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In his article ‘How Walt Disney Ruined Our Lives’, which appeared in the Brandeis Magazine in 2013, Harvard-trained psychologist Robert Epstein talks about the impact of some of Walt Disney’s most famous films on the nature and dynamic of committed human relationships, specifically marriages. He mentions how these Disney movies, which are themselves based on ancient (and quite sinister) folktales collected by literary giants like Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers from their respective cultures, have contributed to the downfall of the idea of a committed relationship between people in the 20th century and beyond. Despite the whitewashed idea of the movies, which has wiped out their evil origin and past, these movies have proceeded to set unreasonable expectations for what a long-term, intimate relationship between two people should like. By creating such impossible standards, people-women, especially- often find themselves dissatisfied in their relationships and marriages, which has led to an overall increase in divorce and breakup percentages all over the country (in this case the USA), often over trivial or unreasonable reasons. Throughout this response, I will convey how the author managed to validate his arguments or contradict them, as well as the extent to which he targets a specific audience, namely women in troubled relationships or none at all.
One cannot deny that the impact of Disney’s movies. Children all over the world are read, or made to watch, Disney publications or movies that have penetrated every aspect of peoples’ lives. These tales, which the author refers to as ‘Disneyized’, have instilled in us a craving for things previously thought to be unreal, and thus have contributed to the formation of a ‘Mr. Right’ ideal that is impossible to locate, thus causing a lot of quite intelligent people to end their relationships, more often women than men. The author refers to a model which he first talks of in a lecture entitled ‘How to Take Control of Your Love Life’, which promotes couples to abandon idealistic fantasies and focus on building, or in most cases rebuilding, the love in their present relationship or marriage. The author highlights how such an approach, despite its outlandishness in the West, is ubiquitous in the East and has been proven. Statistically speaking, any connection in which people display vulnerability in front of each other leads to a heightened degree of bonding. The author concludes by showing the contrast between aforementioned folklore in the West and the stories in the East which etch in their listeners values of honor and love and familial bonding.
The author manages to conveniently track the influence of Disney stories and movies on the dynamics and overall minutiae of human relationships. Before such pop culture influences came into being, marriage had a relatively uniform nature, particularly of durability. Then came along the stories of Ariel, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and etched into the subconscious of a great number of women a very fallacious idea of how their man should look like: ridiculously muscular, fair hair, colored eyes, all false promises and fleeting external attributes that don’t last a few years. He suggests how we can build love: such a methodology and mentality would definitely alleviate most relationship problems.
However, the author errs in some places too. He has massively exaggerated the impact that the Disney movies have inflicted on people’s minds, something he has no way of knowing and proving empirically. The author also mentions the dark origin of some of the tales, which is irrelevant and serves his design to further our alertness and fear at the ideas these films have etched into our minds. Additionally, he presupposes that relationships should come without expectations and demands which is counterintuitive: we do, and should, expect certain gestures from our partners. Not impossible ones, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect anything or not have any standards at all.
I believe that the author’s ideas make sense. In my community, most marriages are arranged, and while there have definitely been cases of divorce, they are extremely rare and when they do happen, they occur for reasons like adultery or infertility, which are reasons relevant to the innate human condition and biology and thus not related to any external influence. However, with regards to ‘building love’, previous experiences have shown that it seldom ends well, and is thus in my opinion wrong: you can’t build love out of nothing.
In the previous paragraphs, I have shown how the author builds his ideas and arguments using layperson feedback and studies of human psychology and the agents that influence our thinking. The author is specific about targeting women, or men, who have unreasonable and fairytale expectations out of their relationships and trying to show them that it is wrong and counterintuitive to have such standards for their mates. He further stresses the importance of Eastern values, which instill in us a love of family and fellow man/woman, honor, and honesty and commitment in a relationship. This is especially important nowadays: human trivialize their connections with other people, especially life partners, and they should be reminded that the love we feel should not be bounded by incomprehensible and supernatural demands from our partners as it weakens the strongest of bonds.
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