10 Disturbing Life Lessons Disney Movies Teaches You
6. Hey, Minorities Are People Too... They're Stereotypes
For an essay entitled Racism in Disney, writer Anastasia Trus, hit the nail on the head when she wrote, "... not to say that Disney films indoctrinate children with racist tendencies; nevertheless, racist scenes in still-popular films cast a blanket of insensitivity over the subject of racism." Time and again what Disney does is use stereotypes to depict minor characters of different racial backgrounds in demeaning ways. In both The Lady and the Tramp and The Aristocats, the siamese cats are presented with slanted eyes and buck teeth. The Chinese Cat in the aristocats even goes on to sing, "Shang-hai Hong Kong egg fu yung! Fortune cookie always wrong!" Not exactly what you might call sensitive to Asian people in general. Then there is the offensive way Disney has portrayed black people as jive talking crows in Dumbo, the leader of which goes by the first name of Jim. Get it? Jim Crow. Really a rather terrible, not even subtle, cultural reference to what was happening in the American South during the 1940s. Disney didn't show much progress even two decades later with the release of The Jungle Book where all the animals speak like white people except the monkeys, who are all voiced by African Americans (or white people pretending to be). The worst, however, is definitely the way Native Americans are portrayed in Peter Pan. Even though they are only in the movie for a grand whopping total of five minutes those minutes are loaded with material that would never pass today. The Injuns or Red Men, as the predominately white protagonists refer to them are a bunch of caricatures that ask you, "How?". They even jump in a circle and whoop to a song and dance routine entitled, "What Made the Red Men Red?" (as opposed to white) while Peter Pan drools over the exotic Indian princess (Disney while often poking fun of racial minorities as stereotypes has a way of trying to redeem them with the sexuality of their women. Exhibit A: Princess Jasmine). While Disney has gone to great lengths to clean this act up in recent years the damage is already done. The disturbing lesson they taught us growing up was not to be racist, but that people belonging to different ethnic groups are different from the way we are and often one dimensionally so. The perfect formula for breeding racism into the subconscious that is still very much okay with segregation.
aka The Thompsonator. Action movie & shooter game fanatic. Biggest weakness? Taking things over the top... The internet is the disease. Meet the cure. Find more action on my Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/ActionRation
For an essay entitled Racism in Disney, writer Anastasia Trus, hit the nail on the head when she wrote, "... not to say that Disney films indoctrinate children with racist tendencies; nevertheless, racist scenes in still-popular films cast a blanket of insensitivity over the subject of racism." Time and again what Disney does is use stereotypes to depict minor characters of different racial backgrounds in demeaning ways. In both The Lady and the Tramp and The Aristocats, the siamese cats are presented with slanted eyes and buck teeth. The Chinese Cat in the aristocats even goes on to sing, "Shang-hai Hong Kong egg fu yung! Fortune cookie always wrong!" Not exactly what you might call sensitive to Asian people in general. Then there is the offensive way Disney has portrayed black people as jive talking crows in Dumbo, the leader of which goes by the first name of Jim. Get it? Jim Crow. Really a rather terrible, not even subtle, cultural reference to what was happening in the American South during the 1940s. Disney didn't show much progress even two decades later with the release of The Jungle Book where all the animals speak like white people except the monkeys, who are all voiced by African Americans (or white people pretending to be). The worst, however, is definitely the way Native Americans are portrayed in Peter Pan. Even though they are only in the movie for a grand whopping total of five minutes those minutes are loaded with material that would never pass today. The Injuns or Red Men, as the predominately white protagonists refer to them are a bunch of caricatures that ask you, "How?". They even jump in a circle and whoop to a song and dance routine entitled, "What Made the Red Men Red?" (as opposed to white) while Peter Pan drools over the exotic Indian princess (Disney while often poking fun of racial minorities as stereotypes has a way of trying to redeem them with the sexuality of their women. Exhibit A: Princess Jasmine). While Disney has gone to great lengths to clean this act up in recent years the damage is already done. The disturbing lesson they taught us growing up was not to be racist, but that people belonging to different ethnic groups are different from the way we are and often one dimensionally so. The perfect formula for breeding racism into the subconscious that is still very much okay with segregation.