Friday, November 13, 2009

Is Disney Promoting Racism?

I never realized it before, but yes, Disney has some very racist material in their movies. We learned from the film we saw in class that the Asians, African Americans, Native Americans, and Arabs were stereotyped and portrayed in a racist manner. Let's look at some shocking examples. In the Jungle Book, they were in Africa but there were no Africans in the film. The characters portrayed as black were the monkeys and orangutans who had the voices of black people and danced around singing about wanting to be "like a man." The crows or black birds were also representing African Americans. They danced alot and spoke with heavy black dialect. I found a very good film clip that has examples of racism, including the two mentioned above. Got to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LibK0SCpIkk
Another shocking portrayal of African Americans can be seen on this clip. I do not know which movie it was from, but the scene consists of African people working and singing these words: "We work all day, we work all night, We never learned to read or write. We're happy-hearted roustabouts." Disney is not only portraying blacks as slaves, but suggesting that slaves are stupid and happy!
The film clip attached here also shows that Latinos are shown as being violent. The film we saw in class showed the Latino being represented by the chihuahua, who was stupid and crazy-acting. The Asian stereotypes are no better. The cats in Lady and the Tramp are buck-toothed and conniving. In another film, the Asians are again represented by a cat but this time it is playing the piano with chopsticks. I'm pretty sure that Asians don't play the piano with chopsticks or sing about chop suey as the Disney Asian cat does. It is a good idea for Disney to represent different cultures and ethnic groups in their films, but they need to do it with respect and sincerity. They have only succeeded in showing the stereotypes of various peoples and they have done it in poor taste. Sometimes they go beyond the typical stereotypes to outright put-downs, such as the African monkeys singing about wanting to be a man. Yes, I believe Disney is promoting racism.

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