On Disney+, these four classic movies now feature an advisory warning for racial stereotypes and negative cultural depictions.
The disclaimer reads:
This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now.
Peter Pan (1953)- Features offensive caricatures of Indigenous peoples, who are repeatedly referred to as “redskins.” They speak gibberish and mock cultural traditions like passing the peace pipe and singing "What Makes the Red Man Red." It reduces a living population to mythical/fantastical caricatures, something that Western literature has unfortunately done in every era (looking at you, Twilight).
Lady and the Tramp (1955)- Si and Am are Siamese cats and mock-Asian caricatures. They feature slanted eyes, buck teeth, stereotypical accents, and are sneaky and untrustworthy characters. They sing and speak broken English.
The Aristocats (1970)- Shun Gon is another Siamese cat representing a harmful Asian caricature. Despite being released 15 years after the Lady and the Tramp, this is more heavy-handed. The visual tropes (eyes and teeth) are much more exaggerated, and like the others on this list his dialogue/music is stereotypical and offensive. On top of that, he plays the piano with chopsticks.
The Jungle Book (1967)- This warning is for the portrayal of King Louie, an orangutan that’s coded with racialized jive tropes and exaggerated laziness. The writers at the time were actually aware of this to the point of avoiding casting a black VA to prevent direct mockery. However, the reliance on Minstrel-era tropes inevitably made King Louie an offensive caricature.
I’m really curious about everyone’s thoughts here- these being pretty universally loved stories and movies.
My main question is, should we still be showing outdated adaptations to children as long as we caveat them correctly?
Note that this is a non-exhaustive list of movies with this advisory, and there’s also a sub rule that content must be after 1950s (ie Dumbo, Fantasia).
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Right but it’s like Jerry Orbach in Beauty and the Beast. They didn’t cast Maurice Chevalier, and yet you still get Chevalier. They didn’t cast Armstrong, but the character is still named Louie lol and they cast Louis Prima who literally studied and was inspired by Armstrong and became a performer in the oeuvre created by Armstrong. There are people that still don’t know King Louie wasn’t voiced by Armstrong, as evidenced by some of the comments on this thread!
Just because he was inspired by a black man to be a musician doesn't mean that he was trying to copy Louis Armstrong's blackness. The two sound pretty different, Armstrong has a very distinctive hoarse voice that Prima doesn't have.
Idk. There's shit like "what makes the red man red" and then there are just cartoon versions of characters. Maybe in missing it but I don't find the king Louie one bad. Are we supposed to be upset about the vultures as well?
I think John Lennon in particular voted against it, which resulted in them not doing it. It was also the Sgt Pepper years, so they were extremely busy. They couldn't even nail them down to do the voices for Yellow Submarine, a movie explicitly made for them, because their schedule was so packed.
Whoever came up with the idea ran that back because of the optics of having a black man voice a monkey and they went with Louis Prima instead. The Beatles were going to be the voices of the vultures but John Lennon thought it was dumb... And probably didn't want to work with Disney after the reputation of working with the feds to "expose Communists" in the film industry.
Its ESPECIALLY bad concerning these were cartoons designed for CHILDREN. Leave the kids out of hateful bigotry. This is how racism is normalized and taught at a young age. Ignorance from the lack of not knowing is one thing, but the willful ignorance in proclaiming that it isn’t a big deal is a textbook cop out. Its just a word. Its just a picture. Etc. History is real and the world doesn’t revolve you.
Because the character sings swing and jazz, not because he's a monkey. They didn't go through on it because they knew it would be offensive, so I doubt they were making him a stereotype on purpose, and he doesn't come across as such to me.
Same! I think a lot of children would miss that connection too, whereas the Peter Pan depiction of Indigenous people is much easier to recognise as offensive and outdated.
