Disney parents have this wacky habit of not being present in the stories: sometimes they’re dead, sometimes they’re just not there and we can assume they’re dead. I’m sure I’m not the first to make this list, but hey. This can mean various things for the story, but it’s a crutch I find strange. A lot of the fables rely on it, and it’s not bad or good, just odd. I’m also only going to discuss the humanoid characters, because if I got into all the animals with dead parents, I’d be going on all night.
Snow White: her father’s dead, and she’s got a wicked stepmother.
Pinocchio: he’s a puppet, and therefore has no biological parents, but his “father” Geppetto doesn’t have a female counterpart.
Cinderella: her mother’s dead, her father marries an aristocrat lady to give her female influence, then her father dies and said lady turns out to be evil. (Really, she and Snow White are exactly the same.)
Alice in Wonderland: well, Alice’s parents are never present in the film, but her big sister is. Presumably the parents are alive, but they’re irrelevant.
Peter Pan: the Darlings are existent. But the kids run away from them, so there’s that. Also, Wendy has to play mommy.
Sleeping Beauty: her parents are present, but she’s comatose the entire time, so they’re not that relevant. And in a way, the coma is almost their fault, since they didn’t invite Maleficent to the party and prompted the coma curse.
The Jungle Book: Mowgli is an orphan and is raised by jungle critters.
everything in the Winnie the Pooh franchise: where are Christopher Robin’s parents?
The Little Mermaid: where is Ariel’s mother? Is that why King Triton is such a bitch?
Beauty and the Beast: where is Belle’s mother? Is that why Maurice is such a scatterbrain? And where are the Beast’s parents at all?
Aladdin: where is Jasmine’s mother? Is that why the Sultan is such a weirdo? And Aladdin’s an orphan.
Pocahontas: where is Pocahontas’ mother? Is that why Chief Powhatan is such a bitch?
The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Quasimodo’s mommy was killed at the beginning and his adoptive dad is a bitch.
Hercules: he’s got birth parents and adoptive parents both. So, good for him.
Mulan: she’s got parents and a grandmother too! Even though she runs away from them. But she does that to save China, so it’s okay.
Tarzan: his parents are killed by jungle critters.
The Emperor’s New Groove: he has no parents, period.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire: (I don’t even remember having seen this, but hey. Wikipedia.) The girl hasn’t got a father at all, and her mother dies.
Lilo and Stitch: Lilo and Nani have dead parents, and Nani is being the motherly big sister. Basically like Buffy to Dawn, but way less cool.
Meet the Robinsons: Louis is at an orphanage, but he’s adopted at the end.
The Princess and the Frog: Tiana’s father is dead; Lottie’s mother is nonexistent.
Tangled: despite her birth parents both being alive, Rapunzel’s got a wicked stepmother. So she’s got too many parents.
The grand tally: 4 evil stepparents, 10 dead parental pairs, 5 dead/nonexistent parents and single remaining parents, 2 nonexistent parental pairs, 5 present parental pairs. That brings the total of at least partially nonexistent Disney animated human parents to 80%.
A lot of these films are based on pre-existing stories, so that really begs a deeper question. What is it about dead or nonexistent parents that just screams children’s story? Sometimes the girls without one or both parents need saving by an outside man figure, sometimes they can take care of themselves and just happen to fall in love in the mix. The boys without parents all end up in love, too. I guess everybody just needs someone? Is that the message?
Are they just making their own families? ‘Cause of course once they fall in love, they get married. An interesting notion.
–your fangirl heroine.
partlydrawn 