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Caitlin Williard
Ashley Marcum
ENG-111
November 24, 2015
The Reason Cartoon Mothers Are Dead
One of the first things anyone notices in a movie or cartoon is the main characters,
or lack thereof. Many of the children featured in films today are motherless, or even
orphans. There are only a handful of movies that have both parents including Rapunzel,
Sleeping Beauty, and Mulan. The more popular movies including Beauty and the Beast,
The Little Mermaid, and Finding Nemo are motherless. According to a reporter from the
LA Times the reason for single fathers in Disney is because, A motherless child faced an
adult villain is perhaps the most appealing character in all of fiction (Abcarian). Disney
takes this tactic in almost every movie they put out. This makes us question why exactly
do they kill off the mother?
A child having grown up with only a father can get pretty rebellious. Take The
Little Mermaid for example. Ariel loses her mother at a very young age, and her father
has to raise seven girls by himself. A mother would understand her fascination with the
world above the water and a handsome prince, but King Triton is a man. He wants to
protect his little girl, in being so he makes Ariel extremely independent. The quote:
Headstrong women, dead mothers (Abcarian), would definitely define this movie. This
relates to reality, having a single father trying to raise several daughters. It is no easy
task, but still doesnt fully answer our question. What if its because single fathers dont
get the fame as single mothers do?

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In reality, single mothers are constantly praised for their hard work and effort put
into their childrens lives. Single fathers arent as many; therefore hardly get their time in
the spotlight. Giving them their time to shine in movies could also be a play on reverse
Oedipus syndrome (Boxer). We normally hear about the mother killing or getting rid of
the child to get the fathers attention, but what if it was the other way around? In the
movies the children obviously dont intend to kill their mothers, but it is a thought.
Another reason for motherless children could be due to the fairy tales they originate from.
Many of the stories that Disney and other major cartoon producers originate from
old stories passed down several generations or the famous Grimms Fairy Tales. The
stories of Grimm were more violent than those of Disney, but the main plot remains the
same. Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty all came from the Grimm
brothers in the early 1800s. Disney happened to tweak them all slightly to have happy
endings, while the originals end terribly. A reason that the mothers were killed off could
be because in that time period, women didnt often make it through childbirth as they do
now: At the times when many ancient fairy tales originated, mothers frequently died
young or in childbirth (Sultan). A mother back then didnt have the medicines we have
now to always make it in order to be able to raise a healthy child.
Sometimes, the movie is changed from the fairy tale in a different way. In the
Hunchback of Notre Dame, no mother was ever mentioned in the original tale. Disney
simply created one to kill her off, this making Quasimodos situation a more saddening
one. The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen only briefly mentions a mother, but
does not tell of her demise. In the third Little Mermaid movie, we are told that Athena

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had died in a boating accident. Disney simply made this up in order to give Ariel pity
points.
Killing off the mother in the films also keeps her memory perfect. If you get rid
of her early enough, there is literally no ill memory of her. She normally sacrifices her
life to save the child, as in Ice Age and Finding Nemo. Any mother is in danger of this,
She is always blameless; she is often self-sacrificing -- and she's always doomed
(Miller). What if both parents are gone? Disney offers us these cases too.
As an orphan, life can be as fun as you want it to be. You can do whatever you
want whenever you want (Harvey). In Peter Pan, Peter is content with life with no
parents. He doesnt ever have to be told what to do, doesnt have a bedtime, and no one
to tell him no. He is so happy he can literally fly! In other cases, such as Frozen, it isnt
as fun and joyful. Anna and Elsa lose their parents in a boat accident while they are
teenagers. Anna wants to bond with her sister, since all they have left is each other. Elsa
on the other hand is scared to death, for her parents helped her immensely with her ice
powers. She pushes Anna away, and almost kills her sister in the process. In the end,
they are reunited as best friends and all is right in the world.
In some other movies with orphans, such as Lilo & Stitch, we automatically feel
sympathy for them. Nani has to sacrifice her life in order to raise her little sister Lilo
after their parents die in a car crash. While Nani is being threatened by Child Services to
take her little sister away, aliens are threatening Lilo. Nani tries her hardest to keep Lilo,
and we as the audience side with her. In the end when its decided they get to stay
together, we all sigh in relief. On the scoreboard of sympathy points, Disney definitely
earns one.

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Another reason Disney would kill off the mother is to make the father look
amazing at being a parent. In Finding Nemo, Marlin literally travels the ocean looking
for his son. When a barracuda killed Nemos mother in the opening three minutes,
Marlin vowed never to let anything happen to his only connection to her. Marlin raised
Nemo in an over-protective environment, thus making a rebellious child. Fast forward to
the end, and they are together once again closer than ever. Same thing happens in The
Little Mermaid; once King Triton lets Ariel live with Prince Eric she loves him more than
she had before.
One final reason that Disney would kill off the mother is to replace her with an
evil one, or just an evil woman in general. We see this in Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty,
and Snow White. They dont make the real mother evil because that goes against the
stereotype of the other woman trying to replace her. In Cinderella, we never see what
happens to her real mother but her dad does die from falling off a horse. Her stepmother
pretended to be caring and loving towards her up until her dads death. The rest of the
movie centers on Cinderella trying to escape Lady Tremaines evil ways, and eventually
succeeds. In the fairy tale, the stepsisters chop off their toes and heels to fit into the glass
slipper. What happens to the stepmother isnt really stated, but it is assumed she dies an
old hag. In Sleeping Beauty, Auroras mother is only seen briefly before she is handed
over to the fairies. Maleficent is the evil witch who curses her because she wasnt invited
to the christening. A prince comes along and saves Aurora, waking her from a deep sleep
and slaying Maleficent. In the fairy tale, an old king rapes her and they have several
children together before she is awakened. Disney definitely did the right thing in opting
that out of the cartoon. Lastly, in Snow White, we dont see a mother or father. The evil

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queen is out to kill Snow because she is envious of her beauty. Another prince comes
along and kills this threat and they live happily ever after.
The main reason for Disney making mothers scarce in their cartoons is to give
men their time to shine. Many families nowadays are split, and some children are raised
without a mother figure. It seems sadder if the mother is killed off rather than just
distant, therefore Disney strikes us right in the feels. They are ruthless in their efforts to
tug at our heartstrings, killing a mother is the least they can do to make us shed a tear.

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Works Cited
Abcarian, Robin. LOS, ANGLES T. "Mothers Missing from Movies Movies Minus
Mom: Disney does in Mothers." The Salt Lake TribuneAug 08 1995. ProQuest
Web. 5 Nov. 2015.
Boxer, Sarah. "Why Are All the Cartoon Mothers Dead?" The Atlantic. Atlantic Media
Company, 25 June 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2015.
Harvey, Kenneth J. "FAMILY FILMS the Wonderful World of Dead Parents Fairy Tales
have always been Full of Gruesome Activities, but Disney Movie Plot Lines seem
Fixated on Killing Off Mom and Dad." The Globe and MailSep 20
1997.ProQuest. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.
Sarah Bryan Miller Post-Dispatch Classical, Music Critic. "DEAD MOTHERS'
SOCIETY." St.Louis Post - DispatchJul 13 2003.ProQuest. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.
Sultan, Aisha. "St. Louis Post-Dispatch Dirty Laundry Column: What does Disney have
Against Mothers?" McClatchy - Tribune Business News Mar 15
2008. ProQuest. Web. 5 Nov. 2015 .
Toscano, Siobhan. "DISNEY, IT'S TIME TO MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE: GIVE
MOTHERS THEIR DUE." Chicago Tribune (pre-1997 Fulltext): 6. Sep 08
1996. ProQuest. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.