Overrated Disney Movie - Pinocchio

My boyfriend and I recently started watching Disney movies we have never seen before. We realized after watching the Lion King (re-released recently) that since it was so great, some classics that we would and could love surely had slipped through the cracks. For the past 6 months or so we have borrowed from our local libraries and rented the rest on Netflix. There have been some surprises. Treasure Planet was fun, The Black Cauldron was CREEPY, The Hunchback of Notre Dame pretty perverted, and Home on the Range was so boring I fell asleep.

And so, on to Pinocchio.

Let’s get this out of the way: Pinocchio has great animation and When You Wish Upon a Star, is an iconic song. The movie was released in 1940 and was Disney’s second feature length animated film (the first was Snow White).

Imagine a film where the main protagonist is both an idiot and a child. Everyone who loves the child has horrible judgment, and everyone who hurts and exploits the child gets away with it. This is why I don’t understand the appeal of watching Pinocchio. It’s a horror film with songs and cute animals.

The fact that Pinocchio is alive by the end of the movie is a miracle.

(Spoiler Alert!!!!!)

Literally! Because, yes, Pinocchio drowns and dies saving his loved ones. The Blue Fairy ultimately brings him back to life, but you have to wonder why he is tested so much before he is turned into a “real boy” when so many evil beings already exist in the story. More puppet-people, Blue Fairy, and less scoundrels and scam artists!

But what happens before Pinocchio dies? Is he abducted by a fox in a top hat and sold into puppet slavery for a cruel man named Stromboli? Yes. Is he abducted again by the SAME fox and sold to a different man and then partially turned into a donkey? Yes. He is abducted numerous times by numerous predators, and everyone who should be looking out for him doesn’t. You can’t even blame Pinocchio really, of course he is naïve, he is newly alive but still a child-puppet with a wooden head.

Watching this movie filled me with so much anxiety I couldn’t enjoy anything once Pinocchio leaves Geppetto’s house. What is wrong with these characters? Why is Geppetto letting Pinocchio walk to school by himself one day after he is given consciousness by the blue fairy? Why is the Blue Fairy letting Pinocchio have a nomadic cricket act as his conscience? Why isn’t Jiminy held more accountable for the horrible stuff that happens to Pinocchio?

There’s no resolution in the end, the little boys who are turned into donkeys remain donkeys, and presumably the man who owns the evil Pleasure Island continues to abduct children. The fox who sells Pinocchio twice is never caught. Stromboli is still a really mean and greedy puppeteer. Even though Pinocchio finally becomes a real boy, he still has to live in this depressing world with well-intentioned but useless guardians.