Walt Disney Portrayal Of Culture And Race

Disney’s Portrayal of Culture and Race The Disney vision of fairy-tale love stories, benevolent nature, and classic American virtues such as hard work have remained unchanged since Walt Disney first created Mickey
Mouse. In Disney films, stock characters and predictable plots have led to criticism that Disney films contain racist elements. Disney therefore faces a dilemma; how can the company maintain traditional American values while realizing the changing times of today's society? Three movies come to mind when examining Disney's portrayal of culture and race: Aladdin, The Lion King, and Pocahontas. Aladdin shows negative stereotypical imagery and lyrics in the movie. In The
Lion King, jive talking hyenas were characters
In addition to these featured films, much can be said about Disney’s upcoming projects such as “The Frog Princess,” where, for the first time, Disney will depict a black princess. One of the verses of the opening song of Aladdin titled "Arabian Nights," was altered

following protests from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (7). The lyrics were

changed in July 1993 from "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric,

but, hey, it's home," in the original release to "Where it's flat and immense and the heat is

intense/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home." Entertainment Weekly ranked Aladdin on a list of the

most controversial films in history, due to this incident. Other stereotypical portrayals of Arabs

in the film include Aladdin riding on a magic carpet and the fact the narrator of the story was

depicted as “an unsightly, filthy Arab” (7). Surprisingly, however, Aladdin’s theme song, “A

Whole New World,” was performed by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle, two African-American

recording artists, and the music video for the song was played heavily on Black Entertainment
Television (BET) in 1993. In addition, Disney did not launch any campaigns for
. . Hopefully, as we continue to use ethnic casts and get advisers in the process, Disney will become more successful at it" (5). Disney is culturally biased in the sense that their products reflect the ideologies of, and

are aimed at, the white middle class. Michael Rooney, a former worker of Disney’s publishing

company “Discover,” said, “We target magazines for families and children. Median age 35, with

kids, a certain income range; basically baby-boomers and kids of baby-boomers” (8). I

personally viewed 13 Disney commercials from 1971 to 2007. The first commercial that showed

any person of color was in 1987, and even then they were employees and not guests enjoying the

theme park. The first commercial to have a person of color as one of the leading characters was

in 1993, where an African-American father and son were shown for about a second. The first

commercial to have a person of color to be engaged in the entire commercial was in 2002.