I agree with the rest of that sentence, but this really isn't true. Disney's bowdlerized versions actually do harm and even displace the source material in public consciousness.
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Grimms-Fairy-Tales/dp/039470...
Spoiler & trigger alert - the princess discovers the true nature of the Frog Prince not with a kiss, but by flinging him against a wall. Many of the other stories are equally blunt, forceful, or realistic for the times they came from.
Of note is the modern excision of the last phrase from the closing formula: "And they all lived happily ever after until they died."
I think this is true of English speakers. In German everyone knows the standard phrase "und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute" ("And if they have not died then they are still alive today.")
It's a sufficiently well known meme that people use it regularly in jokes.
Edit: added quote for clarity
To me the most familiar closing formula is "und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute", which is quite interesting to think about really: what does it tell or suggest to the listener?
Thank you both for the German formulas - there are examples from many languages at:
For example, in the Grimm Brothers version the stepsisters cut off toes and heels to fit into Cinderella's shoes and ride to visit the prince with blood dripping down on the ground. Later they were blinded. The already old version I read while growing up in the US in the late 1960s left that part out.
More interestingly, the Grimm Brothers themselves altered many of their own stories substantially in the 7 or so full editions of Grimms' Fairy Tales they published before 1857. Some of the originals were pretty crude.
The Disney Cinderella is based on Charles Perrault's version which was actually published earlier than the Grimms version. Both are recorded from oral versions. Perrault does not have the cutting off of toes, but have a fairy godmother and a magic pumpkin which is not present in the Grimm version.
Disney put their own slant on the stories of course, just like any other retelling.
Personally I grew up reading (and rereading) the Andrew Lang Fairy Books. They hew to the Perrault version of Cinderella. It would not be surprising if Walt Disney read those growing up. They were immensely popular and included wonderful Art Nouveau illustrations of characters in the stories. H J Ford was the artist for many of them.
(Sample: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lang's_Fairy_Books#/med...)
That he "displaced source material in public consciousness" is hardly a critique, in that case I guess we should stop making new music and literature as popular newcomers tend to displace what's previously popular in the public consciousness.
You could easily level the same criticism against Grimm.