How the 'Despicable Me' Franchise Modernized Kids Movies

Written by Shae Rufe

I was watching Despicable Me the other day, and it hit me. How often in kid’s movies do we see parents? Alarmingly, not often. Disney has long since been the first to introduce death into the lives of children, and oddly enough it's incredibly rare we see both parents. Aurora ended up having her parents, but she didn't grow up with them. Same with Rapunzel. Mulan has her parents, as does Merida (some limbs not included), and they seem to be the only happy family units out there in mainstream kid’s movies.

A lot of the time a parent is dead, or both die, or fill in the blank. Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 show a bit of a different story. You have a single guy who, granted for evil reasons, adopts these three orphaned girls. We never learn what happened to their parents, we just know they died. But what makes the story truly special is that throughout the first film we see Gru step up and become a father to these girls. As someone who was adopted by my dad, it's really refreshing to see a happy story like that play out on the big screen. In the second movie, Gru finally gets a love interest, they marry, and the girls are really accepting of their new mom.

To see the dating process of a single parent is beyond rare for a kid’s film. I'm pretty sure this is the only movie/series that shows things like adoption or dating of a single parent. Which kind of isn't fair. Growing up in the Era of the Disney Princess archetype I saw a lot of negative connotations when it came to things like step parents. Often it was the evil stepmother who mistreated the beloved heroine, and for whatever reason wanted them dead. I'm looking at you Cinderella and Snow White.

Those films gave a lot of misconceptions to kids about what a stepparent could be. Granted, I'm not saying all stepparents are good, nor am I implying they're all bad. Every situation is different. However, as a kid watching those films it made me very apprehensive when my dad started dating my mom. In the end, it worked out awesome, but as a kid I didn't know that. Despicable Me and it's first sequel deal with issues I think a lot of kid’s films miss out on.

Adoption happens quite frequently, yet it's a topic we as a society seems to keep taboo, or we novelize it. Even just being adopted by one parent seems to be a strange concept. Despicable Me and its sequel get my forever love for its different outlook on family. Yes, I do realize this film isn't owned by Disney, rather by Dreamworks. However, it's the first kid’s movie to tackle the hard topic of adoption, and the more important topic of love. This movie didn't kill any parents during the film, it shows that love comes in all forms, and that family isn't always this cookie cutter ideal.

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