by Currie Jean

Created on: August 27, 2008

The "subliminal messages" left in Disney movies make great urban legends, used often as conversation fodder. But are they really subliminal messages? Is the Disney corporation trying to affect the thoughts in viewers' heads and manipulate their desires?

In order to judge, we've got to know what we're judging. Here are some of the most popular legends about Disney's hidden messages:

The Little Mermaid

If you were a child, or had one, back in the late eighties - when The Little Mermaid was first released to video - and you still have your first VHS copy, take a close look at the central gold tower on Poseidon's, er, I mean Triton's, castle. See anything strange? Maybe a little inappropriate? If your mind's not dirty enough to notice, here's the secret: it's a penis, a very obvious, direct, and intentional erection. The artist was fired for his graffiti.

The Little Mermaid's phallic notoriety doesn't stop there: legend has it that during the wedding ceremony late in the film, the bishop leading the ceremony lets an erection of his own peek out from under his robes - covered in cloth, but suggestive. This legend, however, is a a misnomer: unlike the veiny cover tower, it only looks inappropriate if you already know to expect the inappropriate. What you're really looking at is the bishop's knee.

Aladdin

This time around, the suggestiveness isn't visual, but auditory, and has been edited out of recent copies of the animated feature. During the scene in which Aladdin whispers to Raja the tiger, on Jasmine's balcony, he should be saying "Good kitty, take off your claws," as was recorded with the original voice actor in the studio. However, before release, someone working late in the sound studio (maybe that's the explanation) replaced the words with "Good teenagers take-off-their-clothes."

The clip can be found on-line, and while the words are tough to make out, the difference can be heard. The mix-up is generally considered to be an accident. On DVD, Aladdin now just says, "Good kitty."

The Lion King

Going back to visual messages, The Lion King provides a strangely beautiful example. Past the film's halfway marke, the aged Simba flops down on some grass at the edge of a cliff. This stirs up some fluff - seeds, loose blades of grass, and the like - which are relevant to the plot in that they carry Simba's scent to Rafiki the baboon, informing Rafiki that Simba is still alive. As the fluff floats away from Simba, it drifts across the sky in a way that morphs seamlessly into

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