Disney Ideologies
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ties physical beauty with purity of character, as if the former is ineluctably linked to the latter. If "fairest of them all" referred to inner beauty, we'd have no story at all, now would we?
Beauty & the Beast puts a compassionate mask on the face on cold legal retribution; everyone loves the authoritarian figure for letting his/its hostage go. The injustice of keeping Beauty (as 'payback' for her father's illegal intrusion) is, interestingly enough, protested mainly by the 'bad guy' in the story i.e. the hunter obsessed with killing the beast. The suggestion that a captive could actually fall in love with and even defend the captor sounds almost obscene.
Belle doesn't care what other people think of her and her father. She does what she likes, and does not do what she does to impress other people. In a time when people frowned on women reading, she did it because she enjoyed it and it didn't melt her brain into a puddle of mush.
Another lesson it conveys is loving your family. Belle decided instead of having her father trapped in the Beast's castle, she would take his place. This tries to get kids to understand the importance of family.
Not judging a person by their appearance is another. Gaston liked Belle, but he was an ignorant self-centered, and narcissistic, and Belle saw that and rejected him. The Beast looked horrid, but once Belle got to know him, they fell in love.
The Last lesson I caught was first impressions are not always correct. The Beast imprisoned her father when she just met him. If she had just judged him, they would have never fallen in love. It teaches to love and look deeper than skin.
Cinderella is a reversed tale of two classes: the rich and those they've exploited to remain that way. Cinderella is made to serve her sisters and step-mother, for whom life is made comfortable via the forced servitude of Miss C. Justice comes in the form of a fairy godmother who transforms 'garden-variety' realia (e.g. mice, a dog, a pumpkin, etc.) into high-class status symbols (e.g. carriage, driver, etc.). This is nothing if not a cruel joke. Reality is the domain where hundreds and thousands of Cinderella-communities are put into hellish labour or forced to give up their land so their Capitalist exploiters can continue enhancing their way of life. There is no fairy-godmother (except the lobbyist or negotiator or diploma who lied to them about what a great deal they're getting), all the really important status symbols will be accrued to the ones with the big investment funds and there will be no ball these people can go to (if only until midnight).
The central message in Mulan is a good one for children. Women can do what men can do and perhaps even better. But the Mulan character tends to do it the messy way. She gets the job done, but not without destroying everything in the area. So the message is muddled. She also goes from weakling to superior soldier in the space of one abrupt and annoying song. That one is also not a terribly clear message to children. What is it supposed to tell them, that success comes overnight if you just WANT it?
