Beech Tree News Network

I grew up on Disney movies.  Sometimes, my dad and stepmom would take us to the drive-in, and occasionally, we would make a trip to downtown Louisville to the movie theater.  For the life of me, I don’t know how they pulled that off, considering all the kids in our family and the expense that would have entailed.  I’m very thankful they did, because the movies were great entertainment, and I learned many life lessons from Walt Disney.
    My little sisters and I jumped off the picnic table with umbrellas like Mary Poppins; we pretended to live in a tree house like the Swiss Family Robinson; we begged for a cat like Thomasina; and we tried to be smart and sweet like Pollyanna in order to get on our dad’s good side, but that never lasted very long. 
    My kids grew up on Disney, as well.  “The Lion King and “The Little Mermaid” made the biggest impact on Nikki.  She spent a lot of time in the bathtub pretending to be Ariel, and she had every lion from the Lion King.  Natalie was drawn to the older movies I grew up on.  She was a thinker, always looking for the theme beneath the theme.
    The movie, “Brave,” was released when my granddaughter, Sabria, turned two.  She was smitten with it.  The next movie to make an impact was “Tangled,” and her most recent obsession is the Disney movie, “Frozen.”  Sabria often takes her small bow and arrows, climbs on her rocking horse, she named Angus, and pretends to ride across the glens like Merida in “Brave.”  She puts a beach towel around her head and lets it hang to the floor like Rapunzel’s hair, and she casts her frozen spell on me like Queen Elsa while I’m folding laundry.   
    I don’t know who coined the phrase, “entertainment for the whole family,” but whoever did was probably watching a Disney movie.  They are movies that make us laugh, cry and cheer together.  The movies follow common themes like:  Good conquers evil; love never fails; follow your dreams; and doing the right thing is its own reward.  The movies are mostly predictable, but in an otherwise chaotic world, sometimes we need predictable.
    The villains in Disney movies used to be easily recognized.  They were scary evil.   The Queen in “Snow White,” Cruella Devile in “101 Dalmations,” and Ursula in “The Little Mermaid” were each easily figured out.  The Queen was jealous, Cruella was greedy, and Ursula was a control freak.  The villain in the latest movie, “Frozen,” is a congenial, handsome prince, who shows his true colors when the throne is within his grasp.  It is a bit of a departure for Disney, but sadly, it is a reflection of the world in which we currently live.  Evil isn’t as obvious as it used to be.
    Disney movies examine the issues we confront once in a lifetime and every day.  Ariel wants what she wants so badly she gives up her voice for the promise of true love.  The father whom she believes will never understand her offers himself as a sacrifice in her place when the debt has to be paid.   In the “Lion King,” Simba is driven away by guilt over the death of his father.  It takes a pair of unlikely friends to give him the courage to return to his rightful place as king of the pride.  In “Frozen,” Elsa is so fearful that the gift she was born with will only hurt others that she runs away.  It is her sister, Anna, who shows her that love will always conquer fear.  Disney is still teaching us.
    There have been many times during my life that I have wished I were a left-brain person.  Left-brain people tend to make more practical decisions.  With a few exceptions—Bernie Madoff and the McAfee guy who invented the computer virus software and is currently on the lam for killing his neighbor come to mind—left-brain people are more stable, hence their lives seem to be less rocky than right-brain people.  With that said, I’m really glad Walt Disney thought mainly with his right brain.  He had vision.  He could see through the mundane, the everyday, the sorrow, the pain and all the rest that makes up the human condition.  He believed the story was worth being told and he told it.  Not only that, he created a path for all those creative geniuses who will walk in his steps.  Disney and his progeny have taught me many things.  They’re a lot like another great teacher I have always admired, except He taught in parables.