A Disney Must-See: ‘The Invisible Moms’

Among the rites of childhood for millions of young Americans are the many trips to the movie theater with Mom or Dad (usually Mom) for the much anticipated screening of the latest Disney release, or re-release, as the case may be.

This is soon followed by trips to the video store, and probably the toy store too, not to mention the fast-food place that sells plastic Disney miniatures (for a limited time only!) accompanied by the considerably less exciting hamburgers or chicken nuggets or whatever.

(As I write this, a little plastic Jasmine from “Aladdin” is sitting atop her pet tiger, Rajah, on the bookshelf above my office computer. Jasmine wears a midriff top around her ample bosom and a pleasant, yet vacuous look on her face. Rajah appears to have more of an attitude. I just found the two of them in the bottom of my purse, along with an old french fry.)

What I’m saying here is that we parents, at least, seem to know what to expect from Disney’s animated movies. They are rated G. If you send your 6-year-old to a Disney movie with a neighbor, you don’t need to sign a liability waiver first.

There will be no ditsy hookers, a la Julia Roberts in Touchstone Picture’s (a.k.a. Disney’s) “Pretty Woman,” for the kids. Violence, while certainly present, leans heavily toward the school of Dramatic Acts of God.

Basically, we’re talking about the family values thing. Disney’s animated films are wholesome. There’s the battle between good and evil, true love (usually involving princesses or princess wanna-bes), celebrity voices and dynamite visuals. They’re cute, heartwarming and funny.

And they paint women in one of three ways: Strong and evil, gullible and love struck, or utterly forgettable. There’s a fourth option too: Not even there.

Mothers, especially, fall into this last camp. In deconstructing Disney, one has to wonder just what kind of childhood the guys in the studio must have had. Maybe they all use the same therapist. A Freudian, no doubt.

Consider “Aladdin,” the latest Disney animated blockbuster, which more or less follows the classic tale from “The Arabian Nights.” (Robin Williams’ hilarious portrayal of Genie, however, stretches the term “loosely based” to a new height.)

The relevant part of the plot is this. Princess Jasmine, pampered and bored, needs a husband. She doesn’t necessarily want one, but nonetheless seems willing to be married off. Her father, the king, is kind and inept. Her mother is never mentioned at all.

Ditto goes for Belle, in “Beauty and the Beast” and Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.” They are both being raised, as it were, by single dads. None of our heroines (who all get their man in the end) even asks about Mom.

Which, given the Disney alternative, might be just as well. Think of all the evil stepmothers brought to us by the followers of Uncle Walt. Those in “Cinderella” and “Snow White” come to mind.

Naturally, the natural mothers of these two long-suffering beauties are dead. Divorce in a Disney cartoon? Please! These are family shows.

Pinnochio doesn’t have a mother, and of course, Bambi’s goes up in flames. There was an apparently normal mother in “101 Dalmatians,” but most people would be hard-pressed to remember who she was. It’s the wicked Cruella De Vil, who lusts after a Dalmatian coat, who steals the show.

Oh, there was a mother in “Dumbo.” She loved her baby elephant with the big ears. When others laughed at him, she protected Dumbo. She was nurturing and good. And “hysterical,” of course. She was locked up and her son was taken away.

Other examples abound. Sorry, guys, this is not about being politically correct. This is about trying to ensure that children, and their parents, come away with a more balanced portrayal of half the human race.

A spokesman for Disney Studios in Burbank says that, really, they are working on it. He notes that the original fairy tales from which many Disney films are adapted are even worse.

And while conceding that “there does seem to be a trend” of dissing mothers, he says that their absence from the screen is “purely coincidental.” Most of the studio’s screenwriters are men, although Linda Woolverton wrote the screenplay for “Beauty and the Beast.”

Disney needs more women screenwriters, the spokesman says.

Speaking of “Beauty and the Beast,” just once I’d like to see a man in one of these stories who falls for a woman who doesn’t resemble Barbie in the least. Why is it that the women are forever kissing frogs or overlooking everything from hairy ears to terminal stupidity to fall in love with what a man has in his heart?

I know the answer, of course.

Yo, fellas, just try walking in our shoes for a change. Perhaps some spike heels, in a size too small, would be nice. I mean, for a start. . . .