Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Dissecting Disney Part 1

A couple days ago I was bored out of my mind and decided to waste a little time on YouTube. I soon found myself watching a clip called “Disney’s Top Scariest Scenes”. As each clip played, the man who made the video commentated in the background to give us some context for each film, and to explain his reasoning for assigning that particular clip that number. A few were shown that I had forgotten about since my childhood years, but number one truly caught my attention.

It was the last scene in the movie Fantasia, where in my mind from what I could remember, was the big black bat guy, ghosts, fire and creepy music. The moment the clip started I got chills, reminiscing in my fear as a little girl watching it in the 90s.
As I watched the Fantasia clip, the dude started explaining the scene in the background and what he said made my jaw drop. Here’s a summary of what the clip is really about:
Chernabog, the midnight devil god, summons evil restless spirits and demons from their graves to save them from Hellfire and watches them perform dances in his honor, before he turns around and throws them right back into Hellfire to watch them writhe and suffer. The evil god is finally driven away by the sound of an Angelus bell, or church bell; the scene ends with monks travelling up the mountainside to their church to worship.
All I have to say is WOW.
I remember loving the movie Fantasia because it was colorful, it was vibrant, the music was fun to listen to, but there were a few scenes that scared me. This one was no exception, but it mostly confused me. It scared me for obvious reasons but when you’re five, you don’t understand the concept of conjuring demons and Hellfire.
This is a great example showing how we need to be careful about what we watch and we need to understand what exactly it is that we are watching. I’d say I turned out okay; I’m not trying to conjure up spirits or anything, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was watching a movie portraying demonic activity, Disney or not.
We have to keep a close eye on the things we allow ourselves to watch or in that context what we allow our kids to watch. We need to give our kids explanations about film, either why we don’t watch a film or tell them from a biblical standpoint what is wrong with a particular scene.
Personally I wouldn’t have a problem letting my kids watch Fantasia; it’s a great movie! But I’d skip that last scene because it shows inappropriate demonic activity that is not good for children to watch, and then proceed to explain to them why we will not watch it.
The directors used great scary music for the scene, but the animation and theme being portrayed could have been more child-appropriate.


Image Copyright kingdomkeepers.wikia.com

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