Parents Annoyed When Disney+ Starts Showing Kids "American Horror Story"

"I'm surprised they haven't figured out the sweet spot of kids who want to watch 'Frozen' and 'Empire Strikes Back' but not true-crime shows about bayou murders."

Mickey's Haunted House

Streaming service Disney+ gave parents a big fright this summer when it started integrating a wealth of content from Hulu — including violent R-rated movies like "Aliens" and graphic TV series like "American Horror Story."

As Business Insider reports, parents weren't expecting the deluge of mature offerings, even after having created a separate child-friendly profile to filter out inappropriate content.

"I was genuinely excited that they were integrating Hulu so I wouldn't have to switch apps," the parent of two teenagers and a toddler Corey Doiron told BI. 

Yet Doiron soon spotted a thumbnail for the 2022 horror slasher "Smile" appearing right next to the highly popular children's TV shows "Bluey" and "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse."

PG Police

As BI points out, the reason for the graphic inclusions is an unfortunate combination of user error and confusing safety restriction categories, making the task of curating an age-appropriate stream of content daunting for young parents.

As of right now, users can select the "profile maturity rating for kids," based on the TV Parental Guidelines set up by the TV industry and the FCC in the US. But they can't block individual titles on Disney+, something that's possible on Netflix.

In particular, the "parental guidance" (PG) content rating lumps together some incredibly popular content like Disney's "Moana" under the same category as far less child-appropriate content like "Smile" and "American Horror Story."

Meanwhile, Disney's "Junior Mode" is aimed at very young children, blocking PG titles that would be appropriate for older kids.

"The reason we have PG is that when it's set to a lower rating, it only offers extremely childish options better suited to 3- or 4-year-olds," a different subscriber, who has two young children, told BI. "It's like there's not a suitable rating option for 5- to 8-year-olds."

"I'm surprised they haven't figured out the sweet spot of kids who want to watch 'Frozen' and 'Empire Strikes Back' but not true-crime shows about bayou murders," he added.

Of course, Disney has a reputation to uphold. For many decades, the company's offerings have been synonymous with family-friendly content.

Worse yet, with the advent of other streaming services like YouTube, children are increasingly being drawn away from the Mouse House's offerings, particularly in a post-Disney Channel world.

"YouTube is their primary platform of choice," former Warner Bros. Discovery research vice president and consultant Alexia Raven told BI last month. "It meets them where they are and meets their passions in nuanced ways. It really has shifted the entertainment landscape."

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