You watched Disney cartoons as a child, but you probably never picked up on the racist subtext within. Why would you? You were a child! But now, in hindsight, we can see that unfortunately, some of our Disney favorites are actually glaringly racist.
For instance, did you know the original release of Fantasia had dark-skinned centaurs working as servants for light-skinned centaurs? That The Little Mermaid’s Sebastian is considered offensive to Jamaican culture? Or that the happy ending of Pocahontas white washes the brutal killings of Native Americans? There’s more where that came from.
Turns out some of your favorite films — from Fantasia to Aladdin, Dumbo to The Little Mermaid – are downright offensive.
by Kat George
http://www.vh1.com/news/310/racist-disney-movies/
You watched Disney cartoons as a child, but you probably never picked up on the racist subtext within. Why would you? You were a child! But now, in hindsight, we can see that unfortunately, some of our Disney favorites are actually glaringly racist.
For instance, did you know the original release of Fantasia had dark-skinned centaurs working as servants for light-skinned centaurs? That The Little Mermaid’s Sebastian is considered offensive to Jamaican culture? Or that the happy ending of Pocahontas white washes the brutal killings of Native Americans? There’s more where that came from. These are the 10 most racist Disney movies you probably didn’t even notice were racist.
Fantasia (original release, 1940)
The original release included the now controversial character “Sunflower,” a small dark-skinned centaur with braided hair who played servant to the larger, light-skinned, blonde and dainty centaurs. The racial implication here is glaring: casting the dark-skinned character as subservient to her light-skinned counterpart. You probably didn’t notice this because Disney’s removed the scene from the movie, so any modern version of Fantasia will come to you slavery-free.
Dumbo (1941)
We know what you’re thinking. “Dumbo? NEVER!” Unfortunately, the story about the little elephant that could has some deep racist undertones. First, the cartoon crows speak in heavy southern African-American jive. But before you cry “coincidence,” consider this: the leader of the crows is named Jim Crow, which was also the name of the laws that brought segregation to the South in the late 1800s and continued until 1965. The crows are also portrayed as dim-witted, annoying, and lazy.
If that wasn’t enough, Dumbo includes a song called “Song of the Roustabouts,” in which lyrics like “We slave until we’re almost dead / We’re happy-hearted roustabout” and “Keep on working/ Stop that shirking/ Pull that rope, you hairy ape” are mournfully sung by faceless black circus “workers.”
Songs of the South (1946)
Songs of the South is one of those movies we all silently agreed to wipe from pop culture, and because of that, the movie has never been re-released. It didn’t take people long to figure out this was blatantly racist — after all, it’s a movie about a former black slave singing songs and telling stories while still living on the plantation he was enslaved in. Not OK, Disney.
If you’ve never seen the movie (which most people born in the latter half of last century probably haven’t), you might be familiar with a little song called “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” (and yes, you might want to consider not humming that to yourself anymore).
Peter Pan (1953)
The story of a boy who never grows up runs into some problems — big problems — with its portrayal of Native Americans. There’s a song called “What Makes The Red Man Red,” which is problematic enough. Aside from the offensive song, none of the Native Americans actually speak to Peter and the gang. Instead, the chief of the tribe speaks in broken jargon, stereotypical to the way Native Americans are mocked. White children Peter, Wendy, and Co. also partake in cultural appropriation by donning feathered head dresses, brandishing tomahawks, and running around making “whooping” noises while fanning their mouths with their hands.
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Lady and the Tramp had its share of racist moments in its stereotypical, caricature-ish portrayals of different races. Its Siamese cats, Si and Am, are drawn with slanted eyes and they speak with a stereotypical Asian accent, and also also portrayed as villainous and sneaky. There’s also a chihuahua who speaks with an exaggerated Mexican tone.
The Jungle Book (1967)
When Mowgli, our hero, meets some apes in the wilderness, it might seem innocuous enough. However, what strikes you is that while everyone in the film speaks in British English, the monkeys speak in jive. Louie, the king of the apes, is portrayed as lazy, fat, and a little dumb… sound familiar? The jive talking crows in Dumbo were portrayed in much the same way.
The Little Mermaid (1989)
The Little Mermaid has many problems. Change who you are to impress a man? Sheesh! There’s also some not-so-subtle racism at play. Some take issue with the portrayal of Sebastian the crab, who has a Jamaican accent and advocated staying under the sea because you don’t have to get a job there. The theme of portraying dark-skinned cultured as lazy recurs throughout Disney movies. The Little Mermaid also has problems with its drawings of the fish “Duke of Soul” and “blackfish” with fuller lips.
