All classic disney movies are racist

[saxist01]

Alladin wasn't middle eastern, he was the hero. He was white. Jafar was the villain. He was middle eastern.

I like how being the hero is somehow an alternative to being Middle Eastern.

I know, they were subtle about it weren't they. (sarcasm intended)

 

[Seanchaidh]

Well, they're making a movie with their first black princess now.

And what do you mean by 'classic'? Does Aladdin qualify there? Because I wouldn't call that racist.

Aladdin looks like any American guy. Jafar's features are overwhelmingly Arabic.

 

[YuheJi]

The little mermaid was pretty bad as well. The whole blackfish thing.
I also am curious about the fact that very few older Disney movies portray the mother of the main character. A lot have the father, some have evil stepmothers, while others have mothers that die at the beginning of the movie. But not very Disney main characters have real, normal mothers. All I've been able to come up with so far is The Lion King.

 

[Satin6T]

I'm sorry OP you are WRONG

 

[Rigs83]

[HEADING=1]Just rascist![/HEADING]
Hell Walt Disney was an active in destroying peoples lives before the House of Un-American Committee whose sole responsibility seems to have been to blacklist people who leaned left and had communist thoughts like equality and desegregation.

 

[crudus]

And most Disney characters have only one parent. Suspicious, no?

Or orphaned. I think Aurora had a mother and father which turned into three mothers. Simba had two parents for a while.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

Wasn't Walt Disney anti-semitic?

-snip-

yes, he was anti-semitic
need proof? watch pinochio. or however it's spelt.
the travelling gypsy guy in that is also jewish. and it fits in with all the nazi stereotypes of jews at the time.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

They also love to kill off every mother in their movies.

That's a natural trope. You Killed My Father [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouKilledMyFather],Death By Origin Story [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.DeathByOriginStory], Self Made Orphan [Self Made Orphan], Cinderella Circumstances [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CinderellaCircumstances], Conveniently an Orphan [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvenientlyAnOrphan], Doorstop Baby [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoorstopBaby] all are based around the idea that the easiest way to turn a sweet kid into a raving brute is to kill the parents.

 

[Hexadecimal]

There was this one part in Aladdin, I think it was in the beginning, where the lyrics just explain Arabian life. I think there was this one part that mentioned how barbaric the law system is in the Middle East.

What irritates me about Aladdin was how much they fused it with what seems to be an Indian culture. Arabian princesses do not wear what Jasmine wears, from my experience, nor do they have pet tigers.

I mean, where was the story located anyway? Oman?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Now, along with what Susan said (Anything pre-70's was sexist and racist compared to today's climate because you'd be shot for NOT being racist/sexist. Star Trek was reviled for having a black woman in a position of power despite Comms Officer being one of the lower ranks)

It is Donald Duck assembling weapons for the Nazis while repeatng Heil Hitler. Care to edit, sir.

Any animator at work during the Second World War did that sort of thing, Superman's "Slap A Jap"?

Aladdin in the original story was a street thief and had to be altered to appeal. He's still Arabic as is Jaffar, but Jaffar is built with angular features so as to appear evil. Even if you don't believe that, Princess Jasmine is Arabic and a main feature of the Princess line.
Along with Pochahontas, and you could say the Native American's suffered a lot more than the Arabs.

(Actually, anyone whose seen Transformers, explain Jazz's death or Mudflap/Skids or how the 3 female transformers were written out...and that's this year)

Beards are evil? Beards have ALWAYS been evil unless they're on fat men. And then they're just deceptive.

The Little Mermaid? Yeah, because I've never heard of a black soul singer. *headdesk*

Disney does what it always did, take the culture from the time and make it "friendly" to the people of the time. If that's racist, then it's because racist attitudes are prevalent.


Taking three main sets of characters that have been in four films.
Winnie The Pooh (No racism), Herbie (No racism), Witch Mountain (No racism)

OP fails. There have been racist films, but only due to our "updated" standards.

 

[GrandAm]

Go rent "The Song of the South." It is half live action and half cartoon. One of the main characters is African-American. It was produced in the 50s or 60s. His character does exhibit some stereotypes though, on the other hand he acts as the narrator and is always represented as wise beyond the stereotype. I think his name is uncle Ramess (SP). The movie is the theme design of Splah Mountain Disneyland. His image or character is never depicted on the ride. Only the cartoon characters.

