Comments on: A Cartoonish Notion of Family?

By: Candace A. McCullough

Candace A. McCullough — Thu, 10 May 2007 01:04:24 +0000

Terrific blog, Josh! There are many more nontraditional families out there than people think.

The last time I looked at statistics from a PBS poll, only 1/3 of respondents defined a family as the traditional mother-father-2-children family. Instead, the majority of respondents cited love, togetherness, and caring as defining components of a family. Children’s movies and books do reflect some truths!

This reminds me of back when I was doing my training as a psychotherapist. The agency I worked at required clients to fill out a form and name their parents, siblings, and children. Not surprisingly, this form didn’t work for a number of people. Some had grandmothers functioning as mothers, family friends who had become aunts and uncles, neighbors who were known as grandparents, and so on.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Mon, 07 May 2007 16:27:12 +0000

Fascinating! Definitely food for thought and a fun discussion. Thank you! Another nontraditional structure - the Donald Duck family. Donald has three nephews, but said nevvies do not appear to have parents, just Unca Donald, who in turn, has Unca Scrooge. There are a few instances of Scrooge’s parents and sisters being mentioned in passing, but otherwise, no sign of Unca Donald’s parents nor of any other family members. For that matter, none of the Mickey Mouse family of cartoon characters appears to have families of their own. (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Pegleg Pete, and the rest)

By: Josh Mendelsohn

Josh Mendelsohn — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:55:11 +0000

Oh my goodness, Keri, what a wonderful post by AntiRacistParent.com! I’m taking the, ahem, liberty of copying the list from that post and pasting it here. Again, here’s the original tinyurl link:
http://tinyurl.com/yvu6ow

• Aladdin (Aladdin) – orphaned and homeless; petty crimes for food and shelter
• Annie (Annie) – orphan adopted by rich single dad
• Ariel (The Little Mermaid) – dead mother, rebellious teen who runs away to be with a man
• Aristocats – Marie, Berlioz and Toulouse – three kittens raised by a single mother
• Bambi (Bambi) – raised by single mother who is murdered, has never met his absent father
• Belle (Beauty and the Beast) – dead mother, raised by single father
• Cinderella (Cinderella) – dead mother, raised by abusive Stepmother and neglectful, absent father
• Dumbo (Dumbo)– raised by a stigmatized, depressed single mother
• Elliot (Pete’s Dragon) – orphaned, runaway from abusive foster parents, adopted by single mother
• Hercules (Hurcules) – son of gods transracially adopted by humans
• Lilo (Lilo and Stitch)– orphaned, raised by older sister
• Mowgli (The Jungle Book)– orphaned, raised by 2-male heads of household (bear and panther)
• Mulan (Mulan) – cross-dressing teen girl with intact, multi-generational family unit
• Nemo (Finding Nemo) – dead mother, raised by single overprotective father
• Oliver (Oliver & Company) – orphaned kitten transracially adopted by rich girl
• Peter Pan (Peter Pan) – orphaned, troublemaker and gang leader of Lost Boys
• Penny (The Rescuers) – orphaned girl kidnapped from orphanage
• Pinocchio (Pinocchio) – wooden toy adopted by aged creator Gepetto
• Pochahontas (Pocahontas) – dead mother, raised by single father
• Quasimoto (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) – physically disabled male adopted by evil church minister Frollo
• Simba (The Lion King) – father murdered by uncle, raised by 2-male heads of household (meerkat and warthog)
• Sleeping Beauty (Sleeping Beauty) – parents transferred custody to 3 fairies
• Snow White (Snow White & the 7 dwarves) – dead mother, raised by abusive Stepmother and neglectful father
• Tarzan (Tarzan)– orphaned, transracially adopted by gorilla family

By: Keri

Keri — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:48:11 +0000

Hmm, I’ve definitely noticed this trend every since I became a parent. It really puts things, especially kids’ movies, into perspective. Another blogger posted about this recently. Have a looksee:
http://tinyurl.com/yvu6ow

(The blog is AntiRacistParent.com but the link was so long so I shortened it.)

By: Allison Kaftan

Allison Kaftan — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:35:28 +0000

No, there’s a definite traditional family structure thing going on in Robots. Parents order a kid, and then they switch out parts to accomodate his “growth.”

By: Josh Mendelsohn

Josh Mendelsohn — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:28:37 +0000

Oh, haven’t seen that movie, Robots! Were the main characters “made” without parents (like Woody and Lightning)? Seems similar to “Cars” — the characters are all obviously male or female. But another interesting thing about “Cars” I noticed — there are NO kids. Maybe in the speedway audience, but nowhere else, period.

By: Allison Kaftan

Allison Kaftan — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:26:05 +0000

I love you for noticing/posting this. Not only do children’s movies have interesting takes on family structure (and definitely the way “happily ever after” always seems to look more, umm, “traditional” than reality also gives one pause), but another thing that always drives me nuts is gender illustration - how we decide people are feminine and masculine in these movies.

Case in point: Robots. Machines were given feminine and masculine characteristics that aren’t necessarily authentic, and it drove me nuts.