[1.0] Watching Disney Movies as an Adult Part 2


A long while back (I don’t remember which blog it was) I wrote about watching Roger Rabbit as an adult and getting a lot of jokes I didn’t get before as a five year old. Cinderella just came out on DVD and I bought it for my wife since she collects Disney movies. While watching it last night, I realized something which didn’t mean anything to me when I last saw Cinderella – the name of the cat.

If you remember from the last time you saw the movie, the cat was evil. Not only did it try and keep the mice from acquiring the parts for Cinderella’s dress, but, when the Duke was about to leave, it wouldn’t let Cinderella get the key to her room. The cat even purposely got the dog in trouble early on in the movie. The cat’s name: Lucifer. Shocked you didn’t remember that?

What better name for an evil character than the embodiment of evil Himself. Obviously to call him Satan would have been to obvious, but I don’t think that Lucifer went over the heads of the adult audiences. Additionally, we must remember that at the time period when Cinderella was first release, many adults went to the movies to watch cartoons. The Disney cartoon was a family event, but it didn’t preclude the adults from having fun.

If you look at the songs, plots, and characters, you can see that Disney was for older audiences. I guess that’s when the tradition started and, even today, Disney movies always have some references for adults.