Aladdin (1992)
The original version of the opening song “Arabian Nights” included the lyrics “Where they cut off your ear / If they don’t like your face / It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” This misrepresentation of Middle Eastern culture wasn’t happily met, and the lyrics were changed to “Where it’s flat and immense and the heat is intense” for the DVD release. Critics of Aladdin also suggest that the titular character is designed to be whiter than the antagonist, Jafar. Aladdin, the good guy, is fair-skinned and speaks with an American accent. Jafar, on the other hand, is darker-skinned and has stereotypical facial hair and ethnic features. There’s also the suggestion that Aladdin’s skin becomes whiter after he defeats Jafar.
Pocahontas (1995)
Pocahontas enforces the idea that there are two types of Native American: the noble savage and the violent savage, which is a damaging and offensive categorization. It also whitewashes history with its happy ending, failing to acknowledge the brutal slaying and oppression of Native Americans by white settlers, painting a rather convenient picture for white history.
The Princess and the Frog (2011)
The film lauded for bringing diversity to the world of the Disney princess, with the first black princess, Tiana, is still racist. Critics of The Princess and the Frog have pointed to Tiana’s love interest, Prince Naveen, as the movie’s biggest problem. While Tiana is “obviously” black — in skin tone, voice, and facial features — Naveen is ethnically ambiguous. Naveen’s home country, Maldonia, is left as a question mark, so the audience never really knows where he comes from, and likewise his accent is confusing and difficult to place. It’s been suggested that these are all devices used by Disney so that they didn’t have to have an identifiably black male playing a king i.e. in a position of power.
Walt Disney
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney
Accusations of antisemitism and racism
Disney was long rumored to be antisemitic during his lifetime. Disney biographer Neal Gabler, the first writer to gain unrestricted access to the Disney archives, concluded in 2006 that available evidence did not support such accusations. In a CBS interview, Gabler summarized his findings:
Disney eventually distanced himself from the Motion Picture Alliance in the 1950s. Accusations of antisemitism dated principally from 1938, when he welcomed German filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl to Hollywood to promote her film Olympia. Even after news of Kristallnacht reached America, Disney—unlike other studio heads—did not retract his invitation. In addition, animator Art Babbitt claimed to have seen Disney and his lawyer, Gunther Lessing, attending meetings of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization, during the late 1930s. Gabler wrote that three months after Riefenstahl’s visit, Disney disavowed it, claiming that he did not know who she was when he issued the invitation. Gabler also questioned Babbitt’s story, on grounds that Disney had no time for political meetings and was “very apolitical” and “somthing of a political naïf” during the 1930s. When World War II broke out in Europe, Walt was reported of saying that America should “let them fight their own wars” and that he had “learned his lesson from the last one.”
Animator and director David Swift, who was Jewish, told a biographer that when he informed Disney that he was leaving to take a job at Columbia Pictures in 1941, Disney responded—in a feigned Yiddish accent—”Okay, Davy boy, off you go to work for those Jews. It’s where you belong, with those Jews.” Swift returned to Disney Studios in 1945, however, and later said that he “owed everything” to Disney. When he left the studio a second time in the early 1950s, Disney reportedly told him that “there is still a candle burning in the window if you ever want to come back”.
The Walt Disney Family Museum acknowledges that Disney did have “difficult relationships” with some Jewish individuals, including Babbitt and David Hilberman; and that ethnic stereotypes common to films of the 1930s were included in some early cartoons, such as Three Little Pigs (in which the Big Bad Wolf comes to the door dressed as a Jewish peddler) and The Opry House (in which Mickey Mouse is dressed and dances as a Hasidic Jew); but both Gabler and the museum point out that he donated regularly to Jewish charities (the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Yeshiva College, the Jewish Home for the Aged, and the American League for a Free Palestine), and was named “1955 Man of the Year” by the B’nai B’rith chapter in Beverly Hills. Artist and story man Joe Grant noted that “some of the most influential people at the studio were Jewish”—including himself, production manager Harry Tytle, and Herman “Kay” Kamen, the head of marketing, who once joked that Disney’s New York office “had more Jews than the Book of Leviticus”. Songwriter Robert B. Sherman asserted in his autobiography that he saw no evidence of antisemitism during his seven years of close work with Disney; and according to Gabler, none of Disney’s employees—including Babbitt, who disliked Disney intensely—ever accused him of making antisemitic slurs or taunts.
Disney has also been accused of racism, largely because of a number of productions released during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s containing racially insensitive material. Examples include Mickey’s Mellerdrammer, in which Mickey Mouse dresses in blackface; the “black” bird in the short Who Killed Cock Robin; Sunflower, the half donkey/half black centaurette with a watermelon in Fantasia; the feature film Song of the South; the American Indians in Peter Pan; and the crows in Dumbo (although the case has been made that the crows were sympathetic to Dumbo because they knew what it was like to be ostracized).