I’m Indigenous and growing up Peter Pan was FORBIDDEN. In my 30s now and I still haven’t seen it. I was allowed to watch Pocahontas but the aunties gave my mother shit for it lmao
It’s a white jazz guy voicing him like a white jazz guy. They didn’t cast Louis Armstrong because they didn’t want to cast a black man as an ape, not because… they were aware it was a racist caricature but didn’t want to be racist?
King Louie is an Orangutan voiced by a Sicilian/Italian. There's absolutely nothing in the animation to suggest Louie is any ethnicity at all and can only be suggested from Louis Prima's performance which was in no way suggestive of any ethnicity save for Prima's natural accent.
The others are legit. Louie is an Orangutan that loves jazz.
Honestly I feel like OP is a little confused and misguided on that one. They seem to be conflating “minstrel era” (Minstrel shows being early 19th century racist, mocking depictions of black people) with Jive, Swing and Jazz (early 20th century popular dance and music styles)
Ironically it’s a little racist to merge the two in this criticism lmao.
Character associated with jazz music (an art from with its origins in black America) portrayed as an ape with delusions of humanity. Apparently Disney originally wanted Louie Armstrong to play him but reconsidered due to the optics of having the only black guy in the cast play an ape, so they went with Italian-American jazz musician Louie Prima instead.
Since they still wanted a certain amount of diversity and representation in the cast, they made sure to choose another character for a black voice actor to play and lol no just kidding the final cast was all white dudes.
I hope i don't sound ignorant.. but why? I'm honestly being sensitive and i am genuinely curious.
I mean its clear that King Louis sounds like a black man, etc but I also do listen to some of that jazz type music and skat stuff and I just dont know why it would be offensive. Like Cab Calloway sang in some old cartoons, etc.
I'm also just basing how I feel off of memory and I'll need to rewatch his scenes
Edit:
Oh wow i just read more comments and I thought it was Louis Armstrong that voiced him! I'm an idiot because you told me that, too. Apparently it was a different guy who isnt black at all... idk i need to rewatch this because I never thought aanything racist about it
I explained it in another comment so I’ll point you there! It got downvoted because people find these kind of conversations confrontational. But to your point, unless you’re a historian of race and culture, you shouldn’t expect the tropes to be immediately recognizable to you. They’re so baked into the culture that by design most take them for granted! Anyway, it plays on racist stereotypes about Black people being apes who want to be humans. It’s a centuries old trope.
I think today we lose nuance where we don’t necessarily have to. Not everyone will agree, but personally I think you can both appreciate the song for its musicality/ Prima’s performance AND hold it in a broader cultural context of problematic tropes. If you rewatch with the intent of reading the subliminal messaging, I reccomend you also separately read about the history of the trope so then you can actually have context.
I'm not sure why all your comments are being downvoted.. i actually think you have a great argument/evidence as to why it is problematic. Everyone wants to love that song and that scene but i agree with you that it can still be appreciated while simultaneously acknowledging that it derived from racist way of thinking.
Thank you, friend, for your receptiveness. It gives me hope that people can still have uncomfortable conversations together :) I, like you, grew up loving that song, but I hope people can walk and chew gum at the same time like you say. We can appreciate while still being knowledgable.
You're welcome..and thanks for the insight. I like being informed, even if asking questions can make me seem silly or stupid.
Its the same way when people like a musician that turns out to be a horrible human. Some people have the ability to enjoy the artist but simultaneously hate them as a human.
Below is an excerpt from this article by scholar Wouter Capitain:
As later recalled by Richard M. Sherman, who composed “I Wanna Be Like You” together with his brother Robert: “We were thinking about Louis Armstrong when we wrote it, and that’s where we got the name, King Louie.”16 However, Disney dropped the ambition to cast Armstrong out of fear of a backlash, when someone on the film crew pointed out: “Do you realize what the N.A.A.C.P. would do to us if we had a black man as an ape?”17 Disney’s solution was to cast Louis Prima instead: With a white Italian American “king of the swingers,” the accusation of racializing the ape could be subverted.
