Growing up, I was nine years older than my closest sibling. I remember watching many Disney movies with them. From my perspective, at the time, some of these movies had different meanings from when I first watched them when I was their age. I believe that due to my experiences, how few they may have been at the time, had restructured the way that I was viewing these films.
I would often ask them what they would think about different parts, and we would talk about the meaning behind some of the symbols that they were showing. At the time, I was not able to explain some of these complicated subjects, such as in The Lion King, one of my brothers asked me why Scar was a different color compared to Mufasa. Looking back, the reason goes further than the movie itself lets on because they are not brothers by blood, but at the time, the best method I found of discussing this topic was to compare the relationships we had with the movie.
I believe that using real world examples or correlations helps in these discussions because it allows the child to create those parallels and at times, helps them understand the real world with those metaphors. Unfortunately, in some of the older classic Disney movies, before The Lion King, some of the symbols were of patriarchy and superiority, and the reduction of responsibility of the woman. These conversations are best to have with explanations of why these things were being done back then and compare them to the progress we have made thus far. In doing so, the child may easily see that the current way is an improvement to what they were attempting to portray in earlier movies. Another way would be to compare different movies from opposite eras, such as Sleeping Beauty with Moana, for example.
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