Glamour interviewed the executive producer of Maleficent, Don Hahn, who shed some light on what goes into creating a Disney picture. Glamour noticed that Maleficent is the first Disney film in a while to have a mother present. When they asked Don Hahn why the absence of mothers was so persistent he gave two reasons, one practical and one a bit gloomy.
The Practical Reason:
“One reason is practical because the movies are 80 or 90 minutes long, and Disney films are about growing up. They’re about that day in your life when you have to accept responsibility. Simba ran away from home but had to come back. In shorthand, it’s much quicker to have characters grow up when you bump off their parents. Bambi’s mother gets killed, so he has to grow up. Belle only has a father, but he gets lost, so she has to step into that position. It’s a story shorthand.”
The Disturbing Reason:
“The other reason—and this is really odd—Walt Disney, in the early 1940s, when he was still living at this house, also bought a house for his mom and dad to move into. He had the studio guys come over and fix the furnace, but when his mom and dad moved in, the furnace leaked and his mother died. The housekeeper came in the next morning and pulled his mother and father out on the front lawn. His father was sick and went to the hospital, but his mother died. He never would talk about it, nobody ever does.”
This is too weird.
