Soz, not soz (Picture: Shutterstock/Disney)

I can’t stand Disney.

Hate is a strong word, but it’s definitely a firm ‘meh’-ness that began when I was a child and has carried on into adulthood and the more people who chastise me over not being totally, head over heels, ride a magic carpet in love with Disney, the more I fight it.

Call me stubborn, sure, but I did try to get into the spirit as a child, watching a movie here and there… if it was in front of me.

But 20-something-years later, at least once a week I’m met with horrified gawks and gasps when an Aladdin or Cinderella reference goes right over my head.




‘Oh, I haven’t seen Aladdin/Cinderella/whatever,’ I’ll say, moving the conversation along.

‘But, why?’ they ask, like I’m some sort of alien.

‘I just don’t really care for it,’ I’ll reply.

And then suddenly I’m alone at a party. Cool.

I expect this distaste for Disney will be seen as worse than that time I wrote about why Grease 2 was better than the original (give me Michelle Pfeiffer singing ‘I want a coo-oo-ooo-ool rider’ over Hopelessly Devoted To You any day).

But back to Disney.

After this week Minnie Mouse was given her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame A WHOLE 40 YEARS after her male counterpart, Mickey, got his (even though they both made their debut in 1928’s Steamboat Willie), I really thought about how the whole Disney shebang really grinds my gears.

Somehow, the gall of me to not be enthralled with a money making machine specifically designed for children seems to continue to enrage others.

Which brings me to my first big ticket item:

Disney films are for kids

Not cool

I didn’t like stories designed for children when I was one, let alone now I’m an adult who’s, like, so mature.

I could blame my upbringing as an only child with parents who had a similar distaste for anything childish, raising me on a steady diet of entertainment that involved Monty Python, B 52s and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Sure, some may argue Monty Python isn’t the best pop culture injection for a kid, but neither is plonking a five-year-old in front of a movie about an unconscious chick who’s just… lying there… in a forest, whose only chance at waking up is to be kissed by a random guy.

Or what about Peter Pan, a man – with a fairy as a best mate – who just can’t get over the fact he’s not a kid anymore so he breaks into children’s bedrooms and abducts them.

What kind of adult thinks that’s an entertaining, or in any way appropriate?

So, no surprises big ticket item numero deux:

I’m way too cynical for this

Pretty much every one of Disney’s female characters needs ‘saving’ from their plight by a male.

Ergh. That’s just, like, against the rules of feminism.

Yes, you could argue when these stories first originated that sort of gender-role-whatever was the norm. But it’s 2018 and we can surely give these Disney flicks a good once over with Cinderella’s broom.



2013’s Frozen came so very close to being a real feminist banger with Queen Elsa being a badass.

That was until her sister Anna’s ‘frozen heart’ could only be mended by ‘an act of true love’.

Mate, let it go already.

A talking snowman? How original

And ever noticed how everything ends perfectly fine and dandy, no matter the problem?

All you Disney weirdos probably love that but you can hardly label it an appropriate way to lead one’s life.

Disney tries to be the IRL version of the motivational quote favoured by your Aunt Barbra, ‘Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.’

Yet it’s still a lot to go through. For Ariel in The Little Mermaid, it doesn’t matter if you *spoilers* get tricked by a sea witch who steals your voice and sends you to the land where you have to kiss a guy within three days otherwise you become said sea witch’s prisoner but then you miss your deadline and the sun sets and you haven’t made out with the prince dude yet so you then become witchy’s prisoner but your king dad gives up his trident to switch spots and then he’s turned into a polyp and the witch becomes queen *breathes* because your babe boyf will impale old mate witchy with a boat and everything will return to normal and you’ll get legs.

The Disney stories with animals are really my only calling for any sort of normalcy here – but that brings me to my final big ticket item: I can’t handle any sort of animal with emotion.


It’s a long standing laugh-a-thon with my friends that I’ve been known to cry when watching Dumbo swinging on his mother’s trunk or Simba trying to wake his dead dad or Bambi just being Bambi (the eyes, man, the eyes).

I may be cynical but I’m not a monster, and cartoon animals with exaggerated eyes and the ability to form human-like relationships really brings on the waterworks.

Forget the Scream franchise – THIS is the trauma behind not sleeping properly as a child.

Who can worry about a masked hoodlum blasting into you bedroom with a machete when you constantly visualise Tod’s confused head tilt when Widow Tweed left him in the woods in The Fox and the Hound?

While the last big ticket item is purely personal, the other reasons cannot be ignored – Disney is just a waste of time for anyone over the age of 12.

14, at a stretch.

Oh and, one last thought, what’s that about Disneyland being the ‘happiest place on earth’?

Fairly sure spending 100 quid on a ticket to spend a day standing in queues at Disney World, surrounded by screaming children who are hangry, to pay another 100 quid for a soggy hot dog to quell your own hanger, before trying to find your name on a novelty number plate to only find an abundance of ‘Bort’ is considered hell.

What a rort.

Don’t even get me started on the Mickey Mouse Club.

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