10 Dark Disney Moments
Disney’s got quite a track record of rewriting history, literature
and myth, with rainbows, butterflies and musically gifted woodland
creatures. They’ve taken Grimm’s wicked stepsisters and instead of
hacking off their toes to fit a silver slipper, they’ve given one
stepsister a sequel in which she finds herself a nice baker boy and the
other one a backstory. The Little Mermaid, instead of dissolving into
mist and spray, marries the prince, and lives happily ever after in his
kingdom by the sea. Disney’s Hercules becomes a god when he puts the
life of another above his own, where the mythological Heracles becomes a
god when he begs to be set on fire to end the pain of being tangled in a
poisoned shirt. Although these Disney tales have their happily ever
after, other Disney films have taken a darker turn. Although there are
plenty more, here are ten such dark Disney moments.
10
Bambi
Bambi’s Mother Dies
The death of Bambi’s mother is a quintessential moment in dark Disney
moments. She dies midway through the movie, horrifically, after we’ve
gotten a chance to know her, after we’ve seen her raise Bambi and taught
him the ways of the forest. A harsh winter follows a scant summer, and
one day, when they’re out in the meadow grazing, she senses danger.
There are hunters in the woods. Bambi’s mother tells him to run, to not
turn back, and to keep running. They sprint. There’s the sharp crack of
gunfire. When Bambi has made it safely back to the thicket, he turns,
gleefully saying, “We made it, Mother.” There’s nobody but him. Alone,
snow falling, he searches for his mother. He calls out for her, but
there’s only silence. Later, he is told that she could no longer be with
him.
9
Pinocchio
Becoming a Real Boy
Pinocchio is the story of the puppet that becomes a real boy. The
trials he goes through to become a real boy are insane and trying: he is
kidnapped by con artists, made to work in a puppet show lest he be
thrown into a fire and escapes only to find himself on Pleasure Island,
an island where boys who “make jackasses of themselves” turn into
literal donkeys and are sold to work in the salt mines and circuses.
After escaping from Pleasure Island, he is swallowed by the giant whale
that also swallowed Geppetto, his maker, who had been venturing out to
rescue Pinocchio from Pleasure Island. They enrage the whale with their
efforts to escape, and Pinocchio sacrifices himself to save Geppetto.
The Blue Fairy, seeing his selflessness, brings him back to life and
finally, turns him into a real boy.
8
Mulan
“How many messengers does it take?”
It feels like a minuscule moment in a film about warfare, and I’m
sure there are darker ones, but this short scene in Mulan always
surprises me with its cruelty. Two Imperial scouts have been captured by
Shan-Yu, the Hun leader, who gives them a message to take back to the
Emperor of China. As they run away, Shan-Yu asks one of his comrades how
many messengers it takes to deliver a message. Drawing back his arrow,
his comrade answers, “One.” It’s not something I caught until rewatching
it years later, but it’s so striking to see now, the way human life is
treated so insignificantly between the two sides.
7
The Fox and the Hound
Copper Hunts Tod
In the beginning, The Fox and the Hound feels like a charming,
old-timey film about the way friendship transcends, but somewhere in the
third act the story takes a sharp turn. Copper’s mentor Chief, gets hit
by a train in a mishap caused by Tod. Copper vows to “get him.”
Copper’s owner, Slade, sets traps, and soon, Tod is backed up in a
burrow with fire on one end and Slade and Copper on the other. Tod leaps
through the fire. Copper catches up with him. They clash, swiping at
each other, snapping and howling, all remnants of their childhood
friendship forgotten. Tod manages to escape when a black bear appears,
and Copper rushes to defend Slade. But then, Tod turns back. He sees his
old friend in distress, and lures the red-eyed bear down a rushing
waterfall. The ending that follows is surprisingly adult and achingly
bittersweet. Tod and Copper are in their respective homes. An old
conversation plays—“We’ll always be friends forever, won’t we?” says
Tod. “Yeah,” replies Copper. “Forever.”
6
Lilo & Stitch
“We’re a broken family, aren’t we?”
The darkness in Lilo & Stitch is a very different kind of
darkness than in other Disney movies, but still so significant and not
to be overlooked. This darkness is about the hurt of a disjointed
family, a broken family as Lilo says. After a comic, but ultimately
disastrous visit from a social worker, Nani must prove that she is fit
to care for her younger sister, Lilo. After she hears Lilo praying on a
shooting star for a friend, she decides to get Lilo a pet. That
pet—Stitch—turns out to be an alien. More disasters ensue with Stitch at
the center of many of them. The social worker returns, telling Nani
that the best option for Lilo might be one without her. That night,
Stitch, seeing the trouble he has caused, leaves. Lilo tells him, “I’ll
remember you; I remember everybody who leaves.” At its core, Lilo &
Stitch is about loneliness, finding a place to fit in, about needing
companionship and the families we create. Lilo & Stitch shows that
sad, human darkness starkly, honestly, and sincerely.
