There must be more then this provincial life

I made a flippant (do I make any other kind?) comment on Claw of the Conciliator's blog in which I said something like "Disney's morality is almost completely incompatible with Christianity". It was a response to an article he was quoting that said something about "Disney-brand “Judeo-Christian morality,”. Claw commented that Disney isn't about Judeo-Christian morality but about believing in yourself, and I meant to agree, but went overboard.

Anactoria asked in the comments "Hey Paul, how are Disney stories incompatible with Christianity exactly?" and rather than hijack Claw's comments completely, I though I would answer her in a blog post of my own.

If you want more background for some reason, check out this post and the comments to it.

Disney's morality tends strongly towards secular-humanism-lite-plus-occasional-new-age.

Beauty and the Beast, to use your example, Anactoria. is drawn from a fairy tale, yes. The version of the fairy tale I'm most familiar with goes like this:

A rich merchant lived in the city, with his daughters, one of whom was Beauty, but he lost his wealth, and he and his daughters (whose suitors no longer wanted to marry them) had to live in the country. One day, he heard that a ship of his had returned. He went back to the city. His other daughters asked for jewelry and dresses, but Beauty wanted only a rose.

Beauty's father, lost in a forest and caught in a storm, finds shelter in the Beast's palace. As he leaves, he plucks a rose to bring back to Beauty, offending his unseen host, who denouncing him as a thief, tells him he must now die. The father begs to be allowed to see his daughters again: the Beast says that he can go if he promises to send the first living thing he meets on his property back to the Beast. The man agrees, assuming that the first thing he sees will be his cat, but Beauty runs to meet him, and he sees her first. Beauty journeys to the Beast's castle convinced she will be killed, but instead she is made mistress of the enchanted palace, and the Beast asks her to be his wife. She says she can be his friend, and will stay with him forever, but not as his wife, asking only to return to her home for a week to say farewell to her father. Her sisters entice her to stay beyond the allotted week, and she returns belatedly to the castle, finding the Beast lying near death from distress at her failure to return. She begs him to live, so that he may be her husband, and by this act the Beast is transformed into a handsome prince. After Beauty returns to the palace, her family comes to live with her. (very slightly altered from the wikipedia on Beauty and the Beast)

Now this pre-Disney version is about all kinds of things. It's a children's story, but it's multi-layered and profound. It's about female sexual maturity (the girl leaves her father for a man who seems beastly at first, but who she eventually becomes attracted to), it's about the redemptive power of love (the beast is becomes human because he is loved), it's about both the importance keeping promises (Beauty breaker her promise to the Beast has disastrous consequences) and the danger of making promises (the father has to sacrifice his daughter because he is bound by a promise), it's about self-sacrifice (Beauty gives of herself to save her father), and it's about deceptive appearances (Beast looks ugly but beneath it is good). I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but you get the idea. This is all just to say that just because it's a children's story doesn't mean the morality has to be watered down.

Disney's version maintains the deceptive-appearances angle (sort of, I'll get into that). Gaston is handsome but evil, the Beast is ugly but good. But let's look closer, and especially let's look at what Disney has added to the story and what they've taken away.

Belle starts the movie by complaining about her provincial life. She's bored. Like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, like Pocahontas, like Mulan, like Aladdin, Belle is unhappy with her life among the commoners. She wants excitement, and (like the other characters) she finds it, because she's special.

In the fairy tale the spell is broken when she agrees to marry him. In the Disney version it's when she says she loves him. What's the difference? In one it's about the redemptive power of love a committed and self-sacrificing love, and in the other it's about the power of love with no strings and no risks.

Christianity is a religion in which sinners are ransomed from the fall. Judaism is a religion in which a just God blesses a people with the Law, so they can live rightly with him and be a light to all nations. "Judeo-Christian" morality emphasises self-sacrifice and the existence of a truth beyond human understanding but which is made access able to us by grace. It emphasises love as an action instead of only a feeling, and it emphasises that what you do matters.

Disney morality emphasises that the truth is found within oneself, that love is like a light switch that fixes things without and risk or sacrifice.