Dumbo
Acceptable with guidance. Age: 6+. A Catholic review of this movie for parents.
Our review
Dumbo is a baby circus elephant with very big ears. The other elephants laugh at him, and his mother is locked away for protecting him. A little mouse named Timothy becomes his friend and helps him find out that his ears can make him fly. Some parts are sad. The lesson is plain and true: do not mock someone for how he looks, and stand by the one everyone else leaves out. But a parent should sit in. A mother is taken from her baby, Dumbo and Timothy get drunk by accident and see pink elephants, and the crows are drawn from old racial stereotypes.
For parents
G, and Common Sense Media says five and up. Greydanus says Kids & Up. Wikipedia reports Disney+ adds a notice about outdated cultural depictions and limits the film to age seven and up. Things to frame: Dumbo's mother is chained in a wagon away from him, and Greydanus finds this crueler than the loss in Bambi. Dumbo and Timothy drink from a tub that has alcohol in it, by accident, and the film plays the drunkenness for comedy and a strange pink elephant dream. Say plainly that getting drunk is not funny in real life. The crows talk and sing in a way that copies old minstrel shows, and the lead crow was first named Jim Crow. Tell children that this is a mocking picture of Black Americans and that mockery is the very thing the film says is wrong. Ask: who was kind to Dumbo and who was not? What made Timothy a good friend? Did the feather make Dumbo fly?