Disney Plus Mysteriously Blocking Kids From Watching Family-Friendly Movies

Disney Plus has been a hit huge since it launched late last year, but it’s come under fire from some quarters for its overzealous censorship. For instance, the bizarrely poor CGI covering Daryl Hannah’s behind in Splash or an actress’ barest hint of cleavage in an episode of The Wizards of Waverly Place. The latest peculiar example of this includes a bunch of family-friendly films being blocked on the streaming site’s Kids’ Profile.

If you have kids and Disney Plus, you’ll be familiar with the Kids’ Profile option, which allows you to set up a profile for your child within your account that filters out the unsuitable material and leaves all the suitable stuff. However, CinemaBlend has discovered that a number of titles which 99.9% of parents would agree they’d let their young ones watch are removed on the Kids’ Profile.

There may be more, but the mysteriously missing movies singled out by CB are Moana, Cars 3, Onward, 1940’s Fantasia, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, The Princess Diaries duology and The Lady and the Tramp remake. Children can, however, watch the first two Cars films, Fantasia 2000, the direct-to-video sequel to Atlantis and the original Lady and the Tramp. 

You might be wondering if this comes down to ratings. And yes, this does seem to be how most of the unsuitable content is filtered out. The MCU movies and the Stars Wars saga are not available for kids, for instance, due to being rated higher than PG. That said, many of the titles above are G-rated. Others that have PG certificates, such as the Frozen films, are deemed acceptable, though.

Obviously, Disney movies are famous for their moments of darkness or scariness, but this selection of movies aren’t really known to be among them. The Lion King, Finding Nemo and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, meanwhile, are just three classics that are known to make children cry, but they’re all still up on the Kids’ Profile.

CinemaBlend reached out to Disney Plus for comment, but has yet to receive a reply. If you think you’ve worked out the thinking behind the banning of these particular movies though, let us know in the comments below.