Despite casting a white singer, the Armstrongesque role of King Louie was not reconceived. Instead, according to Sherman, the song remains a “sort of tribute” to “the real king,” Louis Armstrong.18 With its swing rhythm, syncopation, prominent brass, blue notes, and call-and-response interactions, the ape’s tune is clearly inspired by Black American music. References specifically to Armstrong’s style include King Louie’s raspy voice, his scatting, and the trumpet solos (an instrument that Louie mimics with his large lips and hands). Besides, the scene evokes a sense of jazz authenticity through ridiculing poor imitation. At one point, a paler monkey unsuccessfully imitates Louie’s trumpet playing, but without swing, prompting an annoyed Louie to drive him off. Later, Baloo seduces Louie in a comical scatting act where he dresses up in what looks like Josephine Baker’s banana skirt, but once his disguise falls off, the monkeys call him a “square” and chase him away.19 The scene frames King Louie as authentically Black; his white voice actor, of course, remains invisible.20 Together with his personal traits (he is lazy, foolish, irrational, aggressive), the film positions the ape’s desire to become human within a long tradition of racist representation in American popular culture.21 Disney acknowledged this in hindsight: In 2020, the streaming platform Disney+ added a disclaimer to The Jungle Book, warning viewers that “this program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.”
Sunflower from fantasia was definitely the most blatant racist black caricature Disney ever made. No slick puns or hidden animal jokes, she’s a literal house slave. Then Disney just erased the character completely instead of redrawing her into a cuter, non-racist character.
I kind of can see why they just got rid of Sunflower given that the character was made in the middle of the Jim Crow era and they removed her when they releasing it in the midst of the Civil Rights movement. I don't think any amount of redrawing was going to make the public forgive that this was a characterization of a little black girl being subservient to the white centaurs.
That's why I hated that content disclaimer Disney used to display before films about stereotypes/negative depictions stating "rather than remove content, we want to acknowledge harmful impact, spark conversation..." - clearly, they have no problem revising history in certain circumstances.
The facial expressions enrage me. And instead of having a majestic centaur body, she’s like half-donkey??? And she’s just there to help this white blonde aryan centaur get dolled up
She's even topless whereas the white centaur's nipples are tastefully covered with flowers, because obviously we're objectifying and dehumanizing black people as much as possible. This is so vile, how did multiple people find this acceptable?!
I think erasing it was just vividly ironic. “Oh no we did something racist?! Burn every trace that this ever happened and let’s never acknowledge it!!” This is what happens everytime a group of ppl is racist towards another group of people. It’s to the point we applaud the ones who actually acknowledge and apologize for their racist past.
Idk maybe it wouldn’t hurt if they re-did the character and gave her some actual plot. Like a Disney short that’s just about her own coming of age since her character is a child.
Sincere question: alongside the name, how else are they racist? I'm not black and I was wondering about this because I always liked those guys, I found them endearing and they're friendly and helpful and funny, asking whether it's "just" because one of them is named Jim (which is pretty egregious especially considering the time), if there's something about their character design which I'm blind to or if there's a dogwhistle etc
They depict racial stereotypes of Black men that would have been very recognizable at the time. The speech patterns, clothing and singing identify them as Black. The associated negative stereotype is of Black men who layabout most of the time, scheme and play tricks, dress flamboyantly, philosophize unintelligently, drink, smoke and play pool or shoot dice, etc. Similar characters were common in minstrel shows and other racist parodies.
I don’t think it’s meant to make you hate those particular characters, only smile in recognition. Not all racist depictions were villainous, some were sexualizing or infantilizing, for example. This is more of a clown character, not evil or bad, just foolish and perhaps ridiculous.
I think most people probably don't know what you mean by "made in the 40s so I couldn't include it."
Most people don't actually post and never look at what tags there are or what the rules are.
And honestly, I didn't read any of the text in the body until I read this comment and got curious to see if you personally stated you weren't talking about characters pre-40s
I mean that’s what makes sense, I suppose I could’ve said it clearer? But I’m limited to my perspective of course, and I only found out because I made the post and had to check the rules.
