My parents were the kind that changed the channel when kiss scenes were on TV and banned me from watching Blue Water High, so you can imagine what my childhood TV time was like.
Mostly I just watched a lot of Disney or Pixar movies. You know the classics – Cinderella, Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Cars, Madagascar, etc. But now I’m all grown up and re-watching my faves, and I can’t believe how dark some of these films were. How was I allowed to watch these but not kiss scenes?!
Here’s five horribly dark scenes in my childhood faves that I’m surprised didn’t traumatise me.
#1 Mother Gothel’s Death
Mother Gothel dying isn’t exactly tragic since she was the villain – what’s disturbing is the visuals. She turns into an old hag, writhes in pain and her eyes nearly pop out of her skull – and then Pascal the fucking chameleon essentially murders her by tripping her so she falls out the window. The chameleon, guys.
#2 Constance’s Whole Story Arc From Monster House
Dude. Constance is a freakishly large woman who is kept in a cage and treated like an animal until escaping with a guy who sees her as an actual person. She seems to have a speech or intellectual disability as she rages at children, and in that rage she falls and then is subsequently covered by cement. WTF. I get nauseous and claustrophobic every time I think about it because the suffocation and instant breaking of limbs is just so disturbing and awful.
#3 When Rugrat’s Tommy Tries To Sacrifice Dill To The Monkeys
OMG. I actually got choked up in this scene – it’s only a few seconds long, but that’s enough to break my heart. Tommy can’t handle the difficulty of having to care care of Dill whilst also dealing with the fact that they’re lost – and he’s ready to get rid of Dill by feeding him to a bunch of monkeys. There’s just something about watching children struggle that brings me to tears instantly.
#4 When Frollo Murders An Armenian Woman And Tries To Drown Her Baby
Obviously, the genocide of Armenian people (we’re not going to use the word g*psy because it’s considered a racial slur) is pretty fucking dark. Frollo kills an Armenian woman causing her head to smash against the pavement, and then he tries to murder her baby by drowning it. If that wasn’t enough to seriously upset a child, there’s also his predatory sexual treatment and general abuse of Esmeralda. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is definitely one of Disney’s darkest and most fucked up movies. Mind you – it’s also PG.
#5 Clayton’s Death In Tarzan
Tarzan has a whole was an emotionally distressing movie for me – his parents get eaten by a leopard, and his adoptive father Gorilla gets shot and killed too. But worse than those – Clayton literally gets strangled to death in the vines, his corpse gruesomely hanging and backlit by the storm.
Image Sources: Disney, Nickelodeon, Sony Pictures
