Disney and People of Color

Selena Razo
Sep 5, 2018 · 8 min read

An Essay for “Disney: Producing Race, Gender And Sexuality”

MCS 129

8 May 2018

The Disney Company is a corporation that many people around the world love and admire. One of the reasons that Disney fans love to watch Disney films is for its diversity among its characters. Unfortunately for them but fortunate for the Disney company, Disney produces multiple films in which there is diversity, but that diversity is met with inaccuracy. Over time, Disney has noticeably shaped its image to disassociate with any explicit ideas of racism but has been able to incorporate implicit racist tropes in its films. Even though Disney has maintained a wholesome and family-friendly image over the last few years, this has allowed Disney to implicitly use stereotypes within its films as well as make a profit on the culture of persons of color.

While the Disney Company has seemingly made efforts to rid itself of any associations of racism, these efforts have resulted in a denial and erasure of any racist past as well as using its attempts at creating character diversity for profit. One film that Disney no longer discusses or promotes is Song of the South. Song of the South is a notorious Disney film known for pushing a false narrative of singing plantation workers as well as other tropes involving African-Americans working on southern plantations (Walt Disney American Experience 20:06–21:55). The film notably washes out the realities of working on a southern plantation as an African-American during the Reconstruction era. The Disney Company seems to have silently apologized for the racist themes within Song of the South by making the movie unavailable for viewing, yet the network is still able to make a profit out of the products that resulted from the film. Splash Mountain, a notably popular attraction at many of the Disney theme parks, has the Song of the South as its theme is still open for park guests to enjoy. Instead of having released an official statement about the flaws of Song of the South, Disney has instead distanced itself from the film as if the film did not exist. Disney appears to have shame for its involvement in Song of the South, yet there is still an attraction at many of the Disney theme parks that essentially celebrates and promotes the film. The song “Zip-E-Dee-Doo-Dah” is a song from Song of the South that is a widely popular Disney song that it uses in its parades and is featured on albums in which current Disney stars sing their own versions of older Disney songs. Through the promotion of the song as well as Splash Mountain and the lack of an official statement, Disney has made it clear that them shying away from discussing Song of the South was out of a public relations strategy rather than true shame and regret for the corporation’s involvement in the film.

Disney will not acknowledge its past associations with racism, but will happily profit off of the products of its racist films. Disney has tried to maintain this apologetic denial of racism, but has yet to demonstrate any sincere attempts. Even though Princess and the Frog is known as a revolutionary and diverse film, it did not initially start out this way. In the original plans for the film, Tiana was a chambermaid named Maddy, a name with a phonetic similarity to the “happy servant stereotype” of mammy (Breaux 398–399). This depiction of what would have been the first African-American princess would have only supported the negative portrayal of the inferiority of not only women of color but specifically African-American women. While the story of the character’s protagonist eventually changed and arguably improved, it is still important to note the original intentions associated with the film. At the time of production, Disney claimed to have “no intention of” using Princess Tiana as a political statement since she is the first African-American princess, but certainly used the fact that she was to the corporation’s marketing advantage (Breaux 413). With widespread marketing for the film, Disney stood to make a large profit from products based on the film as well as its political statement that is seemingly not a political statement. The wealth generated from the film reflects how Disney has yet again used its characters that are persons of color to its own advantage.

In addition to an erasure of its racist past, Disney has also incorporated a Eurocentric view in its films centering on people of color, such as Aladdin, through the Western viewpoint of Orientalism. Through this sense of Orientalism, Disney has represented people of color as “the other” in its films. In Orientalism, the West is known as “the Occident” while the Asian countries that constitute “the other” are known as “the Orient.” In its “Western representations of the orient” in Aladdin, Disney has given a false image of life in the Middle East as a constant struggle with violence everywhere (Felperin 139). In Orientalism, the idea is that Western ideas are superior and that those that do not follow Western ideals are considered as “the rest.” (Cabezas, slide 2). In the film Aladdin, characters that do not agree with Western ideals are made to be “the other” and appear as the villain type characters in the film. This is seen in the palace guards that constantly hunt down Aladdin for theft and the minor characters that belittle him for being poor. In Aladdin, Disney has portrayed women as inferior by portraying Middle Eastern women as seductresses. Even the upcoming live-action remake of the film Aladdin is having its own problems. The film has had accusations of white-washing due to the fact that the actress that is set to play Jasmine is not of Arabian descent. In Aladdin, Arab society is portrayed as barbaric through the opening song and in a scene in which Princess Jasmine encounters an enraged merchant Mickey Mouse Monopoly 34:57–36:69). This portrayal of a violent Middle Eastern society gives a false impression of Muslim values as well as puts forth a false narrative of modern life in the Middle East. The “centering of White experience” in these films promotes the Western interpretation of non-Western cultures instead of the accurate portrayal of these cultures. (Lacroix 219). Even years after the release of the original animated films of Aladdin, Disney is still having issues giving an accurate portrayal of persons of color.

