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Gregory, Sarita M. “Disney’s Second Line: New Orleans, Racial Masquerade, and the Reproduction of Whiteness in “The Princess and the Frog”” JSTOR [JSTOR]. ITHAKA, 2010. Web. 2 May 2015.
Thompson ,Paul for. “Disney to Feature Its First Black Princess… but Critics Complain as She Falls in Love with a WHITE Prince.” Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 2009. Web. 04 May 2015.
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Wenke, Eric. “Accents in Children’s Animated Features as a Device for Teaching Children to Ethnocentrically Discriminate.” Accents in Children’s Animated Features as a Device for Teaching Children to Ethnocentrically Discriminate. N.p., 1998. Web. 04 May 2015.
1) This image shows the Disney Princesses from Cinderella to Snow White to Pocahontas. Every girl at a young age looked up to these princesses and wanted to be them because of their perfect smile, long shiny hair, and their beautiful gowns. It is seen that there is only 3 main minorities (Pocahontas, Jasmine, Mulan) in Disney films when every other princess are white. There’s one African American princess in Disney Movies and that is Tiana, who stars in the Princess and the Frog. This character was created in 2009, the same year that Obama took office. It took this long for Disney to create and African American princess and while in the movie many of the cast is black except for the prince that she falls in love with is white. The idea of Disney not using an African American prince shows that they wanted to have diversity in their film but not to much. For the other minority characters like Pocahontas, their real historical story gets changed greatly in order for there to be a happy ending. Disney doesn’t care bout the historical background of some of the characters they use and alter it in order for kids to understand and to hold interest. All of these princesses were created predominately for little girls and they looked up to each one of them. For Jasmine, who is Arabian, was the first non-white princess. When kids watch these Disney movies they believe that these stereotype roles are the right say to live. For a lot of these princesses they get what they want because of their royalty and viewers see this and mirror a princess’s image. Minority “princesses” changed the way people look at Disney princesses as a whole because not seeing a white and blonde makes it so princesses can in fact be African American or another race. (James Lyons)
Thompson ,Paul for. “Disney to Feature Its First Black Princess… but Critics Complain as She Falls in Love with a WHITE Prince.” Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 2009. Web. 04 May 2015.
2) One of the videos I chose to curate on account of its relevance to our topic, speaks about Disney movie overall and looks at the positive and negative aspects of how they portray their characters to a young audience. The woman speaking starts off by saying that growing up Disney movies are some of the first forms of entertainment that a child sees on the television screen or in the movie theatre. On the positive end of the spectrum Disney promotes goods virtues, such as being rewarded for good behavior and being punished for bad. Although Disney may display good virtues through characters behavior, but they continually demonstrate racial minorities through cultural stereotypes in a majority of their movies. One of the main movies that receive this videos attention and critical criticism is Peter Pan and the song, “What Makes the Red Man Red?” Much like the movie Aladdin, Disney illustrates Native Americans in Peter Pan to be ugly, uneducated, heavily accented, and barbaric. These are all false representations of the Native American culture. The fact that Disney movies are targeted to a diverse young culture, it is their duties too accurately portray every race in a positive manner. Another example the video uses to illustrate their point is the Crows from Dumbo. The crows are extremely stereotypically black and have southern black accents. The fact of the matter is that Disney movies made in the 1900’s were extremely stereotypical in portraying minority ethnicities. Most Americans now know better than to use nasty generalizations about ethnicities or religious groups, but these movies are still so popular in the younger generations of kids. These children are absorbing these generalizations about certain cultures to base their own understanding about how Arabs or Native Americans act. For Disney movies to be more effective they need to stop portraying Caucasian to be the dominant culture. The industries must take into account that their movies are publically known to be portrayed as racist to many cultures. As the years have progressed their racist criticisms have decreased, but the movies that still negatively depict other ethnicities remain so popular to young children.
3)The Disney channel has been releasing movies since the early 1900’s. Disney movies have been known to have stereotype all minorities in their films. In a video found on the Internet it shows many scenes that don’t necessarily show racism but definitely make you look deeper into the meaning of these scenes. For example in all of the scenes that displayed African-Americans, all the characters are dancing. I know this isn’t racist however it does seem that Disney stereotyped blacks, not every black person has rhythm and can dance. Next, in a scene for the movie Dumbo the audience meets a group of jive-talking black crows. When first looking at the scene there seems there is nothing wrong with the crows, however when closely looking at the crows the audience can see there supposed to be black. The leader of the crows is called Jim Crow, which is extremely ironic. Jim Crow is used to describe the segregation laws after Reconstruction. Also the crows are portrayed as uneducated. The ways the crows speak are also different from the way the rest of the characters in the movie speak. The other characters talk with proper English, where the crows only speak in slang. To make it even worse, all the crows were played by white men putting on their best black voice impression. However, there can be an argument to say that the crows doesn’t represent anything because they taught Dumbo how to fly, so their seen as heroes of the story. Some may even argue and say the portrayal of the crows is progressive. Also, in the video was a clip from Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers. Asian Americans are represented through a group of cats. These cats do not speak proper English, own a Laundromat, and run an illegal gambling operation. Even though Disney’s hidden stereotypes aren’t outright, they are subtle enough to catch. Some may say that they see nothing wrong with Disney’s characters because they’re not racist. Well the stereotypes can be seen as a way of racism actually. Stereotypes help keep the oppressed, oppressed. During this time in society, there were laws that separated blacks and whites, which helped racism become institutionalized in America. Media can help shape the way a country see’s a certain group of people or a certain situation. By Disney having stereotypical characters, certain stereotypes are put into young kids mind at a very young age. In doing this it ensures the continuance of systematic racism that is constructed to keep minorities oppressed.( TJ Adams)
