They were for kids, you don’t need to warn adults to stop sucking their thumbs and don’t go in the forest. These are lessons for CHILDREN, period.
But Snow White was NOT killed in the movie, she went to sleep. That’s the saccharine, no death, just a sleep that can only be broken by “love’s first kiss”. As for Cinderella, locked in her room is just a punishment kids face all the time. As for Sleeping Beauty again in the movie it’s not murder, it’s sleeping, woken again by “love’s kiss”. Saccharine, you’re seeing the original story THROUGH the layers of crap Disney put in there. I’m seeing the crap.
Yes there is more saccharine crap out there. Which doesn’t make Disney not saccharine crap. Just because elephant poo is worse than dog poo doesn’t mean dog poo ain’t poo. Disney’s dog poo. Barney is elephant.
Same with other adaptations being more different. Except Naked Lunch, that’s not actually an adaptation, the movie is supposed to the writing of the book, only withing the world of the book, it’s very meta and supposed to be vastly different.
Actually, there ARE adults who suck their thumbs. Just ask King John of Britain.
As far as Snow White, let me remind you that in the Grimm fairy tale, she ALSO wasn’t killed, just put to sleep via the poisoned apple. Same deal with Sleeping Beauty. Heck, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty if anything ADDED the bit about Maleficent actually trying to kill Aurora initially, which was NEVER present in the original story (originally, the fairy cursed her to go to sleep, THAT’S IT, and unlike in the Disney version, the fairy made NO effort to ensure the curse went on unabated, including abducting the prince, trying to imprison him until he was a very old man, and even attempting to murder him via her various infernal powers. That was ALL Disney.).
And if you want a world where kids are too scared to even go outside, be shut ins, paranoid that everything’s bad and out to get them to the extent that they cannot even COMPREHEND that someone trying to help IS in fact trying to help, be my guest. Speaking as someone who HAS had to live through that constantly for most of my life, I can tell you it is extremely unpleasant, constantly being afraid that, regardless of percentages, EVERYTHING would go wrong, to the extent that you’re completely unwilling to even take any risks out of fear of failure. It’s actually one of the reasons I hate the route Disney’s taking with villains by making them plot twist villains. And for the record, I actually know a friend who’s more scared of Disney movies than scary movies, justifying it by saying “at least with horror flicks, you know what you’re getting.”