Anyone who grew up with Disney movies knows that they can get pretty dark, from Mufasa
getting trampled to death in The Lion King to Quasimodo's mother being brutally killed
in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Still, many of Disney's animated classics have had to
soften or remove the more gruesome or depressing aspects of the fairy tales that they were
based on. Make sure you let us know if we forgot any in the comments below! Here is
Screen Rant's Dark Disney: Real Stories Behind Popular Disney Films.
Tangled
Disney's Tangled puts a different spin on Rapunzel's charming prince, instead having the long-haired
heroine helped down from her tower by a thief named Flynn Rider. In the original story,
the escape never even takes place. Mother Gothel discovers Rapunzel's plans and casts
her out into the desert, where she eventually gives birth to twins and lives in misery for
years. Her handsome prince is tricked into climbing the tower to find Gothel waiting
for him at the top. She throws him from the tower into a thorn bush that pokes out his
eyes. The poor prince is also left to wander for years, completely blind and surviving
only by eating grass and roots. The lovebirds eventually meet and Rapunzel cures his blindness
with a magic tear and they live happily ever after - and probably both pretty traumatized.
Pinocchio
You might think that Disney's version of Pinocchio is dark enough already - especially the scene
where a bunch of misbehaving children get horribly transformed into donkeys. Still,
Pinocchio makes it out alright by the end of the film with the help of his good friend
- and conscience - Jiminy Cricket. What happens to the lovable Jiminy Cricket in Carlo Collodi's
original novel? Well, he doesn't get a chance to sing about wishing upon a star. When the
talking cricket shows up to offer Pinocchio a bit of moral guidance, Pinocchio immediately
murders him with a mallet, and is haunted by the ghost of the dead cricket throughout
the rest of the book.
The Little Mermaid
Hans Christian Andersen is also the writer behind The Little Mermaid, which Disney adapted
in 1989 and sprinkled with some classic songs, a great villain, and a characteristically
happy Disney ending. The original story is considerably more depressing. After the Little
Mermaid is given human legs, every step she takes feels as though the soles of her feet
are being stabbed with knives. To make matters worse, the prince ends up marrying someone
else and never finds out that the Little Mermaid was the woman who saved him from drowning.
The Little Mermaid is given a chance to get her tail back by stabbing the prince in the
heart, but she can't bear to kill him and instead throws herself into the ocean and
dies, her body dissolving into froth.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Like many animated Disney films, early classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ends with
the villain getting a deadly comeuppance. After trying unsuccessfully to kill Snow White
several times, the evil Queen falls off a cliff, gets crushed by a boulder and then
vultures descend to feed on her corpse. It doesn't get any darker than that, right? Well,
in the Brothers Grimm version of the story, the Queen is forced to put on a pair of glowing
hot iron shoes and dance in them until she dies. Suddenly falling off a cliff doesn't
sound so bad.
Sleeping Beauty
A handsome, charming prince is a common trope of Disney movies, and they're usually the
perfect gentleman. In Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip meet each
other and fall in love in the forest, and Phillip later rescues Aurora from an enchanted
sleep. It's a lot more romantic than 17th century author Giambattista Basile's version
of the story, in which the Sleeping Beauty is discovered by a passing king. Instead of
breaking the spell, he rapes the sleeping woman and then leaves, forgetting all about
her. The poor girl wakes up nine months later after giving birth to two children, with no
idea what happened.
Cinderella
After being forced to play servant to her wicked stepmother and ugly stepsisters, Disney's
Cinderella is eventually rewarded with a handsome prince and a royal castle to live in. But
in the Brothers Grimm version of the story, Cinderella's stepsisters are so desperate
to get the glass slipper on that they cut off bits of their feet to try and make it
fit. It works, but all the blood kind of gives them away. To make matters worse, when the
stepsisters attend Cinderella's wedding, birds descend on them and peck out their eyes. Apparently
birds have a very low tolerance for brats.
Frozen
Disney's tale of two sisters, Frozen, is very loosely based on a book called The Snow Queen
by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. In the original version of the story, a demonic
troll creates a looking-glass that reflects even the most beautiful things back as being
ugly and hideously distorted. When the mirror is accidentally shattered, the pieces scatter
all over the world and splinters of glass land in people's hearts, turning them cold
and cruel, or in their eyes, making them incapable of seeing beauty. One unfortunate little boy
gets a splinter in his heart and his eye, corrupting him so much that he runs away to
live with the powerful Snow Queen. This fairy tale does at least have a happy ending, but
it doesn't have a happy snowman.
Those are our favorite dark versions of Disney fairy tales. Have you heard any grim variations
on happy kids' movies? Share your favourite gruesome fairy tales in our comment section
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