4) In The Lion King, Mulan and many other Disney movies, the voices of each character plays a big role when talking about minorities and how they’re depicted in Disney films. This specific quote from the Lion King is when Rafiki (the baboon) is talking to Simba. There is deeper meaning towards this quote besides it talking about Simba and the struggles he has to overcome. Rafiki, whose voice is of an African American, is saying, “ the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you either run from it or learn from it.” I believe that this quote is mirroring the history of African Americans and how they have been through a lot in the past from slavery to now. Learning from the past will help one go forward in life and to carry on a life where he or she wants to live. Having an African American as the voice of Rafiki changes the feel of the quote and wouldn’t have the same affect if it were a voice of a white man. Disney does this so outside meanings can be understood through it. Other than The Lion King there are many different Disney movies that use voices of minorities to show who the character is. Another movie where this is established is in Mulan. An African American voices the little dragon whose name is Mushu. In the film he is one of the characters that doesn’t get taken seriously and is there for comedic relief. Another example in the Lion King where the characters voice shows who the character are the hyeena’s whom Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin voice. Whoopi being African and Cheech having a strong Mexican accent, it changes the way people view the character. Minorities are usually the voices of characters that are comedic and this stereotype of people laughing at the character and his voice is in fact real. When people hear these voices they laugh and don’t think of it as anything important, just the director putting in humor. Overall, minorities are being used for their voices in Disney movies as being comical and the object of ridicule. Cartoon characters that are not taken seriously because they are comedic or evil do not necessarily represent a race, yet they are voiced by minorities.
Wenke, Eric. “Accents in Children’s Animated Features as a Device for Teaching Children to Ethnocentrically Discriminate.” Accents in Children’s Animated Features as a Device for Teaching Children to Ethnocentrically Discriminate. N.p., 1998. Web. 04 May 2015.
5) As I watched many films about the numerous stereotypes made in Aladdin it opened my eyes up to the way Disney wants to portray the Arab culture to children. Children’s brain’s act as a sponge and absorbs the information that is presented to them. Disney movies intrigue the attention of children and displays and inaccurate description of what the world is like. At the very beginning of the movie the song “Arabian Nights” is played as an introduction to the movie. Already within two minutes into the movie Disney is already painting a mental image of Arabia. They describe it as a dry hot desert where you will find camels and barbarianism. The one line from the opening song that really caught my attention was, “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like you face”. This line alone depicts the Middle East as a place of cruelty and hatred. Throughout the movie Disney depicts thieves and guards as carrying swords almost at all time, depicting a highly violent culture. Another key point that I found compelling was the portrayal of protagonist character versus all the rest of the characters. On one hand you have Aladdin and Jasmine who are Americanized with lighter skin and American accents. While on the other hand you have other characters such as Jafar, thieves, and guards who are portrayed with darker skin and heavy Arab accents. The last core concept that came from the video was the misrepresentation of cultural practices and tricks that the Arabs were depicted taking part in during the movie. The street performers partook in acts such as sword swallowing, fire walking, and snake charming. All of these acts don’t originate from Arabia at all. In fact they come from India. This can easily make children associate any of these acts with the Arab culture which is with out a doubt a false misrepresentation. The movie Aladdin may be one of the most prestigious Disney movies of our era, but is it a fair portrayal of the Middle East and their culture? The stereotypes are very evident in many aspects of the movie. Children are very easily convinced, and after watching the movie Aladdin their ideas and thoughts about the Middle East are based off of this movie. Hopefully as they grow older they are able to realize that the stereotypes in Aladdin are used merely just entertainment. (Matty Cragg)
6)In a different video found, there were many examples found in many different Disney movies that need some explanation. For example in the Betty Bop cartoon, there was a scene where the black baby was crying. The mother immeadiately snatches a watermelon out of a bag and sticks it in the baby’s mouth. The baby simultaneously stops crying. This is another example of how Disney’s stereotypes their characters. The baby then nearly eats the whole watermelon in one bite. Even though this isn’t much of a racist act, it supports the Disney’s stereotyped characters. Also, in this video it shows a scene from the TV show Looney Tunes where a darker character begs to not be beaten by a white character. The thing that makes it worse is the way in which the darker character is talking. Disney purposely makes this character sound like a slave. Instead of saying master like a normal person, the character pronounces it as “massa” as blacks would during slavery. The scene that stood out most to me was when the scene from the Jungle Book. During this scene a monkey (King Louie) sings a song stating how he wants to be a human. Now on the surface this may not look like a big deal, but when breaking down the logistics of the whole scene and understanding the time period when the film was released can lead people to conclude many different things. First off, the film was released during 1967. This was during the time of the Civil Rights Movement, when blacks were somewhat making strides in gaining equal rights in America. During this time a monkey was a racial slur for an African-American. King Louie in movie doesn’t speak in the same mannerisms as the other characters. The character King Louie himself was not played by a black person, it is actually played by a white jazz musician, which is extremely ironic. The song “ I want to be like you” is seen in the movie as a monkey wanting to be an ape, but some people saw it as an African-American wanting to be a member of the white race. The fact that King Louie is played by an white jazz musician actually supports this idea, because jazz is historically African-American. Throughout history minorities have been looked at differently because of the color of their skin, or the way they look. With Disney, and other companies like Disney controlling the media, it makes it harder for minorities to break free from these stereotypes. (TJ Adams)
How Minorities are portrayed in Disney Films 