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It's long floated around my ears that Disney movies have "adult content" secretly/intentionally "embedded" in their various movies. I've heard examples from Lion King, Aladdin, and the Little Mermaid. There may be others.

HERE is another example of such a claim:

I've known for awhile that some of Disney's children movies contain sexual scenes &/or words in them. Last night I thought, could these same movies be putting sexual messages in children's subconscious?

  • The Little Mermaid: The priest has an errection during the ceremony...On the cover of this movie there is a penis. If you have a copy, one of the first 200, you can see it. (VIDEO)
  • Aladdin: When he's at Jasmin's window & trying to calm her tiger down he says "Good teenagers take off their clothes." (SOURCE)
  • The Lion King: When Simba jumps in the dust to run after his father the word "sex" can be seen in the dust. (VIDEO)

Have these, and other claims like them, shown to be conclusively false?

Hendy
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    To be clear, is the question whether there are jokes aimed at the adults watching the movies with their kids, or whether they "be putting sexual messages in children's subconscious?" – Borror0 Jun 23 '11 at 18:24
  • [It's a three-pronged attack, there's subliminal,liminal, and super-liminal](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xx4BsBr2fU).... – Monkey Tuesday Jun 23 '11 at 18:27
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    In Aladdin he says Good tiger, dont get to close. The "Erection" appears to just be an ill advised wrinkle in the robes and an even more unfortunatly calculation of the animation software. The rest of the little mermaid though seemed to contain far to much inuendo and phallic symbols, I dont know if I would comfortable with my kids watching it. As for the LK I think the sex is just more animation software rather than intent. – Chad Jun 23 '11 at 18:36
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    LK: The assumed SEX in the stars is SFX (common abreviation for special effects) "easter egg". – Suma Jun 23 '11 at 18:43
  • @Borror0: Neither really... just whether they are there at all or whether it's just [pareidolia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia) – Hendy Jun 23 '11 at 19:47
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    Is the word "SEX" really an adult content? – Alexis Dufrenoy Jun 27 '11 at 09:54
  • @Traroth: Good point. I guess the idea is mostly that for the age of individual these are targeted toward, an intentionally placed "sex" is odd in such a film. Was your question geared toward a particularly point? – Hendy Jun 27 '11 at 12:05
  • @Hendy: It's odd, I agree. But pointing it out as some sort of mental attack against youth or something like that seems exagerated, to me. In worst case, it's stupid. Most cases enumerated by Oliver below seem to show the bad spirit of some viewers *wanting* to see sexual-related content, with the notable exception of The Rescuers. – Alexis Dufrenoy Jun 27 '11 at 13:12
  • @Traroth: Well, the question is asking whether there is any content that seems 1) deliberately inserted and 2) common-sense-based odd for a children's movie. The claim I quoted only *happens* to feature the bit about Disney trying to program the kids. I couldn't care less about that. I just wanted to know if Disney had really put this stuff in their movies or whether it was just pareidolia. It seems that most of it is in our heads, even though there is also some odd stuff that seems intentional – Hendy Jun 27 '11 at 15:11
  • @Hendy: I couldn't agree more. – Alexis Dufrenoy Jun 27 '11 at 16:13

2 Answers2

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This is all taken from Snopes - Disney Films:

The Lion King

Lion King

Status: UNDETERMINED

The generally accepted explanation is that the letters were slipped in by a special effects group to form the abbrevation ""S-F-X".


The Little Mermaid

Mermaid Source

Status: FALSE

The plain truth is that the resemblance between the castle spire and a penis was purely accidental...


Aladdin

Status: FALSE

Listen for yourself: Wav Audio

Whatever is being said, to the casual listener the resulting phrase can certainly sound like "Good teenagers, take off your clothes", although the phrase is clearly the combination of two different voices speaking in two different tones.


The image of a topless woman in The Rescuers has been confirmed though:

Rescuers

Status: TRUE

Unlike most rumors of risque words images hidden in Disney's animated films, this one is clearly true, and the images were undeniably purposely inserted into the movie.


More:

Community
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Oliver_C
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    I see an 'E', not an 'F'. 'F' is a lame excuse. `Status False` by the statement of the art worker of the little meermaid isn't too believable for me either. But a nice collection, and over all +1. – user unknown Jun 24 '11 at 15:59
  • Nice comment -- I would have preferred something from a place other than just snopes, but the answer does cover the bases well. – Hendy Jun 27 '11 at 15:12
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    The amount of effort concerned citizens seem to have put in to find these subliminal images in my opinion says more disturbing things about *them* than it does about Disney... – Shadur Feb 12 '15 at 06:13
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Disney is not nearly unique in this. If you go beyond pure images, Russian childrens cartoons are famous for unintentional (?) double entendres:

  • Winnie the Pooh has an episode where they give Eeyore a BDay present.... a jar and a popped balloon. Here's the dialog, exactly translated:

    "Yours can not enter. But mine can enter. In. And Out." (это у тебя не входит! А у меня все входит. И выходит). It loses the obvious context in trnslation.

  • A famous cartoon "Blue puppy" had a song with lines "Blue, blue, don't wanna play with you". Which kinda sounds VERY weird in russian since in Russian culture a "blue" person means "gay" (source: Kozlovskii, Vladimir. Argo russkoi gomoseksual'noi subku'ltury [The Slang of Russian Homosexual Subculture]. Benson, VT.: Chalidze Publications, 1986).

user5341
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    I doubt that the creator of "Blue Puppy" could've associated "blue" with "gay" in 1976. Gay culture became a non-taboo topic at the end of the 1980s; I bet in the 1970s the word "blue" was interpreted as "gay" by a meagre portion of the soviet population. – CopperKettle Feb 11 '15 at 16:49
  • @CopperKettle - the term's usage predates 1970s by a couple of decades at least. Citation: "Kozlovskii, Vladimir. Argo russkoi gomoseksual'noi subku'ltury [The Slang of Russian Homosexual Subculture]. Benson, VT.: Chalidze Publications, 1986.", via http://community.middlebury.edu/~moss/goluboy.html . Hard to tell about how large the portion was in the 70s – user5341 Feb 11 '15 at 19:14