Kristen Bell Is Concerned About What Certain Disney Stories Teach Kids About Consent

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Kristen Bell’s favorite part of the day isn’t when strangers scream “BORTLES” at her in Panera (I assume) — it’s when she reads to her five-year-old and three-year-old daughters. “I glance away from the book and see their brains working while we’re all cuddled up like meerkats,” The Good Place star told Parents Magazine, although I’m surprised she went with meerkats, not sloths.

Bell also has discussions with her kids about what they’re reading and uses the stories, which have concerning plot points, as teachable moments. “Every time we close Snow White, I look at my girls and ask, ‘Don’t you think it’s weird that Snow White didn’t ask the old witch why she needed to eat the apple? Or where she got that apple?’ I say, ‘I would never take food from a stranger, would you?’ And my kids are like, ‘No!’ And I’m like, I’m doing something right,” she said.

The Veronica Mars actress has also brought up the importance of consent. “Don’t you think that it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission?” she’s asked her daughters. “Because you can not kiss someone if they’re sleeping!” Bell might play a princess in an inescapably-popular Disney movie, but she’s not okay with every message that Disney movies, or the stories that they’re based on for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, teach children.

(Via Parents Magazine)

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