One of the things I’ve done in recent weeks to bring my anxiety levels down from a debilitating level is revisit 20th Century Disney movies.
I’ve always considered myself a child of ’90s Disney. Beauty and the Beast was the first movie I saw in the theater. Up until that point, I drove my family crazy by requesting we rent The Little Mermaid every time we were at the movie rental store. (Several years later, my younger cousin paid me back in kind by insisting we watch The Little Mermaid every day for the week I visited.) The day The Lion King came out on VHS was magical. We were at CVS and, somehow, I not only convinced my mom to buy the VHS, but we also got the movie poster (the only movie poster I ever owned).
It’s cliche, but true, that Disney movies create a safe and happy place for me (despite the frequent and blatant racism, sexism, and classism in these films).
I have yet to revisit the core three from my childhood, partly because as an adult, these are the ones I always revisit when the mood strikes. Instead, I’ve been returning to the other Disney movies I grew up watching. It’s amazing to me how familiar the movies are. Even side characters in movies that I know I only watched a few times and haven’t thought about for years, like Jock and Trusty from Lady and the Tramp, feel like old friends.
Perhaps there is a simple explanation for the soothing familiarity of these films. They are all from a time in my life before stress-related or COVID-related memory problems. And whatever challenge the main characters face, they will overcome it in the end.
Feature image credit: candlelight by Muhammad Arslan from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)
Carolyn Ristau 
Back when Disney was still Walt and ran and amusement park, we drove home from the California version to San Francisco and stopped at Knotts Berry Farm. The story I remember is I fell asleep with my head in the plate once the fried chicken arrived. And I’d prefer movies with people, but to each his/her own.
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