SaneAmongInsane said:
So.... I just got done watching Lindsay "Nostalgia Chick" Ellis' video on Disney through a Queer lens. If you haven't watch it, go do it. I'll wait.
...
So a lot of talk there how Disney villains are coded gay and ectera ectera, now I have a question and it follows a personal experience of mine. Back when GTAIV came out, I came to the two missions in the game that certain around selling and then later revenge on buyers of the jewels. Now I play the game and I'm shocked to see the buyers are, presumably, orthodox Jews based solely on their style of dress. I sat there, watching the scene expecting some grand stereotype to be displayed that weren't. Even when allegedly backstabbed by them not a single character utters a racial slur to my knowledge. I recall I walked away from that part of the game thinking how progressive that was, to be able to slip them into that role and not make even reference to their racial denomination. Perhaps I'm wrong and it was anti-Semitic but I didn't read it that way, and if I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.
So suppose we had a straight up Disney film, with an openly gay villain character who's sexuality bared nothing on the plot. Is that by it's very nature, a negative because he is the villain or should it be considered a positive due to his antagonistic role being unrelated to his sexuality? Is it morally okay to have villains with different sexual orientation, or race, or religion?
Well "minority" is a subjective term. Globally speaking whites represent perhaps the smallest global minority there is. Roughly 1/3rd of the population is Chinese, another 1/3rd are Indian, with India set to become the dominant ethnicity numberically in a few years, taking the throne from the Chinese. Africa is massively overpopulated with blacks outnumbering whites by like 10 to 1, and with their spread across south and central america Latinos/Hispanics have huge numbers as well, and are believed to be increasingly outnumber blacks, and with the amount of living space down there along with continued development might be set to outnumber the Indians (and Chinese) in as little time as a century.
The US, especially the liberal left, tends to not view things globally or understand how these realities effect perceptions or geo-politics, or even how society functions. In the US whites have a majority, even if we're going to lose it to the hispanics shortly, thus there seems to be a tendency to try and view it as some kind of global super-majority and have this perception of demographics be projected globally.
This gets ironic when it goes so far as people complaining about how omni-present Chinese, Hispanics, etc... are as bad guys in movies and the like, when the simple reality is they run the biggest chunk of global business and crime right now in an absolute sense. Globally things like Chinese Triads have a lot more power and their fingers in more businesses than groups like The Mafia have had in a very long time, and with all of the hispanic cartels and such running drugs and human trafficing right to the south, again, when it comes to large scale crime, that's oftentimes who your going to find involved. Things change with the times.
For the most part Disney in paticular hasn't done a lot of ethnicity-mixing with their villains. When it happens it's typically indicative of the story they are telling and/or the time period from where it's from. In general though if they are doing a Middle Eastern story, they have a Middle Eastern villain, etc... In some cases where Disney has been accused of racism, it's merely a matter of the passage of time, "Oliver and Company" gets a lot of flak because it for example had Cheech (of Cheech and Chong) doing a kiddified version of the schtick that made him famous if I remember. That was simply "cool" at the time, nowadays people that really didn't get it and probably have never heard any of those albums, look back at that movie in paticular and start talking about ethnic stereotypes and so on.... which is especially F@cked up when you look at the overall context and when it was made.
When it comes to sexual orientation, I'm not going to argue it in detail (I just let another discussion on the subject slide to avoid derailing the thread and starting a pointless ongoing arguement which would resolve nothing), but understand that the issue tends to be sidestepped a lot because the subject is pretty much divided 50-50 on terms of banning or accepting it, with the "accept" side winning but only in political terms without the actual popular support matching it, in countries like the US. Globally speaking your talking like 90% of more "against" once you get outside of the progressive first world. No matter what side your on (or if your in the middle like me) it should be pretty obvious to see why so few people are willing to go there unless they are looking for a fight, especially if they are looking for a global release of a product. Disney isn't likely to do a whole lot with homosexuality because it tends to think in a truely global sense, as opposed to simply releasing to a first world market, it knows it's stuff will wind up in the second or third world and wind up becoming part of childhoods there too (and encourages it to some extent) so it's going to try and avoid doing much that is going to jeopardize it's position. Unless you see some kind of massive acceptance on a global scale, outside of just the first world, your not likely to see Disney do much except a bit of media posturing and a few statements/limited release things here and there.
When it comes to sexual oritentation and a predisposition towards good or evil, typically when it comes up, it tends to be associated with decadence, and usually in a bad way. At the best someone uncaringly seeking pleasure and self-gratification. More often than not it comes up in the context of people doing period pieces about Rome before the fall, or the antics of guys like Caligula. That said there ARE exceptions, two recent ones were Willow (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) who was a lesbian, and Jack Harkness (Doctor Who) who even got a spin off series called "Torchwood". Granted both were also arguably fairly niche productions, popular with "fandom" but hardly what you'd consider ultra-mainstream Disney-type fare.
I'm not going to get into any big arguements, but this might include the answers your looking for.
If your pining for Disney to say do a Lesbian fairy tale, and then include the pair of girls together in their princess-product lines or whatever, or say have Malificent start lusting after Sleeping Beauty or whatever (or Prince Valiant ride off into the sunset with Prince Charming's hand on his thigh) that kind of thing might make for an amusing MAD Magazine sketch (and I believe they did indeed go there at one point) but isn't likely to become a reality for a good while yet, if ever.
