Disney
The other night, I was telling my wife how the siamese cats from “Lady & The Tramp” were totally stereotypical and racist, from their slanted eyes (although THAT may just be the cat part of them, that one’s up for debate) and their buck teeth. Then I also suggested the crows from “Dumbo” and we realized that Disney was FUCKING racist.
For instance, Uncle Remus from “Song Of The South” was not allowed to attend the film at it’s worldwide premier. But it’s interesting to watch Disney channel and Disney movies NOW. I mean, Disney went from such racist films such as “Song Of The South” to shows where EVERYBODY is accepted, like “Hannah Montana”, although it’s still slightly offensive to the intelligent, you know, because it’s so god damned stupid.
But let’s dwell on this. Why? Why would Disney be racist? Well, at the time these films were being made, it wasn’t racist AT ALL, it was just portraying the times they were in, and in fact, the Crows in “Dumbo”-no matter HOW racist-actually help Dumbo learn to fly, so they are toated as Heroes, which was a good step forward for Disney and racism at the time.
But here’s one for the ages. The movie “Fantasia” originally came out in 1940, and at one point, they put an African Centaur in the film named “Sunflower” who was polishing the hoofs of an aryan Centaur. Then, when they re-released the film in the 1960’s, they REMOVED Sunflower from the film altogether. So it was racist of them to put the character in the film to begin with, but then they tried to make everyone forget they had done it AT ALL, and they completely removed her, which I guess makes Disney more acceptable right? What were they thinking?
“Oh no, see, you misunderstand, in our perfect ‘Fantasia’ world, Africans don’t polish White’s hoofs, THEY DON’T FUCKING EXIST.”
m@rk
February 24, 2009 at 2:04 am
The company has always tried to play it safe. Stereotypical and racist characters were normal back in the day, and right now everything is as politically correct and clean as possible because that’s what people expect. They have a reputation now, and if they tried to do something out of the ordinary their image would be ruined.
I think it’s more likely that Walt was just a product of his time, that he was reflecting ideas he’d been taught since his childhood, and that he did what he did specifically to make insane amounts of money.
That being said, I still think Disney was a racist, sexist, backstabbing jerk who ruined the careers of three of his fellows by accusing them of being communists.
(Of course, one of them really was a spy, so he wasn’t all bad.)
February 24, 2009 at 2:12 am
Okay, I’m interested, haha.
WHO did he accuse of being communists?
On the other note, I agree with you on the entirety about Disney, that he grew up with those ideas and was just presenting them to a new generation, which of course allowed THEM to be the same way. Thanks Disney.
m@rk
February 24, 2009 at 6:26 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_disney#Testimony_before_Congress
The validity of a Wikipedia article is always in question, but this one seems plausible enough.