Over the years, I have noted how popular media has become
increasingly permeated with worse and worse values. Remakes of popular
old movies and shows that were appropriate for general audiences have
become unacceptable. But perhaps the worse part of this is that the use
of familiar, old characters and themes are being “updated” with modern
culture that ends up promoting immorality in ways that are very hard for
concerned parents and people to filter out from acceptable content.
A very popular, but increasingly misleading media outlet that
raised red flags for me is Disney. Like most people, I grew up on
Disney classic animated movies and continued to enjoy their animated
features throughout my life. A lot of their most popular releases have
been fine for Christian audiences, but in recent years, I’ve noticed
marked worsening of dark influences in their films and other releases
that are supposed to be family friendly.
Some of this influence comes from Disney’s acquisition of
more “adult” franchises, like the Marvel Comic series, FX network, and
their majority stake in the Hulu streaming network, which hosts a lot of
content that is completely inappropriate for a company whose brand was
built on a reputation for being family friendly.
Today Disney owns a lot of film and media outlets[1.1],
which wouldn’t be a problem if they all remained as child and family
friendly as the Disney name supposedly implies. I’m sure today’s Disney
is far from founder Walt Disney’s vision of what he wanted to contribute
to the world, as after his death in 1966, the Disney company grew
farther into content for older audiences and into values that matched
every other film and media outlet.
What has that produced today? A supposedly family-friendly
brand that produces series and movies that feature totally inappropriate
content for young audiences and morally-minded people, and sells it in a
brand name made famous for being family friendly, on a platform (the
Disney Plus streaming service) that is geared towards children and
families.
Today’s Disney offerings have so many bad influences that I
wouldn’t give children or teens free reign with it anymore. Offerings
that are popular to young children, such as superhero movies, I’ve found
to have too much casual swearing, many teen-rated releases are over
sexualized and promote lust and promiscuity, and I found other releases
to support other immoral focuses, such as coveting “heroes” that do not
uphold law and honor.
Disney and modern values have turned out some unacceptable
releases of even old family-friendly franchises, like Star Wars. And now
more recently, Disney has been very open in supporting LGBT+ values and
is releasing a big children’s animated feature in July - the new
Lightyear movie based on the Buzz Lightyear character from the Toy Story
series - that has a scene where gay characters kiss.
It is a PG-rated movie, but the scene got the movie banned in some countries already[1.2, 1.3].
Movie and show ratings were never sufficient for screening out
unacceptable content, as I have noted many PG and PG-13 rated movies to
have immoral content, while there are many Mature or R-rated features
that are still appropriate for Christian viewing.
Media needs to be reviewed on a per-case basis, but my main
reason for writing now is to make parents and users of Disney content
aware that giving children, even teens, unrestricted access to all of
the Disney network’s releases is not a good idea.
Unfortunately, like most streaming networks, Disney+ does not
have sufficient parental controls. I’d prefer it if streaming services
would let me mask out individual movies and releases, but I’ve not seen
any service that supports that.
Disney+ only lets you set up a kid’s profile, which mainly
only shows pre-teen content. All other profiles can view everything
else, so if your child wants to watch Disney’s most popular features,
such as their animated musicals, Star Wars, and superhero movies, they
must be watched from a profile that gives access to all content, which
will also give children access to a lot of content that supports the
wrong values.
May you keep your children from those influences and if you
want to do more, may you write to Disney and other streaming networks
you use to put much better parental controls into their services.
References
[1.1] Talia Lakritz. "14 companies you didn't realize Disney owns". Insider. 2020 Jan. 28. Retrieved 2022 Jun. 14.
<https://www.insider.com/companies-disney-owns>
[1.2] "UAE bans Pixar’s new animation ‘Lightyear’ over same-sex kiss
scene". The Times Of Israel. 2022 Jun. 13. Retrieved 2022 Jun. 13
[1.3] "Disney’s ‘Lightyear’ Banned From Children’s Viewing in Singapore". Bloomberg. 2022 Jun. 14. Retrieved 2022 Jun. 14.
<https://taboolanews.com/article/7c0c5c14-7ed1-33ad-6b65-48f36dcf9540>
