The Princess And The Frog: Racism In Disney Movies

Racism in Disney Movies
The arrival of the movie, The Princess and the Frog, Disney’s newest animated movie, had many people’s interest because it presented Disney’s first African American princess, Tiana. Although Disney has finally decided to bring a new, racially different princess into their Disney princesses’ collection, they have also received negative comments such as being “accused of racial insensitivity” (London Times). Critics have opposed the movie because for several reasons including that fact that Tiana spent most of the movie as a frog and that the prince looked white in the movie and not of any ethnically colored background. This movie, among many others, has received negative comments accusing Disney movies to be racist.
In the childhood of many, we grew up watching Disney’s movies that have been sending out the messages such as good versus evil and that we will all be able to live happily ever after. They have been around for decades for those young and young at heart to enjoy continuously, but besides the fairytale endings, the movies also display signs of racism within their characters and dialogue. There are subliminal messages shown through these movies that have affected us to behave and think in certain ways based on how Disney represented certain characters in their movies.
In the movie, Lady and the Tramp, there are two characters, the Siamese cat twins, which can be described as slender cats with long bodies and tails, details in which the movie correctly depicted as authentic Siamese cats, but there are more characteristics that symbolize the Asian culture. The cats also have slanted eyes and buck teeth displaying the stereotypic features of Asians. The twin cats also have thick Asian accents, accentuating the distinctive broken English and poor grammar as well as switching the “R” and “L” sounds, all common mistakes made by those with Asian descents. Furthermore, in the movie, the Siamese cats are trying to eat the family fish and in doing so, Lady, the family dog, gets in trouble for trying to stop the twin cats. They cunningly try to pull at the table cloth to bring the fish bowl closer to them, with Lady pulling at the other end, causing the fish bowl to tip over leaving a mess. The cat twins also tear apart the window curtains and when the humans come downstairs to inspect the chaos, the cats deviously hide, leaving the humans to blame the destruction all on Lady. Their actions symbolize how Asians are viewed as “sneaky and cunningly evil” (Omi 630).
Latinos are also a minority that receives lots of racial criticism being “portrayed as being toward violent outburst of anger” (Omi 630). In the Disney movie, Oliver & Company, there is a Chihuahua dog named Tito that depicts how the Latinos speak and act. It can be assumed that Tito is a Latino dog based on the fact that the writers created him as a Chihuahua, a dog breed that is connected to Mexico and generally seen as aggressive and loud. Tito is a small dog with a bandana wrapped around his head, symbolizing a gangster look, and he speaks with a heavy Spanish accent. In the movie, Tito says “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ignacio Alonso Julio Federico de Tito” (IMDB) which shows how traditionally, Latinos are given long names. Furthermore, in the movie, Tito can be described as a troublemaker because he likes to break the rules by stealing cars and getting himself into all sorts of mischief. Additionally Tito, like Omi stated, has anger management issues in which despite his small stature, he tries to stand up to much larger dogs because they irritate him.
Another targeted group, the African Americans, is also displayed in Disney movies.
In The Lion King, there are three hyenas named Shenzi, Bansai, and Ed which clearly speak in a dialect connected to the streets of African American cities. Whoppi Goldberg and Cheech Marin, a Black actress and a Hispanic actor, respectively, are two of the voices behind the hyenas. This shows racism because even though the entire film is set in the African safari, the main characters are the voices of two American actors, while the villains are of African American and Hispanic descents. Furthermore, the hyenas are also the represented as the villains in the film, always causing trouble and trying to help the main antagonist, Scar, in fulfilling his evil plans. The subliminal racist message within the plot allows the audience to infer that white people are considered the “good guys” while other races are faulty and therefore deemed bad.
Dumbo, another Disney movie, has also been reviewed as a racist movie against African Americans. In the movie, Dumbo encounters a group of crows, one in which is named Jim Crow, all of them displaying the stereotypic black culture. The jive-talking crows are poor, smoking cigars, and unintelligent. One of the famous quotes is from Jim Crow saying, “I’d be done see’n about everything, when I see an elephant fly!” They also refer to each other as “brothas”. These quotes from the movie show how they are uneducated, using incorrect English as well as the stereotypical
way to identify them as African Americans.
Dumbo also expressed another racist scene in which faceless men with dark skin are unloading the train car to pitch up the circus tent. Disney goes one step further with the song that the men sing while working. In the song, the men sing:
We work all day, we work all night.
We never learned to read or write.
We’re happy-hearted roustabout…
When other folks have gone to bed,
We slave until we’re almost dead.
We’re happy-hearted roustabouts. (lyricbox.com)
The lyrics in the song refer to African Americans in slavery and how they are uneducated.
It shows how the movie depicts them as those that can’t do anything but physical labor for work and they are satisfied in their work
Through the movies, it can also be inferred that minorities such as Asian, Hispanic, and African Americans are considered evil while the most dominate race, Caucasian, is considered as good. Even in Aladdin, where everyone is Arabic, Aladdin still possessed more “white” features than that of the villain, Jafar. Aladdin and Jafar both possess Arabian features such as their large eyes but the difference between the two is that Jafar has a more authentic accent than Aladdin’s; the voice of the American actor, Scott
Weigner.
A reason for the racism in the Disney movies may be because they are can be viewed worldwide. Therefore, in the article, In Living Color: Race and American Culture, Omi argues that the characters are addressed in the “‘lowest common denominator’ in order to render programs ‘familiar’ to an enormous and diverse audience” (Omi 629). In doing so, the writers have generalized certain minorities and created characters based on their judgments. Disney has created the image that its normal to stereotype people based on their races as depicted through their movies. By allowing their racist views to be shown, it negatively affects those who watch the movies by altering the audiences perception of certain races. Although the characters may correctly posses features of their racial background, many of the features are exaggerated. Features such as an Asian’s slanted eyes are overly accentuated to the point that it clearly shows the racism in the Asian culture and the ethnic accents that some of characters posses generalize how a certain race communicates.
Omi states that “film and television have been notorious in disseminating images of racial minorities which establish for audiences what these groups look like, how they behave, and in essence, ‘who they are’” (Omi 629). Through the media, the audience obtains a certain way of viewing people based on the way the director and writers created the characters for their films. Furthermore, because Disney is such a well-know corporation in which their films are viewed worldwide, the messages that their movies represent are rapidly spread to all.