Dead Mom(s)

It cannot be ignored that the majority of Disney stories are missing parents, in particular mothers.

“The elimination of true parents especially the mother, from the comics and the incidence in the films of mothers dead at the start, or dying in course of events or cast as wicked stepmother must have held great personal meaning for Disney” (Maity, 2014).

While researching Disney films based on fairytales, I did a count of protagonists whose parent’s were alive through their entire story, those shown alive and then perished, and those missing (either both parents or a mother) from the beginning. I’ve listed those here in release date order.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) — Orphan
Cinderella (1950) — Orphan
Sleeping Beauty (1959) — Alive
The Little Mermaid (1989) — Dead Mom
Beauty and the Beast (1991) — Dead Mom
Aladdin (1992) — Dead Mom
The Princess and the Frog (2009) — Shown alive then perished
Tangled (2010) — Alive

Brave* (2012) — Alive 

Frozen (2013) — Shown alive then perished

There are a few included that I do not discuss in other areas as they do not include the characters I am focusing on, but I felt including them in this section helped highlight this pattern. They are Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Frozen.

Disclaimer : There are also a few not included, such as Pinocchio (1940), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953) and a couple others; which I decided not to include here as their settings and structure vary greatly from the fairytales I was looking at.

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* Brave is not based on a ‘classic’ fairytale, and was written for the film, however as it holds true to the structure of a fairytale I’ve chosen to include it in my research.