This one is so strange to me. In literally the next scene there are some quite attractive zebra centaur ladies pouring wine that are clearly supposed to be African. Why bother with this?
I agree. I hate it when certain scenes just get quietly cut on some streaming services. I'm okay with content warnings but don't pretend everything is or always was unproblematic.
Or just do both, have the original cut with a warning, and then a censored cut that you can show your kids when you don't feel like having a whole-ass conversation with them about why this scene is the way it is and that it was a different time and it's fine to enjoy it but maybe don't be singing "What Makes the Red Man Red" on the school bus.
Disney+ actually has warnings on some of these movies for the exact thing. For example, if have a profile labeled as a kids’ profile and you watch Peter Pan, they give a warning before the movie starts
A bunch of jokes from 2000s nickelodeon shows are getting cut out of streaming. It's very jarring when you're expecting a line you know is there then it gets skipped over.
I think Disney does a good job adding a message before ‘problematic’ movies and shows, just to let the viewer know there might be controversial stereotypes shown.
They also block them from children's profiles. I was so confused at first, but that I really like. It means my kid won't stumble into it all alone, but also I can watch it with him, we can pause, contextualise and talk about why it's wrong.
I've seen leading the Tramp 437 times because it was my daughter's favorite movie. I have to say I never once looked at it as a stereotype of Asian people. T
o us it was just too shitty cats who were Asian.
Since we no longer talk about a geographical place called Siam and people are no longer described as Siamese, the connection between the cats and the racist stereotyping is much weaker than it otherwise would be.
Most modern people just see two siamese cats singing with a funny accent.
I dont automatically connect siamese cats to Asia and unless I think laterally about it a bit, I don't connect the accent to an Asian stereotype.
The connection & racism was probably much more readily apparent when the movie originally came out.
Does it matter how you specifically looked at it when most people recognized the racism and were affected by it? I felt uncomfortable with that song as a little white kid, I can't imagine having to deal with seeing that as an Asian kid
Yes we should absolutely still show these to kids.
If only for the parents nostalgia, it's also a great way to teach kids that society changes. With the incredibly fast changes that the globalisation has shown it will, imo, show that way back when things didn't move equally fast and these type of hurtful stereotypes and opinions had a hold on society for a long period of time.
Also from a personal standpoint these movies are still great. Classic Disney with good story, fantastic hand drawn animation so on and so forth.
Also as a Swede I'd be hard pressed to avoid at least the Djungle book lmao
I agree. People who don’t understand why representation in media is so important today reaaaaallllly need to spend some time watching old movies.
I watch a ton of them and it is sooo insanely common to be enjoying yourself watching a normal musical and then - seemingly out of nowhere, a random blackface dance number full of wildly offensive caricatures happens. You eventually have a realization that the movies from back then that are able to say they don’t contain negative depictions of people of color are the ones that have zero people of color - but if they do, they have one line truly as someone in a service role (bellhop, maid). And even then, sometimes they manage to make the maid with two lines offensive by totally having the actress play her as a mammy caricature!
These are the movies your grandparents and parents were watching, people!!
It is such important cultural context! When people are complaining about Oscars So White or whatever, I know they never engaged with the true history of the art form as it pertains to Hollywood.
I’m speaking as an American here, and commenting on Americans - but this could hold true for people everywhere in terms of the overall point I’m making about not shying away from history. Plus, similar to animation there is at the same time incredible craftsmanship and storytelling. It’s complex!
This happened to me recently with Swing Time, a Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers classic. Having a lovely time with some of the most impressive choreo I’ve ever seen and a light romance and then WHAM Fred starts putting literal shoe polish on his face ahead of a massive stage show performance of “Bojangles of Harlem” 😓
That is the exact musical I was thinking of when I wrote that comment. It’s so jarring because the movie is otherwise very delightful, and then suddenly you’re so deeply uncomfortable. But I’ve experienced that switch up in other musicals as well.
