censoring disney films?

Started by gemmasteele84, June 16, 2012, 06:18:37 PM

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daddyof2

Not strictly in line with the original question, but Disney did make a famously controversial film about lemmings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Wilderness_(film)

And "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" was at one point going to have the killer of Bambi's mother as the villain 

samuelvictor

Yeah the Lemmings thing beggar's belief... there are many things in Disney's past which people over-react about or mis-represent. But that's one of the few that actually bothers me... killing innocent animals, and miseducating many people around the world in the process! There are still many people who think that Lemmings jump off cliffs!  :o :(

Though I have heard many people speak about how they think that the scene with Bambi's mother has been censored, I can find no evidence that it has. I'm strongly enclined to believe that this is actually people's emotional reaction to the scene meaning that they imagined it to be more gory than it actually was, especially when going by memories of childhood. I have seen many animators and historians explaining that one of the reasons the scene is so tragic is that it concentrates on Bambi's horrified reaction, not on the shock factor. For similar reasons, many people remember Watership Down to be more graphic than it is (though that itself has more blood than Bambi, obviously). According to IMDb, "Bambi was originally supposed to go back to his mother after she was shot and find her in a pool of blood. This idea was scrapped." - so in other words, this was never animated.

I didn't know about the censoring of Tangled, but it doesn't surprise me. I thought it was unusual for a Disney film when I first saw it. However, personally I find the over-reaction to showing blood to kids a little strange. Surely all kids will have fallen over and scrapped their knees, and be aware that blood means that you are hurt... hardly going to cause any nightmares!  :-\

Whilst mentioning Roger Rabbit, of course there is the famous matter that for a few frames in the theatrical cut, Jessica Rabbit is not wearing underwear. For VHS and DVD releases where people can "freeze-frame", of course, this was "fixed". It was likely just the animators playing around, its not on screen long enough for anyone to see when playing at full speed. The same thing happened with "The Rescuers" where a topless woman was inserted for a few frames, then removed for home video, once it was noticed by the bosses. There is no conspiracy or subliminal messaging involved in these cases, just simply bored animators having a joke that (at the time, before home video players with "frame by frame" features were commonplace) they though no-one would ever notice  ::)