Five reasons you could do worse things than watch old Disney movies

Disney +. Come for Hamilton, stay for the ridiculous amount of nostalgia. This isn’t sponsored, it’s just literally what happened to me in July. 

We’re still staying home more than we used to because people don’t want to wear their damned masks and I have a husband who’s high risk. (Seriously, I want to be understanding and see all sides of this. But people are dying. Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your hands off your damned face.)

Since we have nothing to do, we’ve been watching a lot of old Disney movies the husband didn’t see when he was a kid. I don’t mean old like Davey Crockett. I mean like Oliver and Company, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Stuff that was around when I was a kid. Stuff I loved when I was a kid. 

Like everything else, I can’t just watch and experience something. I’ve got to take a lesson from it. Then, I have to share it with you. So here are five reasons why I think you should all watch old Disney movies. 

Unexpected adult jokes

This is kind of an open secret, but I still love it. I’m not talking about the easter egg things like the penis on the cover of Little Mermaid or the word sex sprawled out in leaves in Lion King. These are just good old fashioned dirty jokes. Like in Beauty and the Beast. There’s a part on Gaston’s song when he says that every last inch of him is covered in hair. And this gross asshole looks right at the audience and winks!

The animators knew what they were doing. 

The music is better than you remember

Before Let it Go got played to death, it was a pretty good song. Disney movies have always had songs that kids love to sing along to. But here’s a secret. The song your mom wanted to kill you for singing on repeat probably overshadowed some damn good music. Take God Help the Outcast from Hunchback of Notre Dame. That song makes me cry.

And I know it’s a bit more modern, but the whole soundtrack for Tarzan is just astounding. I mean, it is Phil Collins, so I suppose that shouldn’t be surprised. 

 

So is the artwork

 

We were watching The Rescuers, and I kept pausing to go on about the artwork. How you could see the brushstrokes. How some scenes looked like living paintings. How adorable yet intelligent the mice were drawn. 

This is the shit my husband puts up with, you guys. 

But the artwork is amazing. I know that we’re quite accustomed to getting movies a lot faster these days with computer animation. I’m not saying art can’t be made on a computer, it totally can. But there’s something about a hand-drawn movie. I mean, it took a lot longer. The Hydra scene from Hercules alone took over a year.

But my goodness, it’s astounding. It deserves to be appreciated. 

A million little writing lessons

Look, I’m not going to sit here and defend every bit of writing in a Disney movie. Much of it is lazy, pure garbage, or outright stolen from other sources. (Looking at you, Kimba.)

But it’s not all bad. For instance, in watching these old movies I’ve noticed that a decent amount of protagonists are kind of assholes. They’re still good people, they’re just dicks. Like Basil, the great mouse detective. Or the Beast. They’re not nice people. They’re not selfless, kind, tactful. 

But they’re still good. That’s the thing about people, they have layers. It would be nice to see that more often.

Sometimes you need to step back into your childhood

Finally, sometimes it’s nice to just be a little kid again. Just chill out and watch a kid’s

movie.

 

Here’s the thing, the world is heavy right now. I don’t need to tell you that. And a lot of my day is spent either trying to figure out what I can do to make things better or being just damned depressed about what’s happening. 

That’s not likely to end anytime soon. There’s never been a moment in my life where it’s more important to fight the good fight every damned day. And while I’m never going to be one to turn off the news, sometimes we do need to take a break from it. 

Take breaks how you need to. Take care of yourself and your mental health. Stopping the horrible things happening in our world doesn’t end with the election in November. And if watching some old Disney movies helps us keep fighting, then let’s all do that. 

If you’re looking for ways to help, here’s just a few things you can do.

1. Wear your damned mask.

2. Donate to foundations working for us, like the ACLU or Black Lives Matter. 

3. Donate to charities that are stressed right now, like Immigrant Families Together. 

4. Download the Resist app and use it to let your local officials know where you stand on the issues. 

5. Register to vote, and make sure everyone you know registers too.

6. If you’re healthy and able, volunteer to work at polls this election day.

7. Give everyone, including yourself, grace. Everyone’s going through hell right now. We’re only getting through it if we stick together. 

Artwork for this post came from IMDB.