DISNEY MOVIES - MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL

"The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all," — The Emperor, Mulan.

 "Death is the only adventure you have left!" – Captain Hook, Peter Pan.

Through its series of movies Disney has showed us both sides of the picture. Whether you are 2 or 20, at one point of your life you have watched Disney movies; maybe you have watched Disney movies all your life regardless of your age, and even now chances are if you put a 20 year old in front of the television to watch Peter Pan, he might just turn as giddy as a schoolboy! 

We all know who Mickey Mouse is, who the Fairy Godmother is and we always will; they hold that special place in our hearts that can never be removed. As we grew, we watched the movies grow with us, from The Snow Queen to Frozen and from Sleeping Beauty to Maleficent- they have gone through changes just as our perceptions have. Even though at one time we might have seen them all as a "prince saves princess in distress" somewhere along the way our views and thoughts towards the movies and the characters have developed.  

Disney movies are inspirational; they make us dream of fairy tales and charming princes', they make us enter a world of magic, take us on a ride down memory lane giving us a break from reality. As a child, most of us loved the idea of playing a princess being rescued by prince charming or a prince in a gallant white horse going to save the damsel in distress, but with time that changed. Today, most of us realise girls are more than studded heels and shimmery ball gowns and boys are more than just award winning smiles, dapper capes and equestrian skills; that girls can play their own knight in shining armour and empower themselves without having a male lead by their side and most importantly they do not always sing and dance in gardens.  

The new versions of the original movies seem to sway away from the previous gender biased roles and display a glimpse of reality amongst all the magic and fairies. In Tangled, we love how Rapunzel followed her passions in whatever way she could which showed other women that they can pave their way by themselves even if it seems scary. As children, we loved the concept of The Snow Queen, but now we love the modified version where Frozen shows that true love is not bound to "royal pairs", and that love between siblings can far surpass romance. We relate to it and we love it probably more than we would have loved this version as a child. While we adored Sleeping Beauty as a child and dreamt of prince charming saving us, as we grew we got to understand the other sides of it. Maleficent shows exactly that side: how evil is made and not born and as grown-ups that made a lot more sense than just a princess in a tower. For some it has nothing to do with the movies themselves as with age they just tend to not go for animated movies anymore. While for others, they see meaning and depth in the same movies which they once saw as nothing but silly songs and hilarious sidekicks. 

No longer do the movies go out of their way to paint characters black and white and stereotypes seem to be fading fast. We now see what we didn't before that Disney should be focusing less on princesses needing to be saved, handsome princes and more on reality. 

In the wise words of Walt Disney – "it is the job of story-tellers such as Disney to restore order with imagination….and instill hope – again and again and again."  We might have lost hope with our favourite Disney movies amidst growing up, complaining about gender discrimination and portraying unrealistic expectations of love, but till this day Disney has not failed to surprise us with its modifications on love and reality to help us connect and fall in love with it again. 

No matter what Disney movies will always take us back to fantasy land where we can all share some good memories and spend some quality family time; it can be argued that the same movies we saw as children seem different now in the sense of depicting impractical morals and always ending with a happily ever after, but as our views have changed, a change in moves are also on their way. We learned from movies like Frozen and Brave that happily ever afters do always come, just not in the same content.