Another film in which Disney has inaccurately portrayed another culture through orientalism is Mulan. In Mulan, early Chinese society is depicted as constantly belittling women. In Mulan, the protagonist returns home and there is still the idea that she needs a man even though she just saved all of China (Mickey Mouse Monopoly 32:37–33:58). The portrayals of Chinese culture through the belittlement of women put women of color in an inferior light as well as give a Eurocentric impression of what life is like living as part of “the other.” A viewer watching the film might think that Mulan is an example of what life is like in ancient China or even China right now, yet they would not know that one of the key plot points of the film is untrue. In the film, the titular character Mulan is put into a matchmaking service to find a husband but not actual service existed for women in China at this time. While the portrayal of strong Asian characters in Mulan is much of an improvement from the stereotypical portrayal of Asians through the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp, the film Mulan still has its own issues. The press for the upcoming live-action remake of the film, Mulan, has had rumors of whitewashing as well as deviating away from the story in the Disney animated film.

Even today there are problems with Disney films that center on people of color.

While Disney has made attempts to erase any evidence of racism towards African-Americans, it has interestingly not done so in regards to its portrayal of American Indians. When most people think of the inaccurate portrayal of American Indians in Disney, they think of Pocahontas, but there have been earlier inaccurate portrayals of natives in Disney films before Pocahontas. In Peter Pan native people are portrayed in a negative and savage-like view during a scene that features a song called “What Made the Red Man Red?”, which references the native slur “redskins” (Mickey Mouse Monopoly 36:45–37:36). No changes have been made to the film, yet Song of the South has been pulled from distribution and is not discussed by the company. The character of Peter Pan can also be found in Disney parks, but children are unable to take any pictures with Br’er Rabbit, one of the main characters of Song of the South. In Aladdin, the opening song received a lyric change when it was deemed racist but “What Made the Red Man Red?” is still featured in Peter Pan. The reason this ignorance of insensitivity to American Indians has occurred for so long is because of the ignorance towards native culture outside of the media but in politics. The United States government has failed to honor any of the treaties that they have between the many tribes that live in the country. In conversations about the inclusion of people of color, the concerns of native populations are usually overlooked. With the native community being so small, there is less of an audience that is calling attention to the racist details in Disney films. Disney is able to use the lack of media support for native populations as a way to continue on with and promote the sale of their inaccurate portrayals of natives.

Besides an outright constant offensive portrayal of American Indians, Disney has developed a corresponding commodification of native culture. When Disneyland first opened, there was a display of American Indians performing their tribal dances and singing songs for viewing while on the Mark Twain boat. This aspect of early Disneyland causes people of color on display as an aesthetic for an entertainment benefit while taking away the significance of those aspects of native culture. Having a performative presence of native people on the Mark Twain boat attraction causes people to view natives as the “the other” rather than real people. It is an appropriation of native culture, similar to how the film Pocahontas is an appropriation of the true story of the real-life Pocahontas. Similarly to how Disney used native culture as part of its profit for Disneyland, there was a “commodification of Pocahontas” as well (Ono and Buescher 24). There were many marketing materials for the Disney animated film that loosely centered on the life of the real-life Pocahontas that allowed Disney to make a substantial profit from the film and essentially an appropriation of native culture. While there are feminist themes in Pocahontas through its strong protagonist that mark an improvement from Peter Pan’s portrayal of natives, there is still a commodification of native culture from the Disney company.

Disney has used the desire for representations in media and film for its own profit. While there are representations of people of color in Disney films, these representations have proved to still be massively flawed in their own way. Disney may have drifted from the explicit racism as seen in Song of the South, but there still exists implicit racism in films such as Aladdin and Mulan. Disney has used its apparently clean and diverse image to profit on its own Eurocentric interpretation of “the other.”

Works Cited

  1. Breaux, Richard. “After 75 Years of Magic: Disney Answers Its Critics, Rewrites African American History, and Cashes in on Its Racist past.”Journal of African American Studies, 4 Dec. 2010. Web. 30 April 2018.
  2. Buescher Derek T, and Kent A. Ono. “Deciphering Pocahontas: Unpackaging the Commodification of a Native American Woman.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, Mar. 2001. Web. 27 April 2018.
  3. Cabezas, Amalia. “MCS 129 Orientalism” 3 May 2018. Media and Cultural Studies 129, University of California, Riverside. Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
  4. Felperin, Leslie. “The Thief of Buena Vista.” A Read in Animation Studies. Web. 29 April 2018.
  5. Lacroix, Celeste. “Images of Animated Others: The Orientalization of Disney’s Cartoon Heroines from the Little Mermaid to the Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Popular Communication, 4, Dec. 2004. Web. 25 April 2018.
  6. Mickey Mouse Monopoly. Dir. Chyng Feng Su, Miguel Picker. Media Education Foundation, 2001. Kanopy. Web. 1 May. 2018.
  7. Walt Disney American Experience. Dir. Sarah Colt, Public Broadcasting System 2014. Web.
Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade