Yup. Disney sure was racist before they added a black woman.
Because everyone knows that the only races there are in the world is black and not black.
Silly Disney.
While I love Princess and the frog, the idea that Disney hadn’t done any other racial differences is mindblowing. I mean really?
Add to that the “Ooh, mixed race couple! How inclusive!” argument.
Because Disney
Has never
Done that
The last one isn’t even the same fucking species.
I think this was the whole point of that last one.
Most of the issues with The Princess and the Frog was not just the race of the main characters, but the settling. New Orleans had recently been hit by the hurricane, and it was a centralized point of African American Poverty. It also had to do with the overkill of jazz music.
The idea of Disney being racist comes not from these princesses, but from supporting characters and setting.
Here are some examples. They aren’t in any particular order:
- In Dumbo, black men pitch the circus tents. The song they sing goes: “We work all day, we work all night. We never learned to read or write.”
- Also in Dumbo, the group of crows that Dumbo and Timothy Mouse encounter have stereotypical African American dialects. The leader is named Jim. Jim Crow.
- In The Lion King, the pride lands represents the rich white neighborhoods where the lions are light-skinned. Mufasa has a very proper accent. The Elephant Graveyard is like the ghetto, and the hyenas are all voiced with stereotypical black dialects.
- In the original version of Fantasia, the white female centaurs had a black, donkey girl taking care of them and pampering them. Her name was Sunflower. In new version Sunflower vanished, and Disney has denied her existence.
- In Aladdin, the merchant in the opening scene sings a song that shows how the Middle East is brutal and barbaric, where people cut of each other’s ears.
- The Jungle Book was on shaky ground to begin with because of the whole Rudyard Kipling thing. But, King Louie lives in a run-down temple—the ghetto, again. He’s an ape, which is very stereotypical. Also the song he sings goes “I want to be like you,” which is a negative portrayal of how African Americans view themselves in regard to white people (even though Mowgli wasn’t white he represents ‘man’)
- In The Little Mermaid, Sebastian has a stereotypical accent. He sings how life is better “under the sea” because you don’t need to “slave away” at a job. Under the sea, its all fun and floating. It’s a stereotype that African Americans are lazy.
- Also in The Little Mermaid, the Black Fish sings. It’s a play on the women of soul like Aretha.
- In Peter Pan, Native Americans are portrayed poorly. “What makes the red man red?” and Tiger Lily’s dance around the fire are all blatant stereotypes.
- Song of the South. Done. And, fun fact, it’s one of the only Disney movies not released on DVD (despite the fact there’s a major attraction based on the film in the theme parks)
What youlockedmeinthatbloodylab said.
