How Disney Misrepresents Ethnicities

While race and ethnicity is discussed in our class, I wanted to expand and talk about how race and ethnicity is portrayed in Disney films. We all grew up on Disney films and feel as though those movies are some of our favorites. As children, we didn’t see the negative side of how the characters were portrayed, but as we are older, we can see the impact that these movies have made on different cultures and different ethnicities that could be seen as harmful.

It is gender biased by how men and women are seen in their physical appearance. The ‘good’ and ‘handsome’ men are considered to be muscular and the protectors, showing their strength in order to beat the evil. While more overweight characters are portrayed to be the ‘bad’ characters and are seen as evil. While in all Disney movies, all of the princesses and the main female characters have been slim and skinny. While some of the evil characters that were female are seen as overweight and unhappy.

This is not a good portrayal for girls because much like dolls having a negative impact on younger girls, watching Disney movies and seeing all the princesses being skinny is not good either. It can have a negative impact on girls because growing up, all girls want to be princesses, and they dress up as their favorite Disney characters. If they want to be princesses, they look to these Disney characters that are beautiful and could have a negative effect on younger girls. Not only does it have a negative effect on girls, but at the same time, with the misrepresentation of certain characters, younger people will perceive these ethnicities with a different outlook.

Not only are gender biases present in Disney films but also Disney films misrepresent cultures such as Native Americans and African Americans. An example of this can be seen in the movie Dumbo, how all the workers are African American and even have a song about how they are slaves and they “slave away until we are almost dead.” 

Another example can be seen in Peter Pan, where the Native Americans have red face and the stereotypical headdress. Also, all the characters in Disney films are predominantly white. The only films with characters not predominantly white have been Mulan, Pocahontas, Aladdin, and The Princess and the Frog. Other movies that have misrepresentations and are racist is the movie Aladdin, which was talked about in class and how the Arabs are poorly misrepresented and can offend lots of people. Also, in Pocahontas, the Englishmen call the Native Americans 'savages' and has a song which is highly offensive, saying things like; "Hellish red/they're only good when they're dead/Barely even human."

As we can see, even though we love Disney films and grew up with them as children, it is undeniable that Disney has discrimination and racism between the lines. Even if we didn’t see it as a child, we can definitely see it now and how Disney has reflected certain ethnicities. There are many more examples that can be seen with how Disney misrepresents and discriminates cultures and ethnicities with many more movies. I thought that these were the most predominant, and how we can see the biases indirectly. 

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1300/J086v15n04_02
http://caitlynolen.blogspot.com/2012/04/disneys-portrayal-of-race-and-ethnicity.html