The Princess And The Frog: Racism In Disney Movies

Racism in Disney Movies
The arrival of the movie, The Princess and the Frog, Disney’s newest animated movie, had many people’s interest because it presented Disney’s first African American princess, Tiana. Although Disney has finally decided to bring a new, racially different princess into their Disney princesses’ collection, they have also received negative comments such as being “accused of racial insensitivity” (London Times). Critics have opposed the movie because for several reasons including that fact that Tiana spent most of the movie as a frog and that the prince looked white in the movie and not of any ethnically colored background. This movie, among many others, has received negative comments accusing Disney movies to be racist.
In The Lion King, there are three hyenas named Shenzi, Bansai, and Ed which clearly speak in a dialect connected to the streets of African American cities. Whoppi Goldberg and Cheech Marin, a Black actress and a Hispanic actor, respectively, are two of the voices behind the hyenas. This shows racism because even though the entire film is set in the African safari, the main characters are the voices of two American actors, while the villains are of African American and Hispanic descents. Furthermore, the hyenas are also the represented as the villains in the film, always causing trouble and trying to help the main antagonist, Scar, in fulfilling his evil plans. The subliminal racist message within the plot allows the audience to infer that white people are considered the “good guys” while other races are faulty and therefore deemed bad. Dumbo, another Disney movie, has also been reviewed as a racist movie against African Americans. In the movie, Dumbo encounters a group of crows, one in which is named Jim Crow, all of them displaying the stereotypic black culture. The jive-talking crows are poor, smoking cigars, and unintelligent. One of the famous quotes is from Jim Crow saying, “I’d be done see’n about everything, when I see an elephant fly!” They also refer to each other as “brothas”. These quotes from the movie show how they are uneducated, using incorrect English as well as the stereotypical
It shows how the movie depicts them as those that can’t do anything but physical labor for work and they are satisfied in their work
Through the movies, it can also be inferred that minorities such as Asian, Hispanic, and African Americans are considered evil while the most dominate race, Caucasian, is considered as good. Even in Aladdin, where everyone is Arabic, Aladdin still possessed more “white” features than that of the villain, Jafar. Aladdin and Jafar both possess Arabian features such as their large eyes but the difference between the two is that Jafar has a more authentic accent than Aladdin’s; the voice of the American actor, Scott