Recently I have had the opportunity to re-watch all of my favorite old and new Disney movies. As a kid you just think about Mulan as a really awesome girl who you aspire to be, or you watch Inside Out and you laugh at the characters but you don't fully understand the deeper meaning and morales of these stories. Just an FYI this is what happens when you're a nanny and you watch a Disney movie a day, you start to evaluate their deeper meanings and learn to appreciate them a little more.
Inside Out - it's okay to be sad
As a little kid watching Inside Out they laugh at Anger and fall in love Bing-Bong, but they don't understand the struggle between Joy and Sadness. This movie teaches us that it's okay to be sad and cry it out, and that you don't have to hide your sadness away, because you are allowed to have mixed emotions.
Frozen - sisterly love
As a child you love Olaf and the songs and the pretty princesses. However, what you understand as an adult is that Elsa and Anna only have each other and that they love each other unconditionally and they were able to thaw each other's frozen hearts which is pretty remarkable.
Lilo and Stitch- family is what you make it
When you are little, you watch and you laugh at Stitch's silly jokes and you want to have Lilo's Hawaiian skirt. However, as an adult you realize that Nani did everything in her power to keep her family together, and they welcomed Stitch and his alien friends into their family because after all Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.
Finding Dory- if you make a big enough impact on someone's life they will remember you forever.
Finding Dory taught us adults that as long as you are kind and believe in yourself you do anything you set your heart to and that will make people always remember you. It also taught us that we should just keep swimming through life's struggles.
Mulan- taught us to be strong and independent.
Mulan is the Disney princess that children often times forget is a princess. As a 20 year old I realized that more little girls should look up to Mulan because she teaches that girls can be just as strong and as tough or tougher then the boys- also the adult humor in this movie makes it great for big people too.
Peter Pan- embrace your inner child.
Peter Pan is just a fun whimsical story that introduced us to Tinker Bell. However as you age you realize that it's really about so much more, it teaches us that no matter how old we get it's okay to keep our inner child alive. After all, all you need in life is a little faith, trust, and pixie dust.
Beauty and the beast- inner beauty is all that really matters.
Beauty and the beast has so many important messages, the first being that you shouldn't judge people based off your first look, because what you see might not be what's within. It also teaches that inner beauty is so much more important than outer beauty. After all Belle could have settled for Gaston who only had his outer beauty but she fell for the Beast who was her true love- despite his exterior.
UP- appreciate the little moments.
UP at first look is a story about never giving up on your dreams. However, the more I watch it, I realize that it's really about appreciating life's little moments. Carl realized that his life with Ellie was the real adventure and I find so much joy in knowing that the little moments are sometimes so much more valuable then the big ones.
Tangled- your comfort zone was made to be shattered.
As a little kid Tangled is a fun twist on Rapunzel with a silly horse and a frying pan. As an adult I really feel like Rapunzel is my spirit animal, she wants to leave home, but at the same time feels regret. She wants to achieve her dreams but is deathly afraid of getting there and also she really sucks at making decisions. But in the end she teaches us that it's okay to break out of your comfort zone, and that some really magical things lay on the other side.
Cinderella - live like the clock is about to strike midnight.
Lastly, Cinderella is the most classic princess that every little girl wants to be. Although I don't believe in the sentiment that she fell in love in one night, I do think that the greatest message of this fairy tail is that you should always live life like the clock is about to strike midnight, because you never what could happen next, so you might as well live life to the fullest.
I will continue to "evaluate" Disney movies, but really I'll be sitting there with my Capri Sun and gold fish enjoying the happiness that Disney has brought me my whole life and try hard to never grow up. "That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up." Walt Disney