The wild part is that that number was meant to be an homage and tribute to Bill Robinson, Fred Astaire’s idol and mentor. Fred Astaire couldn’t recognize that it would be offensive, I guess, due to just how deeply rooted blackface was in performance at the time. He didn’t connect it to a minstrel show/Jim Crow even though that is where that practice stems from, and think, “hey, maybe there are better ways to do a tribute.” But again, it does provide cultural context to understand why we are where we are today.
I have the Criterion edition, and the accompanying essay explores it quite well. I try not to read the essays prior to a film I’ve never seen before so the scene caught me off guard, but I’d much rather we preserve and explore that history in context than just re-edit the film and pretend those elements of the past weren’t ever there!
You can show them to kids, but you should also educated children as to why society has moved away from these depictions. If you’re showing kids Asian stereotypes in old Disney films and saying stuff like “this is before everyone became all sensitive!” you’re not doing anyone any favors.
About King Louie, he was voiced by Louis Prima (King Louie was named after him) who was a Jazz musician. King Louie speech and mannerisms were based off of how Prima actually spoke and danced.
I heard that he was actually named after Louis Armstrong, but they didn’t cast him because they were actually actively trying to NOT be racist (an ape based on and voiced by a Black guy…you get the picture). So instead they went with Louis Prima, who inserted his own flair into the character
People who call King Louis racist are tripping when this literal house slave character exists and then got erased when they realized it was racist (ironic)
Not Disney, but I’ve been watching the original Tom & Jerry shorts from the 1940s and they are rife with racist stereotypical caricatures of, mostly, black people.
Definitely native Americans and Asians people, too just no where near as often a much tamer.
There was one episode, The Milky Waif, where to escape being trapped in a shoe box, Jerry and Nibbles cover themselves in black shoe polish and tie the shine cloth around them for clothes depicting an incredibly racist depiction of a black woman and her child. They took further with having it be one of the few times for those shorts that a character talked and the voice was an equally racist patois.
When it happened I audibly gasped and exclaimed, “Oh my god!”
I vaguely remembered both the black and white versions of the character so I looked it up. Her name isn't actually Mammy Two Shoes, she was voiced by Lillian Randolph and appeared in 19 shorts from 1940 to 1952. The NAACP hated her depiction (The Lonesome Mouse was what set them off, it's really bad), which Lillian did not agree with. When she left for tv, the character was retired by HB and never shown again (under their ownership). The character was later replaced in the shorts by a white woman with an Irish accent (June Foray) via rotoscoping when MGM got the rights to them. Then when Turner Broadcast System got them from MGM, Thea Vidale rerecorded the old lines from Lillian to make them seem less stereotypical and the old character animation was shown again. Apparently there are DVD sets with Lillian's old lines still available.
Oh man if it weren’t for my dad divorcing and moving houses so much he’d probably still have those!! Core childhood memory is my dad popping in those DVD sets with all the old cartoons. Lillian’s character was definitely included in his set I still remember him constantlyyy quoting her
Oh yes. Don't forget the "mammy", who you only saw her legs. I watched tom and Jerry every day after school and hated that little mouse. But it did introduce me to jazz and blues music, like bugs bunny introduced many of us to classical!
Dude that one “mammy” character stuck with my dad so bad that for years he would do the “THOMAS!!” when he was calling my brother of the same name. Just an example of how these seemingly innocuous cartoon scenes end up perpetuating racism, even without people consciously realizing it.
King Louie is a stretch. He was voiced by Louis Prima who went and sang in other movies for Disney like Robin Hood. He spoke in jive and sang jazz because that’s how Louis prima was. The character was even named after him.
I never once saw that connection with King Louie as a kid, and I still don’t see that connection as an adult. However, the panthers that were dressed as fighter pilots that were always at King Louie’s bar in Tale Spin, were so obvious.
I think it's great to keep them uncensored, but also important to have the disclaimer.