In spite of this, “Walt Disney was no racist,” Gabler wrote. “He never, either publicly or privately, made disparaging remarks about blacks or asserted white superiority. Like most white Americans of his generation, however, he was racially insensitive.” For example, during a story meeting on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs he referred to the dwarfs piling on top of each other as a “nigger pile”, and while casting Song of the South he used the term “pickaninny”. Song of the South was roundly criticized by film critics, the NAACP, and others for its perpetuation of black stereotypes; but Disney later campaigned successfully for an Honorary Academy Award for its star, James Baskett, the first African American so honored. Baskett died shortly afterward, and his widow wrote Disney a heartfelt letter of gratitude for his support. Black animator Floyd Norman, who worked for Disney during the 1950s and ’60s, said, “Not once did I observe a hint of the racist behavior that Walt Disney was often accused of after his death. His treatment of people—and by this I mean all people—can only be called exemplary.” Upon seeing a home screening of To Kill a Mockingbird, a film dealing with anti-discrimination, Walt commented “That’s the kind of film I wish I could make.”
ウォルト・ディズニー
ウィキペディア
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ウォルト・ディズニー
プロパガンダ映画の制作
1941年12月8日の太平洋戦争の開戦と第二次世界大戦へ参戦したアメリカは戦時体制への協力を国内産業へ求めた。映画産業に対しても協力を要請するが当初は成功しなかった。検閲や行政指導ができない上に高度に資本化された映画産業は政府の要請よりも利潤追求を優先させている。
しかし、ディズニーは大衆がヨーロッパに関心を持ちはじめていると気づくと「反ドイツ」の色を薄めた「反ナチス」の形で戦意高揚のプロパガンダ映画を制作した。大衆文化史の研究者にはディズニーが孤立主義から友邦の援助へ大衆の意識が変わっていたのを見抜いた上で統合の象徴としてミッキーを選択させた点や、彼が没した今日でもミッキーマウスは「アメリカの象徴」として自己増殖を続けている旨を指摘するものもいる。
政治家や政府のプロパガンダにより大衆を説得することは難しい。しかし大衆自身が願う形へミッキーを作り変える作業を続けることでディズニーは成功を収め、同時にアメリカ政府を顧客とすることにも成功した。戦後もディズニーは政府の核実験、原子力開発キャンペーンのためにen:Our Friend the Atom(我が友原子力)という映画を作成するなどプロパガンダに参加している。
大戦当時に同スタジオで製作された以下のアニメ映画には、ミッキーマウスが戦闘機で日本軍の零戦を撃墜するシーン、アニメ映画「総統の顔」には昭和天皇を風刺するシーンがあるが、これらは国の要請や強制を受けたものでもなく、ウォルトが積極的に自ら制作したものである。
・ 空軍力の勝利 Victory Through Airpower（1943年）
・ 新しい精神 The New spirit（1943年）
種・性差別姿勢
ゲイブラーは、ウォルトが製作したミュージカル映画『南部の唄』での黒人の描かれ方から、ウォルトが人種差別主義者のレッテルを貼られたことについては、「製作に熱中するあまり、人種に関する配慮に欠けていたのだ」と主張している。ウォルト自身は読書をほとんどせず、世相に対して鈍感な面を持ち合わせていたというのである。 この『南部の唄』は、公開直後から「全米黒人地位向上協会」（NAACP）の激しい抗議を受け続けており、アメリカ本国では再上映やビデオ化が阻止され、「幻の作品」となっている（日本でビデオ発売が実現したが、廃盤）。
しかし、ウォルトに対する「白人至上主義者」、「人種差別主義者」との批判は、彼が死ぬまで浴びせられ続けたものであって、別に『南部の唄』に限ったことではない。ウォルトは『南部の唄』では封切りイベントに主演の黒人俳優を出席させなかったし、『南部の唄』の以前にもその二年後にも、ミッキーマウスやミニーマウスがアフリカで、野蛮で猿のように描かれた黒人を差別的に扱う民族侮辱漫画を出版していて、現在も批判の対象となっている。また、彼は死ぬまでディズニー社の要所に黒人と女性を雇い入れなかった。彼の制作した作品群のほとんどすべてに、様々な民族に対する彼の白人中心視点から成る人種差別、および男尊女卑的な性差別が指摘されている。
(sk)
2015年の夏、ウォルト・ディズニー・ジャパンの公式ツイッター（ディズニー公式 @disneyjp）が、広島市への原子爆弾投下の前日の夜に、
とつぶやいた。そしてさらに長崎原爆の日に、
とつぶやいた。これは決して偶然でも事故でもない。
ウォルト・ディズニー、そしてウォルト・ディズニーという会社は、そういうものなのだ。
面白いのは、「A very merry unbirthday to you!（誕生日以外の日おめでとう）」が「なんでもない日おめでとう」と訳されたこと。これはたぶん、わざとだろう。
いずれにしても私は、ディズニー映画を見ないし、ディズニーランドに行かないので、まあどうでもいいのだけれど、日本テレビの「ディズニーランド」を見て育ったので、少しは気になる。