Racial Issues in Disney's Dumbo
Racial Issues of Walt Disney’s Dumbo:
An Analysis of Music’s Influence on Racial Thinking in Disney Film
The Classic Animated American Film, Dumbo, preceded Walt Disney’s first Animated Feature Length films: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Pinocchio. Dumbo also arrived right before the American Animated classic Bambi. These films were undoubtedly made during a time of extreme racial oppression in the United States (the country where Walt Disney films were originally set to be consumed). It would come to no surprise that these films, though filmed primarily for children entertainment, would not only exhibit problematic racial stereotyping, but also would perpetuate systematic and institutional racism in the new age of the moving pictures.
As a film consumer of the 2010s, Dumbo is a historically provocative and racial revealing experience. In short, the film allows viewers to see into the racist past of the United States. Even as young children, film consumers of today were taught what “racism” was, in at least in the most simplistic ways. Dumbo allows for an adult film consumer of this era to reminisce on not only America’s segregated past but also on his or her own reflected childhood, because what child has not seen Dumbo?
Through language alone, Dumbo allows viewers to experience a piece of the past. The character Timothy Q. Mouse, who performs a role similar to Pinocchio’s conscience Jiminy Cricket, speaks on behalf of the viewers of the films. He encourages Dumbo and holds faith in Dumbo when all hope seems lost (a canon that would continue throughout character writing in Walt Disney’s productions). This relationship between the viewer and this ‘conscience-like’ character becomes obvious in the film because soon into the screenplay, it is realized that the only person who feels for Dumbo the way the viewer does is Timothy Q. Mouse. With that idea in mind, viewers will not only sympathize with Dumbo but also suture in on the
An Analysis of Music’s Influence on Racial Thinking in Disney Film
The Classic Animated American Film, Dumbo, preceded Walt Disney’s first Animated Feature Length films: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Pinocchio. Dumbo also arrived right before the American Animated classic Bambi. These films were undoubtedly made during a time of extreme racial oppression in the United States (the country where Walt Disney films were originally set to be consumed). It would come to no surprise that these films, though filmed primarily for children entertainment, would not only exhibit problematic racial stereotyping, but also would perpetuate systematic and institutional racism in the new age of the moving pictures.
As a film consumer of the 2010s, Dumbo is a historically provocative and racial revealing experience. In short, the film allows viewers to see into the racist past of the United States. Even as young children, film consumers of today were taught what “racism” was, in at least in the most simplistic ways. Dumbo allows for an adult film consumer of this era to reminisce on not only America’s segregated past but also on his or her own reflected childhood, because what child has not seen Dumbo?
Through language alone, Dumbo allows viewers to experience a piece of the past. The character Timothy Q. Mouse, who performs a role similar to Pinocchio’s conscience Jiminy Cricket, speaks on behalf of the viewers of the films. He encourages Dumbo and holds faith in Dumbo when all hope seems lost (a canon that would continue throughout character writing in Walt Disney’s productions). This relationship between the viewer and this ‘conscience-like’ character becomes obvious in the film because soon into the screenplay, it is realized that the only person who feels for Dumbo the way the viewer does is Timothy Q. Mouse. With that idea in mind, viewers will not only sympathize with Dumbo but also suture in on the