Earlier this year, when I wrote about the lack of Disney in children’s lives earlier this year, a few people chimed in to tell me I have a blind spot because I don’t have a daughter.
Which is exactly right.
But Disney is not just about girls – nor is it particularly absent – when you consider all the properties they own. Which you’ll be able to do at will this fall, since Disney is now on Netflix.
Once Disney hits Netflix – and thus, our Roku – and Detective Munch notices it while we attempt to get a little extra sleep, Disney will be in his life more than ever. He just might not know it’s Disney! 
I complained about Disney being absent, but in reality, Disney is everywhere. Except most of the stuff my son likes doesn’t necessarily go by the Disney name. Pixar is Pixar, and Marvel and Star Wars will always be Marvel and Star Wars. (I didn’t start considering Monday Night Football a Disney thing, regardless of who’s cashing the checks.)
It’s a little different for girls. The Disney Princesses are huge deal – and a marketing juggernaut, especially with the recent additions of the girls from Arendelle – but gender-assignations be damned, Detective Munch just isn’t into them. He flirted with the Frozen girls (it was the first movie he saw in the theater, bizarre bad guys and all) but he outgrew that pretty quickly and now looks down at so-called girly stuff with disdain. (He’s also moved on from “Let It Go” to Hamilton, a big step-up if you ask me.)
Along with Frozen and Zootopia, Netflix is getting Pixar’s and Marvel’s and Lucasfilm’s (all Disney owned) latest movies, which include Captain America: Civil War and The Force Awakens, and will eventually include Rogue One and the countless other entries in the Marvel superhero universe. Basically every blockbuster movie that will come out over the next few years, many of which are more appealing to boys. Or at least to my boy.
Because, at the risk of propagating sexist stereotypes, most of Disney’s recent acquisitions, and the very properties that Netflix is welcoming to its streaming platform, seem to skew a bit more male. Superheroes and Star Wars, specifically.
Not that girls shouldn’t be, or aren’t, into those things; they should be, and they are. But the same can’t really be said for boys and princess stuff. This is purely anecdotal, but there seems to be less crossover on the male side. (Although I saw Cinderella in the theater as a little kid and I didn’t have a problem with it. I certainly don’t have a problem with the Disney princess now! How you doin’, Ariel?)
It seems like Disney is aware of the gap, and that – along with world domination – maybe one of the reasons the bought Marvel and Lucasfilm. But if they really want to make the crossover happen, I have an idea…
Now that Star Wars belongs to Disney, it’s time to add Princess Leia to their coterie of glamorous royalty. That might get my son more interested!
As part of the Netflix Stream Team, I was compensated with a year’s subscription to Netflix and a Roku TV. But my opinions are 100% my own. Except for the ones Mom and Buried provides for me.