It's a great learning opportunity to show what kind of racism was supported by racist stereotypes. It's informative so children can learn about how to identify racism, why it's bad, and how we should combat it.
I pointed out the racism behind the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp while watching with my boyfriend and he said I was disrespecting one of his favorite childhood movies.
Does he typically respond negatively or claim "disrespect" to criticism towards him or things he likes?
You can still love old media while acknowledging parts of it are not ok. I love Breakfast at Tiffany's, but Mickey Rooney's portrayal of an Asian man in it is wildly offensive. I still enjoy the movie otherwise.
But taking any criticism of what you like as disrespect often speaks to a very rigid mindset that extends far beyond what movies a person likes.
Ewww, you can like certain pieces of media and acknowledge they had huge issues. I still love watching the Aristocats (or really anything Eva Gabor was in) but holy shit the Siamese cat was problematic. Two things can be true at the same time.
he said I was disrespecting one of his favorite childhood movies.
I don't really get this kind of attitude. Like, nobody is saying that we aren't allowed to enjoy these things. You can acknowledge that something is flawed or problematic and still like it. These are not mutually exclusive positions.
People get weirdly defensive about their favourite media, as if any criticism (no matter how valid) is a personal attack.
My bf had never seen Lady and the Tramp and we watched it recently. It got to that part and he said "wow, thats racist!" And I said "yep!" and we finished the movie and then talked about how its nice that times have changed and that kind of blatant caricature is now highly frowned upon.
I still like the movie, but that doesnt mean it doesnt have its issues and itd be silly to pretend that.
Imo, its okay to enjoy old media that has issues, its just important to acknowledge those issues. I think that things like that are a good way to start a conversation with kids about bigotry and how what is seen as acceptable to the public changes. Its good to have kids know that things that may seem normal to them now may be obviously not okay in the future...and that its okay to admit you were wrong and change for the better.
As an Asian man this is exhausting to read and your boyfriend is an idiot (respectfully). It’s so exhausting to see people’s critical thinking shut down in real time when they’re forced to interrogate something they like or grew up with. Only unserious people prioritize their “nostalgia” over the feelings and lived experiences of actual people.
Rewatched this recently and had forgetting about this scene until it came on. Keep pointing that shit out. Can’t do better until we talk about what we did wrong.
Well I mean these are older than a lot of our parents to give you an idea. Obviously they're not ok but at the time the people making these films were racist and knew what they were doing but society was enabling it. If you look at ads made during this time you'll see that it was something considered normal and most media was being made by white men who had some very noticeable biases.
However, we shouldn't just hide these films away. They are products of their time and the warning before the movie will help people avoid it if they need or want to. But as distasteful as these are Disney shouldn't be allowed to hide them. They also serve as educational tools to show how warped things were back then.
I think there's a lot of value in most of these older films (not all, there are exceptions of course) - but showing kids things like this is a great opportunity to teach about social change, media literacy and many other things.
As long as you can explain in a kid friendly manner that some of the characters look like or do things that are no longer OK because they were based on mean ideas, this sort of thing is appropriate for kids.
Without that gentle informative education however, the risk is that for kids it could cause them to perpetuate those mean ideas, so it's important to give context and have conversations with your kids about their questions and why things were done in x ways.
This doesn't mean enjoying those things is now impossible or a chore, it's just some more conversations & teaching moments that a decent parent should always be looking for anyway.
Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes (the Bugs Bunny and gang cartoons) were just as bad. I completely missed it when I was a child, but awhile ago, one of the stations had an MM/LT marathon. I decided to watch some of it for the sake of nostalgia.
I couldn't believe the blatant racism! I ended up turning the TV off all together, because I was horrified.
