that one scene.

In the book, Pinocchio got into plenty of shenanigans. Unlike his movie-self though, his adventures were a good bit more mean-spirited. Take, for example, the cheerful talking cricket who tries to warn Pinocchio about the dangers of children disobeying their parents. His response? To throw a shoe at the cricket and squash it. Yes, he kills Jimminy Cricket, albeit by accident. It doesn't help that the book goes into a lot of detail about the difficulties of poverty, making a lot of Pinocchio's actions (for example, skipping class and selling his books to go see a puppet show, after Geppetto sacrificed everything to get him into school) that much worse.

And, of course, there was the totally fun original ending of the story, in which Pinocchio was hung as the ultimate punishment for his selfishness and idiocy. It was only at his editor's suggestion that the author continued the story and gave Pinocchio a chance to grow to be a better person.

Pinocchio - the real boy was a real idiot.

Number Four...

"Classic" Disney Royalty

Okay, so I'm cheating a little on this one, but it's still worth bringing up. The retellings of fairy tales are pretty much a staple of Disney movies, with the sparkly princesses and good-looking guys who were probably designed more for the parents' fantasies than those of the children. Not only that, but these are impossibly good guys. Who would even think of any of these fine folk swearing, cheating on each other, or doing harm to anyone other than the bad guy? Plus...sparkly!

In the story... hoo boy, where to start? Depending on which versions you look at and how far back you go, chances are you'll strike upon fun stuff like pedophilia, necrophilia, rape, and incest. Snow white was supposed to be about eleven when she was carried off by the prince, and only after he decided her unrotting corpse was gorgeous and wanted to keep it for a novelty coffee table or something, I don't know. Sleeping Beauty was raped in her sleep by her prince and only awoke after he left and she gave birth to twins, who sucked out the piece of spindling wheel still in her finger. And Rapunzel was knocked up by her prince, who apparently couldn't be bothered to tell her what that entailed, given that it was such a surprise that she was having trouble fitting into her old dresses. And this is all for starters.

And don't think the ladies get off scot-free either -

Now to be fair, this is all values dissonance. When stories are written in in a time when women were married off quickly and were expected to be obedient to their husbands, those stories were probably downright romantic. Still, it's not very difficult to see why Disney would opt to...erm tidy it up a bit.

The Disney royalty - man alive, but they were royally messed up!

Number Three...

Phoebus

In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney tells a moving story about three people who are, or ultimately become, outcasts and fight the corrupt rule of Frollo to bring freedom and equality back to Paris. It also has possibly one of the most scarry-ass songs in Disney movie history.

In the book... hooo boy, where to begin? For starters, Phoebus was far from the heroic Good Cop character shown in the movie. In fact, Phoebus in the book was a complete and utter douchebag. He was already engaged, but is fine with taking advantage of Esmeralda's naivety and have a fling with her. Oh, and he cheerfully stands by and does nothing while Esmeralda is executed for his murder. Even though he could have saved her by pointing out the very obvious fact that he wasn't dead. Yes.

Of course, this was completely intentional on Victor Hugo's part. A huge part of the book was subverting traditional literary roles, and thus the seeming knight in shining armor is completely amoral. Like with the previous example, values dissonance simply made a rewrite of the character necessary. And at least they were kind enough to make the Phoebus of the movie pretty fun.

Phoebus - from jackass to badass.

Number Two...

Hercules

Disney's Hercules can be summed up as the Heroes Journey set in Ancient Greece. Hercules is the adorkable child of Zeus and Hera, de-deified and adopted by human parents because of a convoluted plot. In spite of being picked on by many idiots who think taunting a guy with super-strength is a fine idea, Hercules goes the distance, proves his worth, becomes a great hero, and hooks up with a woman who sounds uncannily like Belle on Broadway.

Anyone the least bit familiar with Greek mythology will already have some idea what Hercules was originally like. While he's probably best known for the Twelve Labors a lot of people will also throw in the lovely detail that he did the Labors as penance for killing his wife (Megara, y'know the woman he's cuddling with in the above picture?) and children.

Now granted, the murders were a result of insanity as brought on by Hera. Killing his centaur host? Not so much. Yes, at some point during the Labors (different sources place the story at different points), Hercules is given shelter and food by a kindly centaur named Pholus. Hercules, being the stubborn ass he is, insists on dipping into the Communal Centaur Booze Supply, which causes the rest of the centaurs to show up and get pissed over someone having wine without them, and one thing leads to another and Hercules ends up having to shoot them all with poisoned arrows. He apparently doesn't think to warn Pholus about the arrows, because the centaur proceeds to accidentally cut himself with one while examining it, and is poisoned to death. According to some sources, Chiron, was also hit and, thanks to immortality, was condemned to an eternity of being in agonizing pain. Well done, Hercules!

Of course, that's the Twelve Labors. Hercules got up to quite a few other adventures. After killing Megara, he won a contest that netted him the hand of one Princess Iole. Her father and brothers refused to go along with that idea, so Hercules killed all of them before abducting Iole. The only family member he spared was her brother Iphitus, who ended up becoming Hercules's friend. Because nothing makes for a good friendship like watching a guy kill your family and kidnap your sister.

Hercules - He went the distance from asshole to hero.

And the Number One Promoted Disney Protagonist Is...

Mary Poppins, from Mary Poppins

Okay, seriously, who isn't familiar with one of Julie Andrews' most iconic roles? Sweet, comforting, and practically perfect in every way, Mary Poppins was the nanny everyone wished they had. Heck, even if you didn't need a nanny, you probably wished she was yours! And she was magical to boot! So not only could she spontaneously break out into song and dance and give you a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, she could take you jumping into paintings and dancing on rooftops. What's not to like?

In the books, Mary Poppins was still an awesome nanny with magic powers, and she was a good person. She was far more strict however, and really vain to boot. Far from being seen as exclusively benevolent, a number of characters considered her quite terrifying. Well-versed in pretty much every kind of fantasy and magical element imaginable, she actually could be considered near-omnipotent.

Disney's changes, incidentally, did not go unremarked upon by author P. L. Travers, who infamously hated the movie for making Mary Poppins too sweet. The only way she'd let the stage production be made was on the condition that no one involved in making the movie was a part of making the stage show.

Mary Poppins - Not as "practically perfect" as you may think.

And those are my top five promoted Disney protagonists! I'm ZeldaQueen and remember, there are no more heroes!

... Wait a minute.

Note: All movies mentioned are property of Disney. I do not own any of the pictures used. They are the property of P.L. Travers, Carlo Collodi, Victor Hugo, and Disney.

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