This development is kind of amusing really since expecting Disney to grow with their fanbase has never really been much of an issue since, for decades, the Mouse House catered to kids and families with programming that wasn’t that challenging but was entertaining at least. And if you believe that, then I’ve got a pair of gold-plated mouse ears to sell you. The truth is that Disney has been traumatizing kids in a big way for a lot of years, but we’ve endured and kept up with the trends that Disney has followed and even created on occasion since it’s been found that cartoon violence, on-screen or implied, is something that a lot of us grew up with and came to understand a little better as we age. From Bambi’s mother to Todd’s mother in The Fox and the Hound to Mufasa in The Lion King, kids have been watching ‘adult content’ that’s been Disneyfied to such a degree that they’ve had to grow up just a little bit in order to watch the movies. But now that we’re getting into the deep end of the pool where the adult material starts to go deeper and get a lot more complicated, it would appear that Disney execs are starting to find that they’re at a loss for what to do.
Shouldn’t that be the responsibility of the parents when it comes to what the kids watch? Disney+ has an entire list of movies and shows that are perfectly suited for kids, and as they grow, there are even more properties that they can access when it’s deemed that they can handle it. Seriously, Disney+ is better off incorporating their adult-oriented materials as much as possible in order to satisfy the people that have been fans for years, rather than hamper their viewership by sticking to the type of material that coddles the sensibilities of the viewers while jabbing at them continually with such issues as death, betrayal, and the violent endings of many Disney villains that have been around since the 80s or even longer.
It’s kind of funny really since Disney is worrying about something that kids have been dealing with for decades when it comes to the stories they peddle. For crying out loud, the evil queen wanted Snow White’s heart in a box back in the day, and let’s not forget that Prince Eric rammed the jagged end of a wrecked ship into Ursula’s gut in The Little Mermaid. Granted, neither one of them was as violent or as disturbing as Deadpool or even the Avengers or other MCU movies that have shown a few disturbing images. But the point is that when it comes to violent material and the issue of whether to show it or not, Disney is being kind of silly when thinking that it’s this big of a deal. Has Disney taken a look at the material that other streaming sites have been pushing? Netflix has done well pushing their material to kids and adults alike, so thinking that Disney would forego their more adult properties and fixate entirely on family-friendly material is more than ridiculous, it’s self-defeating in a way that’s hard to imagine.
The trepidation that the Mouse House might be feeling is still a little understandable since they’ve been all about family values for a long time now and they don’t want to let go of that. The thing is, they don’t have to let go of it. They’re running a business, not a daycare in which they have to be responsible for what everyone sees. If a parent doesn’t like what’s being seen on Disney+, it’s up to them to change the channel and find something else. Those that don’t worry about it because they trust their children, it is a concept, after all, can always use whatever parental controls are necessary or available. But thinking that Disney should ignore or let the content they have sit for a while is kind of ridiculous since it implies that people don’t want to see this material, or that Disney+ might think that they’ll start losing viewers if they don’t show anything geared toward adults. This is funny because a lot of their adult fans are those that have been fans since they were kids.
Not tapping into the adult-oriented material would be a horrible idea it sounds like, especially since it would indicate that Disney has seen fit to grow just enough to keep people around, but not enough to cater to the fans that have remained loyal for so long. How this will turn out is anyone’s guess, but in the interest of keeping their numbers up and their business sound, it’s fair to think that Disney will end up incorporating the adult content as much as possible in a way that will act as a compromise to satisfy everyone as much as possible.
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