The thesis of the Zipes article about "Breaking the Disney Spell" is to state that Disney more or less took classic fairytales, Americanized them, and therefore, ruined them in the process. All Disney wanted to do was sell these stories to a broader audience, and thus, took out the original meaning of these stories. I mean, he has a point - Disney did rearrange these stories, give them all happy endings, remove much of the horror from them, etc. But nevertheless, a fairytale always has more than one version and is always transitioning to fit the ideas of the time (ie. when they began to be written down, they were changed to please the upper classes, etc...) Therefore, Disney did not ruin these fairytales, he simply updated them for film to appeal to cartoons greatest audience - children.
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I wouldn't say that Disney just Americanized these tales just for the children audience. I think in translating and converting these stories, he was trying just as much to instill American values for the American audience as a whole. Not just children. So yes, I do think that in converting these stories and Americanizing them, Disney took a didactic forum and brought it to the screen. Many of the problems with Disney's version is that people can point to physical images rather than just implicit meanings rooted in other written versions. On the whole, I most certainly agree with you.
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