Good Girls and Wicked Witches. Amy M. Davis
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held attitudes within society? Such questions as these are best answered not only through looking at Disney films as a genre in and of themselves, but also through looking at Disney in relation to the horror genre.
Disney and horror
The horror genre possesses many attributes in common with Disney’s animated films, thanks no doubt to the fact that Disney’s major source of stories has been fairy tales (which share major story elements and themes with classic horror films). Disney films featuring human leading characters, in particular, have many of the major elements of the horror film: the heroine/victim, the monstrous Other, the victorious hero who defeats the monster and re-establishes order.39 It is important to clarify that not all of the films within this study can be classed as horror. Indeed, some of the films have either few or none of the elements of the horror genre. Nonetheless, most of these films do have, to varying degrees, examinations of the notion of “good versus evil”, and often, as is traditional when following the Classic Paradigm narrative structure (as most Hollywood films do), the plot is structured so as to depict an on-going contest of protagonist against antagonist. This is most easily seen in the following table (facing page).
Of all the films in this study, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” segment of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, in fact, is one of the straightest treatments of horror to be found amongst Disney’s animated features. The plot of the film demonstrates the classic horror film pattern. In essence, this pattern is comprised of the following elements: showing the normal order of the society in which the story is set; beginning the build-up of tension by the telling the background of the society’s “threat” from within (in this case, the ghost of the headless horseman); the actual direct threat to Ichabod Crane as the Horseman tries to murder him; the allusion at the end of the film that the story has been only temporarily resolved, but that the threat in fact remains, awaiting another time and another victim. Though not all Disney films can be discussed in terms of horror (even if only partially), many do contain elements of horror and fantasy, albeit to a lesser extent than films like not only Ichabod, but also such films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Alice in Wonderland has an evil Other in the form of the Queen of Hearts, but this is only for a section of the film. Mostly, Alice in Wonderland is just a bizarre dream full of nonsense, and is more akin to fantasy than true horror. In Mulan, even though there is in a sense the presence of what could technically be seen as a monstrous Other which threatens the order of Mulan’s society, the outside threat is the Golden Horde, with whom China is at war, and though they are a threat to Mulan while she is a soldier, they are not targeting her personally and so, in this sense, are not a threat in the same way that the wicked witches, evil step-mothers, vindictive pirates, and other malevolent characters are in the other stories. The “Pecos Bill” segment of Melody Time, together with The Fox and the Hound, although they do present antagonism, do not really deal with “good versus evil” in their stories. Mulan, however, represents a rather different case. Indeed, in the pantheon of Disney animated films, Mulan presents the historian and film analyst with a special case in terms of its story and subject matter, and, therefore, will be given special attention in a later chapter.
Horror and Disney deal with notions about what are (and what are not) appropriate gender roles, and it is true that Disney films and horror films tend to deal again and again, at least on an underlying level, with such themes as what is proper/improper behaviour for women, what is/is not the “natural order”, issues of coming of age and sexuality, and other gender-based concepts. Who rescues and who is rescued (not to mention who is rescue-able), what behavioural traits make a character “good” or “bad”, and whether a “bad” character can or cannot be reformed or redeemed are themes which Disney and horror films share, and the parallels between the ways in which these themes are played out within these two types of films are numerous.
As a specific example of a parallel between a Disney film and a horror film, we may compare the stories of Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Phantom of the Opera (1925). Both look at the love/obsession of a “monstrous other” for a beautiful, gifted young woman (Belle is highly intelligent and possesses strong academic leanings, Christine is a talented opera singer and performer). The Beast gives Belle a library so that she may read to her heart’s content for the first time in her life; the Phantom gives Christine the opportunity to take to the stage at the Paris Opera in a leading role, and finds ways to ensure that she has a successful career. Both young women, however, are prevented by their “benefactors” from having lives outside the small worlds of their gifts, and the only sources either Belle or Christine have for anything resembling romantic love are the monsters who are their protectors. Both films are based upon classic stories: Beauty and the Beast being based upon a French folk tale, Phantom of the Opera on Gaston Leroux’s novel by the same name, which is, in turn, based upon the legend of a haunting at the Paris Opera House. Both are tales of beautiful, innocent young women who are – ultimately – held captive by a deformed creature who is characterised by such traits as loneliness, vengefulness, possessiveness, self-loathing, possible madness, frustrated sexual desire, jealousy, and fear.
Such parallels between Disney films and horror films are easily drawn. As Brigid Cherry points out in her study of female horror film fans:
For many of these habitual [horror film] viewers, the taste for horror often began well before adolescence – several reported that their first experience of horror involved being enjoyably frightened by Disney-animated films and other dark children’s films based on fairy tales – and had persisted long after. Horror films share the frequent representation of distortions of natural forms – supernatural monsters with a human face, for instance – with children’s fiction, and these representations were often mentioned by participants [in Cherry’s study of female horror film fans] as a continuing source of fascination, suggesting that these viewers continue to be simultaneously drawn to, and repelled by, similar representations to those that had engaged them in childhood.40
Clearly, at least in the minds of some fans of horror, there is a definite link between Disney and horror as genres. Yet an interesting area in which Disney and horror films depart company is the issue of what groups are considered the target audience. Although this conception of the horror film is currently changing, for many years it has been assumed that the primary audience for the majority of horror films has been male.41 Certainly, Cherry has gathered evidence which demonstrates that, far from being unwilling audiences of horror, there are women who actively enjoy horror, even when they dislike certain aspects of the genre (such as the violent treatment of women in many horror films). The target audience for Disney films is traditionally seen as the child/family audience, despite the high degree of violence and terror which is typical in Disney films. It is interesting that the same parent who would not think twice about forbidding their child from seeing Silence of the Lambs (1991), in which a man kidnaps and murders various women with the intention of making a suit of clothes from their skins, would probably also think nothing about allowing their child to see One-Hundred-and-One Dalmatians, in which a psychotic woman is systematically kidnapping the “children” of various families of Dalmatians with the intention of slaughtering them and making a coat from their skins. The parallels between these two stories, when summarised in this way, are obvious. For the majority of spectators, however, such parallels would not seem as salient. After all, one is about a deranged serial killer and the FBI trainee who is investigating the case aided by the killer’s psychopathic psychiatrist, the other about an erratic, eccentric woman and a bunch of talking puppies. Silence of the Lambs is live-action; One-Hundred-and-One Dalmatians is both an animated film and a Disney movie.
Despite the fact that Disney films are seen by many retailers, reviewers, and film cataloguers as being essentially a separate sub-genre of “family films”, if not a genre in and of themselves, the fact is that Disney films’ subject matter has at times been considered – at least by some film review boards – as possibly too intense and/or frightening for the child audience. For example, when it was released in the UK in 1938, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was deemed unsuitable for young children as it might cause them nightmares.42