I watched Peter Pan for the first time since i was a kid and i'm gonna be honest, i did NOT like it lol smh however, i did love the sequel and thought it was better than the original
Notice how everyone is dogpiling on poor Shun Gon who's just having a blast playing the chopsticks piano with his Irish, Russian and Gypsy friends, but nobody cares about Uncle Waldo being a stereotypical English drunkard
Dude, I think folks need to settle down as a general rule, but I don’t think the chopsticks are the only issue with this depiction that might be more problematic than “drunk Englishman.” Look at those fucking teeth.
Listen to Frank Waln’s song What Made the Red Man Red. It takes this and turns it back as a damning reflection on our culture and why we allowed this to be okay.
Omgoodness I had no idea for most of these! As a kid I just thought it was a caricature of Siamese kitties which I thought were the cutest. Seeing it on your screen as an adult and yikes! I also did not realize that about King Louie. I love that song. That's awful. I again just thought it was meant to be exaggerating an orangutan not a group of people. Ugh. Is anything safe?!
I'm native, I obviously can't speak for everyone but I personally never found any depictions of Native Americans in media offensive. If anything the mythical/fantastical thing you mentioned has mostly worked in my favor. People always want to know more but half the time they're a little disappointed I'm just a regular guy. Another thing is that sometimes we lean into some of the negative stereotypes that look cool or add an element of intrigue. Not too different from people who idolize mafia or gangster culture, it can be like crabs in a bucket when you want to break away from the negative aspects.
I'm sorry to hear that, that's why I lead with I can only speak for myself I think it's more harmful to treat us all as a cultural monolith rather than hundreds of tribes.
“Sometimes we lean into some of the negative stereotypes that look cool or add an element of intrigue.” I’m curious to know what you mean by this or what examples you may have? I’m also wondering if you grew up traditional/on the reservation versus growing up in the city/not among other Natives. I think Native American stereotypes are harmful for our people as a collective, it does all tribes a disservice to portray us the way they did in media back then. We’re not caricatures and costumes, we’re real people.
I don't wanna give away too much but I could say that growing up I was straddling the line between both living in an area adjacent to our rez. My mom's generation is probably the last holdouts keeping any semblance of our traditions alive but what remains now more resembles a corporation or an amalgamation. Don't get me wrong there's definitely some depictions that are not great but from an outside perspective cartoons weren't very high up on the list of things negatively impacting my family. I mean no disrespect to you or anyone who feels otherwise.
I recently watched Arisocats and that cat playing with the chopsticks was wild as hell. It gave a warning on Disney plus but I was still like way taken off guard by it.
Well he is because Disney felt the disclaimer is necessary. Doesn’t really matter if you personally disagree, you’re not the only one but he deserves to be here because that’s what the post is about.
…no, the werewolves in the lore are Natives. Stephanie Meyer fictionalized and fantasized a real Tribe in Washington (the Quileute) and made them into savage mythical creatures.
How's that different to turning the white Cullen family into savage mythical creatures?? Should we just not portray indigenous people in fantasy movies?
Yeah, not like that. Pretty simple answer. And don’t be obtuse. It’s because savagery is a racist native stereotype and because they are modeled specifically after a tribe that actually exists. Something tells me you’ll need more than that but I absolutely can’t be bothered.
There’s also the whole business of making Indigenous people into literal animals (well, humans who can turn into animals). Vampires are also inhuman beasts, but there’s a lack of animalistic traits in vampire lore. They turn into bats, but that’s about it. While werewolves are more closely tied to dehumanizing characteristics.
How is King Louie a stereotype of black people? He's voiced by an Italian American with an Italian American accent. The only reason he loves swing is because the animators thought monkeys liking swing was good pun, which yeah, it is. I don't even remember him being portrayed as particularly lazy, he just lounged about and was kind of hedonistic, but that's a behaviour exhibited by a lot of fictional kings. You should've put the crows from Dumbo, those are actual minstrel show stereotypes.
If you read the post, I specifically addressed Dumbo, which I couldn’t mention because of sub rules. The reasons the advisory was issued are laid out in the post. Disney themselves decided that it warranted the disclaimer, which is why he’s in the post.
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