The sad reason why Disney films often don’t have a mother

Now we know the truth about Walt Disney's decision and it's just as sad as Bambi's mum being shot.

If you are a fan of Disney movies, from childhood and now as a parent, you might not know this about some of your favourite films.

For many Disney flicks, the plot reads like a horror movie even though it’s targeted at children, a mother is killed early on, or quite simply she’s been dead for many years.

This isn’t an oversight, there is a reason for the lack of a mother figure.  

From Disney’s earliest film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, to more recent ones like Big Hero 6, the mother figure is absent. In some movies, the mum is introduced, but later killed off - is anyone still traumatised by Bambi - or she is simply never mentioned, like in The Little Mermaid. 

Want more TV news? Sign up to Kidspot’s Talking TV newsletter for all the up-to-date news sent straight to your inbox.

Have you ever noticed mums are absent in Disney films? Image: Disney

Just some of the classic Disney films with no mum

Consider these classics in which a character has either lost a mother or there is no mention of her at all:

• Snow White 
• Bambi 
• Cinderella 
• Peter Pan 
• The Jungle Book 
• The Fox and the Hound 
• The Great Mouse Detective 
• The Little Mermaid 
• Beauty and the Beast 
• Aladdin 
• Pocahontas 
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame 
• The Emperor's New Groove 
•  Finding Nemo 
• Frozen
• Luca

And the list goes on…

Why Walt Disney often leaves the mother out of films

Many speculated that this came from Walt Disney’s own experience of losing his own mother.

Flora Disney passed away in 1938, shortly after she and her husband moved into a that Walt had bought for them following the success of his early films. There was a furnace leak that was never fixed and sadly, his mother ended up dying from the leak. 

"The idea that he really contributed to his mum's death was really tragic. If you dig, you can read about it," Disney executive producer Don Kahn has written. 

"It's not a secret within their family, but it's just a tragedy that is so difficult to even talk about. It helps to understand the man a little bit more."

RELATED: Blake Lively’s ‘Little Mermaid’ Instagram flashback is hilarious!

Little Mermaid live action. Source: Disney

RELATED: Man forced to watch Disney’s Bambi on repeat in jail because of his crimes

Fans speculate that Walt's real-life tragedy played a role in his films

Disney fans believe that Walt channeled his grief and guilt into the Disney canon by having the protagonist's mother being killed, like the opening scene of Finding Nemo, or in Beauty and the Beast, she’s not mentioned at all. 

Meanwhile, others suspect that this is purely to move the characters along and help them grow in a movie feature that is 80-90 minutes long.

Khan continues, “They're about that day in your life when you have to accept responsibility. Simba ran away from home but had to come back. In shorthand, it's much quicker to have characters grow up when you bump off their parents. Bambi's mother gets killed, so he has to grow up." 

For the newer animated works, there’s been an emphasis on keeping both parents alive in projects like Tangled, Moana, and Encanto. Or if a mother figure is being bumped off, the dad will go down too, Frozen anyone? However, some would suggest that it’s the success of these flicks that has propelled the storyline of a death or absent mother. 

Have a great Disney theory we can dissect? Drop us a line at [e-mail]

Originally published as The sad reason why Disney films often don’t have a mother