Disney is known for their magical films and their beautiful stories of a happily ever after. Many generations of children have grown up with these Disney films, these films not only being for children, but also for young adults and even adults at times. Disney has brought entertainment with success after success from their first movie which was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that was first released in 1938, to one of their most latest movie Brave released in 2012. Growing up many children and parents thought of these movies as great entertainment that was brought straight to our living rooms, creating unforgettable memories with families and friends sitting in front of the television. I dreamed to be just like those beautiful princesses that are portrayed in the movies with their happily ever after and the handsome prince. But has Disney portrayed discrimination to certain races, ethnicities, and genders in their films? The hero always has a certain race and their physical appearance is the best. The villain is usually the minority race and not only that, but also seem to be very ugly and not appealing. Seems like Disney is trying to send a message out to the public about race playing a part in their movies and secretly discriminating towards the minority races, while excluding racial discrimination towards their Caucasian characters in their family films.
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Disney films that have racial discrimination would be in the 1941 classic film Dumbo, which was created before the Civil Rights Movement. Even though during the time this film was created there was no slavery, but blacks were treated like less and were segregated and discriminated on. The film being affected by the conflicts that society faced during that time, Disney was probably influenced to use real world situations to portray some of their characters. The famous flying elephant Dumbo runs into a group of band of jive-talking black crows. These black crows who sing, “I’d be done see’n about everything/when I see an elephant fly!” (Sharpsteen. Et. Al.). In this scene these blackbirds acting in a way that is stereotypically offensive towards African Americans. In the film these crows are portrayed as to being poor and uneducated, they are constantly seen smoking in the film and talking in a slang.
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In the movie of Peter Pan in the scene when Peter and the lost boy are captured by Indians. Why do the Native Americans in this movie have a distinctive coloring? When they are captured together the Indians sing a song that says “What made the red man red? Let's go back a million years, To the very first Injun prince he kissed a maid and start to blush, And we've all been blushin' since, You've got it from the headman” (Geronimi, Et. Al.). In this scene Disney made up there own story of why the Indians were red by making up a history to it. Probably getting the idea from how other races are portrayed to African Americans being black, Caucasians being white, Asians being yellow, and Latinos being brown. Another racial discrimination in the same scene would be when the Indians are singing “What Makes the Red Man Red?” they are jumping around a raging fire, dancing and making sounds by slightly patting their mouths and creating a noise which in the eyes of the children that watch the film would think that all Native American express themselves in this way of celebrating.
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In the 1955 American animated romance told with dogs. The film of Lady and the Tramp, Disney uses one of the scenes to discriminate towards Asian. In this film there is a scene where the main character of the film Lady is talking with two Siamese cats. The two Siamese cats are portrayed to be Asian by stereotyping them by having bucked teeth, slanted eyes, also having a pidgin diction. During this time Asians weren’t even able to play a role in films like Blood Alley, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, and other films during the 1950s were not using Asian or Asian Americans as playing an Asian roles in films. As Krystyn R. Moon mentions in her book Yellowface about films during the 1950s, “Tied to blackface and the portrayal of African Americans on the stage by whites in the nineteenth century, the term yellowface appears as early as the 1950s to describe the continuation in film of having white actors playing major Asian and Asian American roles and the grouping together of all makeup technologies used to make one look “Asian”. Thanks to the power of film executives in casting, Asian and Asian Americans who had decades of theatrical experience in vaudeville were unable to find work or were relegated to stereotypical roles-laundrymen, prostitutes, or servants.
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The stereotype that men and women of Asian descent were incapable of creating complex and subtle characters in film (not to mention their inability to speak English well) was once again recirculated” (pg.164). Instead of using Asian or Asian Americans in their films white actors were being hired to play the Asian roles and using make up to make them look like Asians. It seems like this is the reason why Disney portrayed the two Siamese cats to have Asian stereotypes since films during that time were being played by white people and were asked to play a role where they exaggerated on Asian stereotypes.
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When looking into Disney’s foreign films about another ethnic group we see a different aspect of story telling in the eyes of a different culture. Like in the hugely popular 1992 animated film Aladdin, in it’s opening musical sequence at a certain time had to be edited due to the protest from many Arab-American groups saying that a certain line in the opening song was quite racist towards the Middle East. The president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Don Bustany said, “It was nowhere near adequate, considering the racism depicted in Aladdin” (Los Angeles Times). The line in the song being very offending was, “Where they cut off your ear, if they don’t like our face” (Clements, Et. Al.), which had to be changed before being released onto DVD to something less provocative, “Where it’s flat and immense, and the heat is intense” (Clements, Et. Al.). The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee were very disturb of this line in the opening scene, also having other concerns with other scenes in the famous Aladdin film. Bustany also found it very racist on the way the characters were formed to represent if they were the villain or the victims. Bustany stated, "The supporting characters are all depicted as nasty mean, people. While the Aladdin character, Jasmine and her father speak unaccented, standard Americanized English, all the bad guys speak in foreign accents. The lesson is that anyone with a foreign accent is bad. This is horrendous racism” (Los Angeles Times). I think that the makers of Disney films always use the same structure of finding the voices for each character, as in this example Bustany explained how the voices for their character are racist by having a foreign accent, using the accent to show that they are villains. Also comparing it to how in other films they use other races that are usually the minority as villains. There is many more scenes from Disney films that portray some kind of racist discrimination or stereotyping towards a certain race.
