18 - CULTURE issue 177
words by: AMY KING design by: ELAINE TANG How do you combat a social systematic issue that has existed long before your own existence? This must have been the question Disney+ creators asked themselves when they decided to implement ‘outdated cultural depictions’ messages before the viewing of classic animated films, such as ‘Dumbo’ and ‘Peter Pan’. Discussion as to whether these outdated depictions should be recognised, edited out or even be shown has been circulating the media since Disney’s decision. Popular films such as ‘Pocahontas’ and ‘Aladdin’ do not contain the disclaimer message even though they clearly contain racial and misogynistic stereotypes, demonstrating that Disney still has a long road to achieve full inclusivity and multicultural understanding.
since its release due to its racist representation of plantation workers and other characters.
Since the early 1940s, Disney’s animations can seem to suggest and represent racial and misogynistic stereotypes that were once accepted but are now recognised as chauvinist and obstructive towards society. For example, the crows in ‘Dumbo’ appear to encapsulate stereotypes of African Americans through their representation of ‘the lazy and illiterate, darkskinned labourers’, as analysed by The Guardian. Yet, these films still exist and circulate throughout nostalgic and younger generations.
Both of these media services recognise the outdated assumptions more clearly than Disney by asserting the terms ‘ethnic and racial prejudices’ as opposed to ‘outdated cultural depictions’. Warner Bros. explains the reasoning behind their disclaimer message, “while these cartoons do not represent today’s society, they are being presented as they were originally created because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed”. The company “needs to follow through in making a more robust statement that this was wrong, and these depictions were wrong,” said Psyche WilliamsForson, chairwoman of American studies at the University of Maryland at College Park.
Releasing these films on a new streaming platform is problematic for Disney whose old content evidently includes repetitively troubling and concerning stereotypes. However, withholding these Disney classics from fans and enthusiasts could be viewed as a breach of access to their extensive and much-loved movie collection. In 2011, Disney CEO Bob Iger said releasing old Disney animations on a new platform “wouldn’t necessarily sit right or feel right to a number of people today.” Arguably, the launch of films with outdated ideals in a circulation of films that are supposedly improving their social representations would counteract this improvement by polluting new, socially inclusive films such as ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’. Since the creation of Disney+’s disclaimer message, Disney + owners are using the streaming service to access the ‘Disney Vault’, containing 80 years’ worth of Disney films to decipher which and how many of those movies contain problematic cultural representations. Movies from the first half of the 20th century such as ‘Lady and the Tramp’ and ‘The Jungle Book’ (which do not include the disclaimer message), are said to be the worse. Because of similar issues, Disney movie ‘Song of the South’, from 1946, was never released for home video and hasn’t appeared on Disney streaming devices
Other streaming services such as Warner Bros. faced similar issues with their ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoons, some of which also contain racial stereotypes and misogynistic depictions. The Warner Bros. statement calls its own cartoons out for ‘ethnic and racial prejudices’. Amazon’s streaming subscription service of ‘Tom and Jerry: The Complete Second Volume’ is accompanied by the caption: ‘Tom and Jerry shorts may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today’.
This view is accompanied by thousands of the public. The Guardian notes that a Change.org petition — with more than 4,000 signatures — is encouraging the company to not ‘bury’ its release “so we can learn from history and make our own decisions.” Many American studies scholars, such as Gayle Ward from Washington University, believe the disclaimer can teach new generations how to change their perceptions of others for the better and steer away from deep-rooted racist values, “Disney’s disclaimer is a good way to begin discussion about the larger issue of racism that is embedded in our cultural history”. By acknowledging the past and not eradicating it from our memory and history, we have the opportunity as a society to re-evaluate what we believe about others and why we make assumptions based on their ethnicity, race or gender. Whilst feminism and representations of ethnic minorities in film and music is rising, the issue is still not as prevalent and contested as it should be within society due to the unjustified categorization forced upon people. Disney+’s disclaimer is just the tip of the iceberg in a systematic ideology within media and film that is still to be wholly uncovered and dissembled.