I recently wrote several articles where I ranked the 58 Disney Animated Canon films that I had seen. However, as much as I enjoy Disney animated films, I’ve always been frustrated by a particular trope that developed over the course of their films, Disney Death. Considering how I feel about this particular trope, as well as how I see it in other media as well, I thought it would be interesting to discuss my reasons for why I hate Disney Death.
I should start by defining what the Disney Death trope is. Disney Death refers to any situation where a character seemingly dies near the end of the media, only to reveal at the end that they are, in fact, alive. The original purpose of this trope seems pretty obvious, to shock the audience and raise the stakes for the climax without actually killing the character and upsetting the audience. I could understand how, with sharp writing and infrequent use, this trope could prove to be effective but, all too often, it’s predictable and poorly executed.
While it could be argued that this trope was first seen in prior Disney animated films, the 1955 film Lady and the Tramp is the first example I would argue that the trope is used egregiously. Whereas Snow White gives you plenty of hints that she’s not really dead and Peter Pan uses some narrow escapes from death to keep the audience in suspense, Lady and the Tramp fumbles by seemingly killing a character heroically only to have him appear alive and, for the most part, well within minutes. I will remind you readers that I adore Lady and the Tramp and rank it as one of my favourite Disney films but, in some ways, I can’t forgive it for developing a trope that would eventually become overused and tasteless.
Since then, we have seen this trope used time and time again throughout the Disney Animated Canon from films such as Robin Hood, The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron, Tangled etc. The constant use of this trope has developed to the point where I grow frustrated seeing it play out in front of me, particularly if it’s predictable such as when it happens to one of the main characters. To be fair, there have been a few rare instances where I’ve been got off guard with a Disney character death because I was fully expecting this trope with a good example being The Princess and the Frog but I still feel that this trope takes much more away from these films than it adds.
It would be one thing if the Disney Death trope was restricted to Disney films but it has unfortunately managed to find its way into many other works as well. Don Bluth, best known for leaving Disney and setting up his own animation studio, used the Disney Death trope within some of his later films such as A Troll in Central Park, The Pebble and the Penguin, Anastasia, Titan A.E. etc. Besides that, numerous films from Dreamworks, Blue Sky Studios, Sony Pictures Animation and many other animation studios also make use of the Disney Death Trope.
Even anime makes use of this trope from time to time. The one I remember most is from Tiger & Bunny, a series that I absolutely adore, where a main character appears to have died near the end only to be revealed to be fine a moment later. As much as I love Tiger & Bunny, I find myself rolling my eyes at this particular sequence and consider it to be a blemish on an otherwise excellent series. There are plenty of other anime series that make use of this trope and, while I would argue it has a higher success rate than Western animation due to the fact that it’s not implausible that the character may’ve actually died, it can end up being just as frustrating.
I’m not saying that the Disney Death trope cannot be effective but, more often than not, I find myself getting annoyed by how heavy handed and predictable it can feel. Let me know your thoughts on my reasons why I hate the Disney Death trope in media, what your own thoughts on the Disney Death trope are, what examples of this you’ve come across (try to keep it as spoiler free as possible by just mentioning the product and none of the events) and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!