8 Disney cartoons accused of racism and restricted

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Disney company, after criticism, hung an age limit on some of its cartoons, and cut out several episodes from other films. Racism and disrespect for different cultures - these are the main complaints of modern viewers to the classic Disney cartoons. And in childhood almost no one thought about these scenes …

Cabaret and circus in "Aladdin"

The studio has been repeatedly reproached for showing foreign cultures, often caricatured, and even more often reproducing the most unpleasant of the old European stereotypes about these cultures. One of the most egregious cases is called the cartoon "Aladdin", which depicts representatives of a clearly Muslim, presumably one of the Arab cultures.

The thing is that in Muslim countries there is traditionally an idea of what is decent and indecent. In particular, in most of these cultures, it is indecent to expose the body, except for the hands, ankles and face, and for both men and women. There are areas with more or less strict rules, but liberties there also have their limits.

At the same time, it did not seem strange to many European viewers that Jasmine walks, by Eastern standards, in only underwear under any circumstances, and Aladdin does not consider it necessary to steal a shirt along with bread to cover his nakedness. Still would. The main characters are drawn from how Europeans depict Arabs on stage and in the circus, in performances where an important part is the demonstration of female articles or male muscles.

So, Aladdin walks in a suit in which some strongmen entered the arena (the same magicians, flirting with an oriental theme, dressed more decently). They went to look at the strongmen not only to be surprised, but also to experience erotic feelings. Jasmine, on the other hand, wears a costume that was designed in the twenties for a cabaret version of belly dancing (and is still popular in pop styles). In other words, the main characters of the children's fairy tale, according to the plot - adolescents, were served with erotic toys, which continues the line of eroticization and exoticization of representatives of southern peoples.

Those who have seen the cartoon in English also note that the goodies speak without an accent, but the bright Middle Eastern pronunciation has become the marker of bad characters. So from 2021, before watching the cartoon on the official Disney channel, viewers will see a warning about racism.

Conquering Americans is cute

The story of Pocahontas is just one of many parts of the big story about the European conquest of the lands of the Native Americans, and this conquest included the arming and playing off of local peoples among themselves, as well as outright genocide by the Europeans themselves. Pocahontas herself, however, did not live to see the most sad events. She married a white man (not the same one she had rescued), came to the UK and died there of diseases unfamiliar to Americans at the age of in her twenties.

However, the cartoon in which an American girl is friends with a white man is close to the real story of this girl. The problem is that her native people are represented by no more than savages, and she herself is better than them only because she sympathizes with whites. They also criticize the squeezing of the image of Pocahontas into the template of the "noble savage" - she is emphatically close to nature. This is the only quality for which Europeans are often willing to respect people of other cultures - which ignores the very diversity of cultures. Well, and the fact that the friendship of Pocahontas and Smith is shown by the beginning of a wonderful process of uniting peoples into a new nation looks beyond cynicism in the light of American history.

Things are no better with the Peter Pan cartoon. English children in it, without any respect, play with the sacred symbols of the Americans (headdresses made of feathers, which had not only status, but also religious significance) and perform dances that also refer to religious practices. One of the songs in the cartoon had to be rewritten because it communicated "what it means to be red" (the myth of the special red skin of Americans is considered racist). Now the children are singing "what it means to be brave."

If you want to imagine what Native Americans feel when looking at such interpretations of ritual dances, imagine a cartoon in which foreign children wave the banners with which the troops of Russian princes went into battle and sing a very peculiar interpretation of Orthodox psalms.

Unlike Pocahontas, which was not tagged, Peter Pan received a label from the studio in 2021 that children under seven are not recommended for viewing.

Are migrants the same occupiers?

The film, which should have been a romantic story, Lady and the Tramp, features a line of Siamese cats that embody all the stereotypes of white America about migrants from Asia. This is reflected not only in looks and accent. Cats break into someone else's house and sing that they will live by robbery - to steal someone else's milk and catch other people's fish from the aquarium. In fact, nationalist trends have been translated into the language of the cartoon to expose entrepreneurs and workers of Asian origin as occupiers who decided to steal various goods from the locals (first of all, jobs and business income - which are equivalent to food).

In a similar way, "Asians" cats are represented in "Aristocratic Cats". In addition, the creators of the picture accentuated protruding front teeth in their image - as in Western cartoons dedicated to the Japanese and Chinese. "Aristocrat Cats" are no longer recommended for preschool children, and the cartoon "Lady and the Tramp" is preceded by a warning about racism.

The black ones got the most

But most of the pictures of the studio "Disney" were passed on to African Americans. For example, a dark-skinned centaur slave with the most caricatured appearance is inserted into the musical tape "Fantasy" without any need for the plot. In the story, she serves the beautiful white lady-centaur.

The hyenas in The Lion King imitate the way black youths from the ghetto communicate - and although the whole story is based on the plot in Africa, only they speak with a "black" accent, the characters are both negative and narrow-minded. By the way, their "boss", a lion named Scar, is also made much darker in appearance than other lions. True, his appearance is rather similar to the Mediterranean - but Italians and Jews have been discriminated against in the United States for a very long time.

In the cartoon about the flying elephant Dumbo, the crows clearly refer to the nickname of African Americans "Jim Crow" (Crow literally means "crow") and speak with the appropriate accent. There is no trouble in the accent itself - but they are shown by idlers and, let's say, generally uncultured personalities.

Judging by the accent, the banderlogs in "Mowgli" are also made a parody of African Americans. Moreover, their leader, an orangutan, sings in the style of jazz and is named Louis, with an explicit reference to Armstrong. All of this is reminiscent of one of the most popular insults blacks have - the comparison with monkeys. Against this background, as well as against the background of the Banderlog's behavior, the song “I want to be like you” (that is, a person) looks like a mockery of the demands of equality. It is not surprising that all the above-mentioned cartoons on the Disney channel are shown with some kind of warning.

The rethinking of art and the role of non-white characters has been going on for a long time: Films where black characters "wedged in", and why the audience cares (or not)

Illustrations: Disney cartoon footage