At this point of the film, Clayton’s motivations have been revealed.
He plans to capture the gorillas and sell them in England, a task much
easier with Tarzan out of the way. Clayton shoots Kerchak, a fatal
wound, and Tarzan goes after a maniacal Clayton along the rainforest
roof. After some struggling, Tarzan wrestles the gun away from Clayton,
and has it pressed against his throat. Clayton dares Tarzan to shoot
him, telling him to be a man. Instead, Tarzan destroys the gun, tossing
it to the jungle floor. Clayton pulls out his machete and follows Tarzan
across the vines, but in trying to slash Tarzan, he cuts away at the
vines holding himself up. He cuts all but one—the one wound against his
neck. There’s a short drop and a sudden stop. Against a flash of
lightning, there’s a shadow—Clayton’s lifeless, hanging figure.
4
The Lion King
Mufasa’s Death
A surprising number of Disney movies have main characters with dead
parents or parents who simply aren’t there. In early Disney movies,
their absences were rarely mentioned and never explained. There was Snow
White’s missing parents and Belle and Ariel’s missing mothers. In The
Lion King, Simba has both his parents, but his father’s most climatic
moment is his death. Not only is Mufasa’s death during the length of the
film, not simply mentioned in passing or in exposition, but on screen,
and Simba is made to understand that he is responsible for that death.
Mufasa’s murder is conniving, cold-hearted, and at the hand of Scar, his
brother, who immediately drives Simba to run away and subsequently sets
hyenas to kill him. In the end, justice is served—Scar dies, and it is
bolstered by Simba’s actions. And of course, there is Simba’s iconic
Forever Alone moment, the subject of a thousand memes, when he, crying,
crawls under his dead feather’s arm.
This song takes place at the height of the film under circumstances
that have cause to be on this list individually—the natives and the
settlers on the cusp of war, Ratcliffe’s outright greed and racism
compelling the settlers to march to battle, Powhatan seeking retribution
for the death of Kocoum, Smith being led to execution. The intensity of
lyrics like “what can you expect from filthy little heathens/here’s
what you get when races are diverse/their skin’s a hellish red/they’re
only good when dead” and “behind that milky hide/there’s emptiness
inside/I wonder if they even bleed” are incredibly compelling for the
first Disney film to deal openly with racism and imperialism, and
although this story gets a happy ending of its own, there’s still a
darkness and urgency in this song number that is unknown to other Disney
films.
2
Hunchback of Notre Dame
“Hellfire”
Like “Savages”, “Hellfire” is a villain song that touches on Disney
taboos. Instead of racism, imperialism and war however, these Disney
taboos are sensuality, sex and rape—a far more forbidden fare for
Disney. Judge Frollo, having just watched Esmeralda perform essentially a
pole dance and subsequently save Quasimodo from his punishment, is
aroused and infuriated by her in equal parts, a scary combination.
Consumed by lust, he seeks her out in the only way he knows how—by
asking her to “choose me or your pyre.” Under the cloak of Tony Jay’s
haunting voice, with lyrics like “destroy Esmeralda/and let her taste
the fires of hell/or else let her be mine and mine alone” and to imagery
that conveys the fierceness and fearsomeness of religion, “Hellfire” is
a song of impending doom and a sad judge’s sexual frustration.
1
The Black Cauldron
Everything
Considered Disney’s darkest animated motion picture, The Black
Cauldron is the story of Taran, a young boy with dreams of heroism, who
must find and destroy an enchanted black cauldron before the Horned King
can use it to raise an army of the undead. The Black Cauldron was the
first Disney animated feature to be rated PG for dark and violent
images, one of which must have been the Horned King. Modeled after Satan
in both temperament and appearance, the Horned King was a figure of
calculated, unrelenting evil. Under his dark cloak, he was nothing more
than a horned skeleton with glowing red eyes. The set too, was a
frightening picture—a crumbling castle littered with rotted corpses, the
dungeon where Taran is held early in the movie, a dank cellar where
those of Cauldron born rise from the waters. As a whole, The Black
Cauldron is a chilling and deeply unsettling movie, a well-deserved end
to my list of dark Disney moments.
