My Inner Child Gives Sunflower the Centaur a Hug
As a young child, I loved animation. I credit animation with being the source of the dreamiest worlds, where I learned that the things you see on TV or what you may read about in a book might not be real. Art was what’s its meant to be then: an escape. The idea that a world can be perfect, consistently. An impossible truth.
The truth, while it mattered, was elastic. Same with bodies.
I’m not bothered by the truth. There is no loving animation without Disney. There is no loving Disney without acknowledging its racist and sexist core. It hurts to know that black people, especially black women, can’t be human, even in someone’s wildest dreams.
The first black characters animated by Disney were animals. Funny enough, the trend persists. Years later, Tiana, the first black princess ever animated by Disney was an animal. What a pastoral symphony indeed.
I learned about Sunflower the Centaurette late in life. It was after cosplay artist Ginny Di, who was portraying the blonde centaur, spelled it out for me. According to the Guardian, “From the waist up, Sunflower is — or was — a textbook example of the “pickaninny” caricature. Neither her looks, nor her subservience to the graceful, silky-haired white centaurs, caused much fuss in 1940, but shifting, civil-rights era sensibilities saw Sunflower snipped from Fantasia’s 1960 rerelease.”
The 5th segment of Fantasia is called ‘The Pastoral Symphony’ which depicted the world of Greek mythology all coming together for a festival held in honor of Bacchus, the god of wine. And prior to this festival, Sunflower appears in the centaur segment and shines the hooves of a pale female Centaur to help her look beautiful for the party.
In the scenes that she is in, Sunflower has three different hair styles. See? Even cartoon black girls know how to switch it up.
But she and her other African centaurettes don’t exist anymore. Disney denies they ever did. After all, they haven’t been in the movie since 1969. I’ve never even seen the movie with her in it. What an odd grief. But it’s funny, again, because it's as if I can’t remember the movie now without them. Upon seeing her animation, her design, learning about her, and more…there is no Fantasia without Sunflower and Otika.
And it’s not only because my inner child painfully wishes to see myself represented in my nostalgic fantasy land, where everything is perfect harmony and pastoral. Part of me wonders if it’s really possible to love something so questionable this much…can I really love the ‘problem’ with all my heart? Should I want it to be included in the narrative, to be embraced, welcomed, and loved in all of its horror?
Yes, I can. I can love something critically.
The only other movie I valued more for world-building was Peter Pan. Neverland was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen from Disney, especially the mermaids from Peter Pan. The mermaids, despite being childish and mean, were stunning as women and as beasts, like a lot of white women are.
The African centaurettes were a different kind of beauty, stunning as well but, in a bad way that hurts to think about. After all, animation is not a 10 minute endeavor. It is months and months of painstaking preparation for the sake of entertainment. Maybe there is no Fantasia without Sunflower and Otika for me now in 2020 despite what Disney tries to save itself from, because I see what they saw in that studio.
A dream world where the black girl is part of a docile, prehistoric type of people already. The universe where Black people are loyal, faithful, hard-working, kind, and just so fucking happy right where they are, polishing the hoof of the white horse that gets to be worshipped. The one that gets to stay in the movie. Somehow I think they were targeting me, decades before my existence. I have always been content with being useful. We are so lucky to be able help speed the nonsensical plot along, to roll the red carpet. Effortlessly.
Sunflower the Centaur exists in that form only in the dream world of a white animator: where the savages are contained and know their place. But Sunflower the Centaur does exist in my dream world too. She is everything to me and about me and more than I could probably have words room to say. Her color scheme and mine are identical. Her style is painful but it’s brought me more lessons than I could’ve known.
Who am I to fight my inner child over wanting to embrace her reflection? Especially when it is so beautifully well done. Raw. The truth is that she was there even if we may never see her again. What an odd grief. It’s like mourning a childhood friend or an older sister you never knew.
Sunflower the Centaur was here the same way I was, sitting in my elementary school, trying to figure out how else to make myself of use. All I can say is maybe Sunflower looked different as the child she was than she would now, just like me. Maybe she is currently with Doc McStuffins, braiding each other’s hair.
Maybe the animators even got the picture wrong. Of course, not everything in movies is real. Bodies and mind change. First with the pen. Then with the feet.
