If you’re a fan of Lilo & Stitch and decide to pull it up for streaming, well, you might notice that Disney has made a small but noticeable change.
There was a scene where Lilo hides from Nani in a dryer – but now he hides in a plain cabinet.
The reason? Disney, and parents everywhere, would really like to discourage, not encourage, their kids to not hide in dryers lest one get started up with a sleeping child inside.
Photo Credit: Disney
And if you think that would never happen, well, first off, it’s likely you’ve never had a toddler.
Second, statistics show that over 2,000 kids a year are hurt – and some even die – after becoming stuck inside dryers, so it’s definitely responsible to consider those facts when portraying a fun game of hide and seek.
There is precedent for Disney altering scenes or sequences that are considered outdated or unsavory through a modern lens. Pixar scrubbed a gross outtake of Stinky Pete seemingly inviting Barbie onto a casting couch in Toy Story 2, which is obviously in poor taste.
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That said, many of their older movies still contain racist remarks or character names (looking at you, Peter Pan), so it’s not really clear what the standards are for altering bits and pieces of movies.
Of course, with some of the older movies, there are so many references and so much that’s wrong that there would be nothing to do but trash the whole thing.
Perhaps they’re just thinking to give parents the option of whether to view the movie and have the appropriate discussions, or to not view it at all, given its outdated content.
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As a parent, you’ll have to decide for yourself what films still have enough merits to warrant a viewing, despite troublesome moments, and which ones your kids (and the world) can do without.
Disney can’t do it all, no matter how much it might want to, after all!
Are you going to let your kids watch movies like Dumbo or Peter Pan? Why or why not? Let’s discuss in the comments!