On Tuesday, Keira Knightley appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show to promote her upcoming Disney movie The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. But while Knightley said that there are certain Disney movies that she loves—including Moana, Frozen, and Finding Dory—there are two classic films that her 3-year-old daughter, Edie Knightley Righton, is banned from watching.
"Cinderella, banned," she said. "Because she waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Don't! Rescue yourself. Obviously! And this is the one that I'm quite annoyed about because I really like the film, but Little Mermaid [is banned, too]. I mean, the songs are great, but do not give your voice up for a man. Hello?! But the problem with The Little Mermaid is I love The Little Mermaid! That one's a little tricky—but I'm keeping to it."
Interestingly enough, Kristen Bell happened to give a separate interview in the same week on another popular Disney movie, Snow White, though her focus was more on the fairytale itself and the way she uses it to discuss consent with her young daughters, Delta and Lincoln. Bell said that every time she reads the fairytale, she turns to her daughters and says, "Don't you think that it's weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission? Because you can not kiss someone if they're sleeping!"
The different parenting approaches of these two celebrities has sparked a debate online on whether it's better to censor your children from the anti-feminist themes of these movies or to use them as a platform to discuss these topics.
Some sided with Knightley, arguing that some of these princess stories can give little girls the wrong idea about how to navigate relationships as adults.
Whereas others sided with Bell, saying it's much more productive to use these fairytales as a way of discussing complicated topics in a way that children can understand, and to focus on the personality traits that are worth emulating.
After all, there are a lot of different ways of interpreting these stories.
And there are a lot of different lessons one can gain from them.
It's also worth noting that while Disney may have put a positive spin on all of these adaptations, many fairytales are actually terrifying cautionary tales. Ariel may marry her prince in the Disney version of The Little Mermaid, but in the original version by Hans Christian Anderson, the prince marries someone else, and Ariel dies, heartbroken, and dissolves into sea foam. This makes it much easier to impart to your kid that giving up your voice for a man is not going to end well.
And for more celebrity guidance on raising strong men and women, check out these 5 Amazing Parenting Tips from Beyoncé.
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