Sarah Boxer originally asked this question in the July/August 2014 issue of The Atlantic and I wondered right along with her in a previous post. She points out that not only do children’s filmmakers kill off the mothers with brutal regularity, but they are now replacing them with perfect fathers. She saw this as a last, desperate chauvinistic power grab. An attempt to establish a kinder, gentler patriarchy. And I suggested that it was the film industry’s attempt to model good fathering to a nation of underachieving dads. Disney Studios’, the most matricidal of all filmmakers, latest release follows Ms Boxer’s scenario with chilling exactitude. Into the Woods is a fairy tale composed of fairy tales; and since fairy tales are littered with dead mothers we should expect this. But Into the Woods exceeded even my most fevered imaginings. The plotline is composed of four fairy tales smushed together. • Rapunzel: In which a wicked witch steals a couple’s first-born child because the husband… Read More »