Subliminal Disney

After last class, I began thinking again about the subliminal messages that people always bring up (much like I did) when talking about Disney – especially 90s era Disney. They already come under fire for the things that they play up, especially in the princess movies, i.e. having sexuality play a key and major role in finding a man. Also the "cheesecake" poses and posture. They are, in those cases, clearly showing and teaching something. In other cases, there may be times when they're not clearly doing so.

For those who have never heard of or seen these messages, I wanted to post some here on the blog. This definitely could work in support of the argument that shows Disney’s emphasis and focus on sexual situations, but if nothing else, it’s just pretty interesting and also just kind of gross. I didn't think that any of these would be too bad to post on the blog, but be warned - some of them are pretty weird and unsettling if you haven't seen them.

First up! “The Little Mermaid”.

Barring the imagery and plot points that we discussed in class, “The Little Mermaid” seems to have the most sexual of the subliminal messages. Here’s the priest marrying Ariel and Eric at the end of the movie. Notice anything different about the priest?

So. Yeah. There's that.

Now Disney has pointed out that this is actually the priest’s stubby knees under his robes, and in a later scene you can see that this is true. But as you can also see in the picture on the right, Disney changed it for later releases. While that not necessarily be an admission of guilt, it is interesting.

On early copies of “The Little Mermaid” VHS box, there is a pretty definite phallic symbol in the castle behind the characters. Again, Disney said this was an accident and was a result of a “rushed art job”, but they also changed it for later releases. This is one of the most debated subliminal messages out there, probably because when you see the image...it's kind of hard to not see anything else.

Next – “The Lion King”

This was one we discussed in class. Notice what the dust spells as it rises into the air?

Disney says that this is actually supposed to read “SFX” for “sound effects”, but most people are skeptical of this and think that it definitely spells out "sex". Apparently it all came to light when a mother said her young son pointed it out to her when he was watching it.

Last – “The Rescuers”

As Bernard and Bianca are racing across the screen, if you pause the tape (not DVD. Weird, huh?) you can clearly see a painting of a topless woman in the background. Disney doesn’t fight this one – they did a recall of it back in the day and claim that it wasn’t the animators, but some post-production tampering. This one is also pretty hard to defend for Disney. Also, "The Rescuers Down Under" was way better anyway.

Most people are skeptical about these “subliminal messages” and attribute it to people finding what they’re looking for. Whether it was intentional on Disney’s part or not, it is definitely worth thinking about when considering the other sexual things they play up in their films. Could this be something that they added in there thinking no one would notice? Or was it just some animators having fun?