Subliminal Messages in Disney

Audrey Whalen, Reporter


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Most grew up watching iconic Disney stories about good and evil, love and hate, childhood and coming-of-age, family and friendship. Some smiled along with the characters’ accomplishments, some cried when they lost people who were close to them and most had a ton of fun watching these movies.

Most were just kids when they first started watching the most classic Disney movies like; from “Sleeping Beauty”, “Cinderella, “The Lion King” and “The Little Mermaid”. If there were more grown-up themes or things happening in these films, it’s safe to say most probably went right over our heads. And as it turns out, there are a lot of hidden things kids definitely wouldn’t figure out.

In “Toy Story,” this wonderful character was reading a book, and it was none other than the story of “A Bug’s Life,” meaning that it was a pretty smart  subliminal message. What was the message? “A Bug’s Life” itself sparked a lot of controversy over its secretive political undertones. It appears to be all about colonialism and one group taking over another one. This little story time was pretty easy to miss, since it’s a very tricky thing to notice while watching a movie. But it’s still fun to notice, now that we’re older and know both stories, according to

“Alice in Wonderland,” is basically a public service announcement against taking unknown substances, and it’s easy to see why so many fans of the movie are convinced that this is the message that the film is portraying. It would probably be impossible to argue otherwise. After all, Alice literally becomes bigger and shrinks, encounters flowers who speak to her, and that’s just the beginning of the nutty things that happen to her. Those are not normal things that typically happen. So, it definitely seems like she’s taking something, according to

When “Frozen” came out in 2013, it quickly became an incredibly popular movie. It was not gender specific, so both boys and girls absolutely loved it, and parents everywhere rejoiced that their kids could sit together and enjoy a movie. When Queen Elsa had a ball in the movie, there were some familiar faces, although most of us probably totally missed this… Two characters from the Disney movie “Tangled,” Eugene and Rapunzel, were actually at the ball. So what do you think this means? Are the “Tangled” and “Frozen” worlds actually the same one?

There are plenty more out there. If you are interested on finding out which movie from your childhood had hidden messages, do some more research.