Lion King also being another film that is racist towards the minority race, would be the way they portrayed the hyenas. The hyenas Shenzi and Banzai are voiced by two different minority races and Ed being played by a Caucasian man, but acting mildly retarded.
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Even though one of the hyenas are being played by a Caucasian actor, why is it that the hyenas are being paired with a hyenas that acts retarded through out the whole film. Shenzi being played by Whoopi Goldberg, as an African American women in the film of Lion King she uses slang as to making it seem she isn’t well educated. In the other hand Banzi is being played by Richard Anthony “Cheech” Marin, Marin being a Mexican American is made to act like a street gang member, a “cholo”. They are seen as less or can also be called the second rate characters which weren’t as important being Scar’s posy and taking orders. In the film they are usually seen during mischievous schemes, also are portrayed as being evil, stupid, and thieves.
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Disney has many more discriminations towards certain races, genders, and ethnicities, but why don’t we see Caucasians as being discriminated or stereotyped in the Disney films? Disney always portrays Caucasians as being the hero or they are always seen to be physically beautiful. Disney in their main characters like Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Little Mermaid, and Sleeping Beauty all of these Disney princesses are all of the white race, they all portray the image of a perfect and beautiful physical appearance. White characters in these films that have been seen by many and became to be incredibly famous always portray these certain characters to be incredibly beautiful, they always have long beautiful hair and they are always skinny. The same thing is always seen with the males in these same films, they are always white, very wealthy and very handsome. Disney has a way of always portraying this race into two different types of physical appearances with white males looking manly and white females looking astonishing. I believe that Disney creates this picture of this certain race looking perfect because maybe during this time most of the films or shows that were being broadcast where of the Caucasian race. For example most of other films that were being released were also of white characters like Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and a few other.
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After several years of Disney not releasing any new classic film with princesses and dedicating their films to a different genre, Disney finally came out with a new film on December 11, 2009. Disney’s new princess film that brought so much commotion and discussions in different communities was the film The Princess and the Frog. Disney changing completely their look of the traditional beautiful white women, instead the new character was an African American girl named Tiana. Tiana having a passion for culinary arts since she was a child, who was inspired by her father. Tiana being a young waitress from New Orleans, Louisiana working hard and trying to raise money to buy an old sugar mill by working day and night shifts, for one day being able to have a restaurant to name her own. Tiana running into some drastic incident and being in the urgency of money agrees to kiss the Prince that was turned into a frog and all breaks loose and Tiana turning into a frog also. This film being completely different from the traditional classic films, The New York Times came out with an article where critics say that this film is completely racist, even though it seems like Disney was trying to change their ways. Most of the characters being played by black actors, except the prince being voiced by a Brazilian actor.
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Critic Angela Bronner Helm in The New York Times say, “Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince” (The New York Times). Also stating that, “His hair and features are decidedly non-black. This has left many in the community shaking their head in befuddlement and even rage” (The New York Times).Other also stating in the article that Disney was portraying it differently before actually creating the film by making it seem like she was a slave, but instead decided to change it because it would of been quite racist towards the black community. Even though Disney’s purpose was probably to have a different diverse in race in their classic princess films, many questioned the film on why the princess in the film was a frog for the majority time or why certain characters were portrayed a certain race.
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In comparison to the new film Brave, which is taken place in Scotland. The main character in this film is completely different to classic Disney films . Merida being the main character has a different physical appearance compared to the other white characters in previous films. In this film she is not so skinny and has a raging bright red hair, that makes her look like a rebel. In this film Merida is being forced to marry the winner of a competition that is created for her hand. Merida rebels against her parents and decides to go against them by entering herself in the competition for her own hand. Disney took a complete turn in this film changing the way the character looks, also making this new character by having courage and standing up for herself. An astonishing well said review from Hollywood Reporter where a critic Drew Taylor says, "A powerful but wobbly feminist fairy tale," adding, "it's the studio's first period piece, their first fairy tale, and their first film led by a female character. It was, at one point, also the studio's first movie directed by a woman. And it's these firsts, combined with a charming atmosphere and layers of genuine heart, that make you want to love Brave more than you actually do. Because for all these breakthroughs, Brave feels hopelessly safe, less a Pixar trailblazer than yet another entry in the Disney princess line of films and products. Brave it is not” (Hollywood Reporter). I find this quote well said and showing how Disney had made a complete turn on the form their classic female films where before.
Disney through out there whole career have had an amazing numerous of films that have became classics and touched so many children's lives. Starting from their very first films Disney has had success, but this success has maybe influence children to view certain character a certain way also having an affect to the way they see other races in real life. Disney growing since the 1930s had different views on how creating there films probably using real life situation during the era that they were being animated. Even though Disney has had some harsh critics for their offensive scenes in some of their films, it seems like they have tried to fix it by creating new versions where they show different races playing a non-normal role that is seen in older films. I believe that Disney has tried taking a different route on creating their newer film. I would like to see Disney using other races as being the hero or the princess of an animated film, having a minority character as being a hero would change Disney's’ look completely. Disney has grown throughout many years and they should take more in of the newer era and use that for their films.
