Does anyone remember seeing private body parts in the “older” Disney movies that were drawn by hand? You know, Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Dumbo, etc. I had heard rumors that there were “veiled references” to certain “things” (don’t know what those things were) in the scripts but I never heard of actual drawings that would be considered inappropriate. Anybody know anything?
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What actually happened is that the 80s and in particular Little Mermaid was when the AFA warned everyone of the problem and began by using contemporary examples. That's really when the nationwide hunt began. Since then the examples have only increased.
It's probable that the penile structure in the Mermaid cover art was intentional on the just-deniable level, just like that on the Minnie gift card. When zealots accused the minister in the movie of having an erection, though, you can look closely and tell it's just a very caricatured kneecap because it matches his other kneecap. So a grain of salt needs to be used with sightings.
I had to research this one to get it right: Rescuers 1977 was a definite porn photo (not cartoon) insertion into two disparate cels, but that was not discovered until the 1999 VHS release, and the story was that it was done in the 70s by an outside postproduction entity, and that it didn't appear in the earlier VHS release because that was a diferent print (Snopes). Even though they announced a recall of 3 million copies 3 days after release, that's about the time when you can publicly say Disney wasn't serious about a problem it should have known about. They had already had a policy going all the way back of looking at every single frame. Before that Disney was just a kooky fed shill, but after that you can begin to pin moral complicity on them.
Exactly. It seems the change came when computers started being used. The first movie i heard about having sexual content was Jessica Rabbit. Also computer generated.
Agree. Grew up in the 80’s and had every Disney VHS. I did a project in “illustrators” and pointed out the dick in one of the towers on the cover of The Little Mermaid to my teacher.
Not sure about images in the old movies, but some of them have prominent messages that could cut either way. For example, Peter Pan can be seen as a pure fantasy for kids who don't want to grow up, but it can also be seen (if you're a sicko) as veiled instructions for how to groom kids away from their parents and give them alibis about sneaking away from their homes at night. The original author of the book, James Barrie (?), was well-known as a pedophile. You could describe Alice in Wonderland in much the same way. I don't want to deconstruct them, but it's not hard to do. Some people say Bambi was intended to make kids angry at their fathers who hunted and killed Bambi's mom: I don't really want to believe it, but if you wanted to corrupt a relatively pure society with domestic division, and especially if the society was not ready for feminism, that might be how you would start.
The first thing I noticed as a kid was that every Disney family was dysfunctional, usually the dad's fault. They had a penchant for properties that always pushed boundaries (Barrie and Dodgson and Kipling). Then it became clear that half of them were witch stories too. It went downhill from there.
Kipling? "Captain's Courageous", "If---", "Take Up the White Man's Burden" Kipling? Was he a messed up guy?
Jungle Book; also Just So Stories was messed up and evolutionary; also Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is scheduled for Disney 2027.
We just watched the original Pollyanna and they were quoting Scripture.
yes, I grew up in 70s/80s and remember lots of innuendo in old movies. even had to learn about it in college psychology; how advertisers used subliminal messaging/hidden images involving sex; like it was just how the world operates/we had to deal with it.
Yeah but mostly in the hand drawn ones not the computer generated as far as “showing” things compared to “nuanced speech”.
Toy story has a scene where the shadow is of (presumably) the mother going down on the father. The toys are looking up at it.
Very subtle, most wouldn't notice if they weren't looking.
The original 7 dwarfs VHS tape had 1 frame of all the dwarfs holding rocket launchers and guns lol
I know when Walt was alive he was kind of a tyrant so that would have been a fireable offense. So I think the shenanigans didn't start til he was gone
There is a single frame in the lion king where leaves swirling in the wind form the word sex. That's the only thing I've seen myself.
I believe the Lion King was digital computerized, not hand drawn.
You're probably right.
I knew about that years ago. Figured it was just animators being weird. But looking back on it now...hoo boy was that a naieve take