 

[Scrittore]

There was this one part in Aladdin, I think it was in the beginning, where the lyrics just explain Arabian life. I think there was this one part that mentioned how barbaric the law system is in the Middle East.

What irritates me about Aladdin was how much they fused it with what seems to be an Indian culture. Arabian princesses do not wear what Jasmine wears, from my experience, nor do they have pet tigers.

I mean, where was the story located anyway? Oman?

The Aladdin stories are pre-Islamic, but they're also pre-Ottoman. The culture of the Arabian was very different before these events and was heavily influenced by northern Indian civilisation.

 

[Pegghead]

I've seen disney movies with black people in them, heck! In the computer wore tennis shoes (Kurt Russells big break) there was a black teenager in a positive role on the lead school team in a big academic competition. Also quite a while ago I kept seeing these movies on TV which I assumed were all in a series from Disney. It was the story of a Black man who was really nice, worked really hard, stuck to his dreams and in the big finale became president of the united states. They made a book of it too called the audacity of hope. Wait, Barack Obamas real! He really did become president! Sorry but the story seemed so cliche about the young guy from the minority becoming something great. (Go Obama!)

 

[Bat Vader]

All? I don't remember Snow White and the Seven Dwarves being racist. And if the pricess' name is the racist joke; you're a real jerk.
And neither was Sleeping Beauty.
Nor Bambi.
Niether was Black Cauldron (look it up!)

And Disney is not Anti-Semite, because Judaism is the only mentioned religion ever on the Disney Programs. Example; Gordo from Lizzy McQuire.

You do realize by the time Lizzie McQuire came on that Walt had been dead for a long time right?

 

[Casual Shinji]

I LOVE the old Disney movies, LOVE 'EM.

I just saw Pinnochio again a few weeks ago, f*king crazy movie that was. Kids smoking sigars and turning into donkeys. And that Monstro the whale still scares the sh*t outta me.

I wish they were still making the traditional animation. I saw all their movies when I was a kid and I never felt disturbt by whatever racial stereotypes they had. And just because someone's a little bit racist doesn't mean they can't make one hell of a great movie. Just look at Mel Gibson.

 

[Ironic]

Oh, there are plenty of Disney characters that we would simply be aghast by today, but that is less a product of Disney himself and more a product of the time in which those particular characters were created. Keep in mind, average joe folks - not Klansmen or nutjobs, but regular citizens - in the US used to be 100% convinced that blacks were born with tails. This is also a society that used to require blacks to eat at separate counters and drink from separate water fountains. So portraying them as buffoons in movies? Well, gosh, what's the big deal?

Now, obviously, we can see what the big deal is, but at the time? Not so much.

With this, I agree completely. Yes, by modern standards, the jive talking crows from Dumbo and Uncle Remus are very racist, but those stereotypes were the accepted norm at that time. The same goes for Walt Disney's anti-semitism. During his day, it was accepted. Not AS common as the others, but still a product of the society.

To consider the later Disney works(Referencing Aladdin, Mulan, or Hercules) as racist, however, is like saying any WWII game is racist against Germans.

Point of reference, however. If you see a group of crows speaking asthough they're poorly educated and using a lot of jive and you call racism, are they racist for showing it, or are you racist for labeling it as refering to a certain group of people?

Maybe crows are just poorly educated....

Exactly this. You deserve an internet cookie. Is it racist to notice racism in the first place? Racism would go away if everyone stopped talking about it so much. Sure, it's a few decades away, but we'll get there.

 

[Artemis923]

I saw the Poll on disney and thought my comment should be a thread. Well I noticed as a kid there were never any black people in disney cartoons. I just thought it was funny ,and if this offends I don't see why.

Any man who says Sword in the Stone is a rascist movie can bugger themselves with a hot poker.

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoWbevEU8sI

It is Donald Duck assembling weapons for the Nazis while repeatng Heil Hitler. Care to edit, sir.

Except that the whole point of the film was to show how horrid it would've been to be in nazi Germany, and the whole film was commisioned by the U.S. government to be shown to the troops as a morale-booster. Maybe if you had waited until the end...

And yes, Walt Disney (the man) was a notourious anti-Semite, and a lot of the characters in his early films are blatant racial stereotypes. Jim Crow anyone?