Bright and cheerful, and that's the problem

Rating: 3/10 (10 November 2004)

Let's just hope that the Disney people never decide to do to Shakespeare or Sophocles what they've done to Hans Christian Andersen and Victor Hugo (I'm alluding to The Hunchback of Notre Dame), among others. Romeo and Juliet? Just a misunderstanding. They live happily ever after and so do Montagues and the Capulets. Hamlet? He marries Ophelia and then we get 'Hamlet II: Back to Elsinore.' Oedipus? It's all a mistake; he didn't really kill his father and marry his mother, he was really an orphan adopted by the Queen, everything's okay, and the Sphinx was really just unhappy because she was misunderstood; she moves into the palace with Oedipus and they become great friends, and then comes 'Oedipus II: Sphinx's Pride.'
There's always seemed to be a cinematic schizophrenia at the Disney studios: Amid all the saccharine goo, there were moments that were darker, even shocking. In particular, I'm thinking of the death of Bambi's mother, and more recently the death of Mufasa, Simba's father, in The Lion King. But there seems to be this rule at Disney that even if a major character dies halfway through, the ending has to be all smiles. I mean, what is the point of doing a story with a sad ending like 'The Little Mermaid' or 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' if you trivialize the entire point of the story by changing it from dark to light and fluffy? Oh dear, Andersen's rather bleak Nordic vision is just too much of a downer; let's have fun with it! Let's move the story to the bright, happy Caribbean. Ariel sacrifices her life for love at the end? Oh dear, we can't have that; instead, let's let her have it all; typical childish wish-fulfillment, right?
After my 7-year-old daughter saw this version of Mermaid, as an irritated consumer, I obtained for her a more faithful adaptation, with an ending more true to Andersen's original. It didn't damage her delicate little psyche. Who can use that as an excuse these days? Have you checked out the video game shelf at your local computer store lately? Not to mention REAL LIFE? Three thousand American children a year die violent deaths. And that's only in this country. In this age of drive-by shootings, when parents, unlike in my ever more distant childhood, are afraid to leave their kids unguarded on their front lawns, much less roaming unchaperoned either in or outside of their own neighborhoods, does it make sense to sweeten (and thereby render meaningless) the ending of a fairy tale? Only if you're venal enough to be planning a sequel.