The other day while listening to my iPod on Shuffle ‘Beauty and the Beast’ came on. You know the one- Mrs Potts voiced by Dame Angela Lansbury beautifully sings it when Beast and Belle are waltzing around the ballroom. Listening carefully to the lyrics, while trying not to belt it out to all the people sat on the bus, it got me thinking: how good are Disney characters at teaching us lessons in life? We thought about it and straight away came up with a few characters, and in one instance an entire film, that have taught us lessons.
Mrs. Potts- Beauty & the Beast
Mrs. Potts throughout the film makes it quite clear that any two people can fall in love no matter what the circumstances or the difficulties involved. She remains the mother throughout the film even when things, to us little children, seem unfixable. She teaches us that things can be fixed and that having friends really does help. It also helps to have a song and dance when things get rough. Subliminally I think she’s saying a cup of tea fixes everything. I mean why else would she be a teapot?
Raymond- The Princess and the Frog
Oh Ray how you made me cry! Raymond is the Louisiana Firefly who joins Tiana and Prince Naveen on their journey to become human again. He’s in love with Angelique, who’s actually a star, which shows us you can love anyone sincerely. He helps his friends even though he hasn’t known them for long and along the way teaches us about trust and loyalty to our friends. In a way he teaches us that dying doesn’t have to be a sad thing, he gets to be with his love Angelique in the end.
The entire Lilo & Stitch film
I seriously don’t know where to start with this film. The entire thing is filled with lessons. The biggest one being “Ohana 
means family, family means no one gets left behind. Or forgotten.” We all need family whether that be blood or friends. Lilo shows how even though Stitch screws up sometimes they are essentially family when it matters. Lilo doesn’t have human friends but she shows us that friends come from other places. Cat believes it teaches us that when you’re lonely adopting a pet will fix this. In that sense Lilo & Stitch teaches us responsibility.
Kuzco- The Emperors New Groove
Cat here as Natalie doesn’t know the awesomeness of this movie. Ok, there is possibly a lot I could say about this film. Kuzco is a selfish teenager, although he won’t admit it and to give a gift to himself he decides to build himself a summer house on top of someone else’s home. Pacha- the father & husband of the family living there tries to persuade him to move his holiday home to another place, Kuzco being Kuzco only thinks of himself and refuses leaving this family only a few days to pack up their things.
Lesson 1- listen to people and take in their needs.
Lesson 2- If a Llama says they are actually a person help the llama.
Lesson 3- Learn how to speak Squirrel.
Lesson 4- If you are building a secret lab it’s fun to build a rollercoaster to said lab but only use one lever to get into secret lab
Lesson 5- Always label potions correctly.
There’s obviously more characters that teach us important lessons in Disney films but we’ve chosen the few that straight away popped into our heads. Whatever films you learn valuable lessons from are very important, no matter if they’re animations aimed at children or films for the general market.
Here we leave you with an entire song that’s basically one big lesson… about learning to fight…
Well Did You Evah... 