Disney: Another Outlet For Racism

Most of us at some point have seen a Disney movie. They are the classic movies that most children watch. I personally have seen just about all of them. When I was a child, the idea or racial stereotyping never occurred to me. Now that I am more educated, I see the subtle amounts of racial discrimination that were added throughout the movies.

I am not the only one who identifies the hints that Disney stuck into its movies. In an article published by Entertainment Weekly, they note 14 specific instances of racism in classic children movies.  In a Startribune article, author Steve Persall mentions 8 specific instances where discrimination occurs in Disney movies. Both of these articles mention “Fantasia”, “Dumbo”, and “Lady and the Tramp.”

Lets examine these racist acts then shall we?
“Fantasia”- Originally released in 1940, a centaur named Sunflower who was dark skinned half-human and half-donkey appeared in the original release. Sunflower had one role and that was to be the servant of the bigger paler skinned centaurs that were half-human and half-horse. What happened to Sunflower after 1969? Disney removed the scene entirely and just left the paler skin centaurs in the movie.

“Dumbo”-Just about an elephant learning to fly? There is 2 main examples in this film that I should address. One is the lazy, black crow who speaks with broken English, in the stereotypical black southern way. If that isn’t bad enough, the leader of the crows name is Jim Crow. (Don’t know what Jim Crow is? Google it). The second racist feature presented in Dumbo is when the black faceless circus characters when working were singing the “Song of the Roustabouts.” Some of the lyrics include “We slave until we’re almost dead” and “Pull that rope, you hairy ape.” Just a coincidence that they made black workers slave while comparing them to apes? Not likely.

“Lady and the Tramp”- This movie goes to show you that it is not just black stereotypes that Disney played to. The Siamese cats in “Lady and the Tramp” Si and Am are drawn with slanted eyes and introduced by the sound of a gong. They play the role of slinky thieves meant to portray Asian stereotypes from the WWII era.

Those are just a few examples they are many others throughout Disney’s history. As much as I loved these movies as a child, I have to think about with the amount of discrimination they contain if I’m willing to show them to my kids someday.

The Oscars: Whose Hollywood is it again?

When Hollywood’s best and brightest convene this weekend for the 87th Academy Awards, it will be with the usual fanfare. The winning smiles, the fashion faux pas, the teary-eyed speeches – that is just the melodrama of the red carpet for you. What will not be so typical this Oscar night is who will ascend the stage for that coveted statuette.

For the first time since 2011 and the second since 1998, every acting nominee is Caucasian – most notably without David Oyelowo among their ranks, whose acclaimed performance as the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. turned heads. Such a homogenized image of “the world’s preeminent movie-related organization” is hard to ignore in a show that saw the African-American led Twelve Years a Slave walk away with Best Picture only two Oscars ago.

For a long time now, Hollywood’s struggled to catch up with the very demographics it has sought to convert in recent years. Of the 3,932 speaking characters depicted in America’s biggest box office hits between 2007 and 2013, 74 percent were Caucasian. Latinos, by contrast, made up less than 5 percent despite comprising 16.3 percent of the US population and buying nearly a quarter of US movie tickets on average. Likewise, nearly 17 percent of the films studied had no speaking African-American characters, despite African-Americans making up over 12 percent of US citizens.

That the Oscars have been a rather disingenuous place for a while is nothing new to the award show’s increasing criticisms by the moviegoing mainstream. It’s not hard to imagine why if you see through the tinted looking glass, according to the LA Times. Among academy voters, 94 percent are Caucasian and 77 percent of them are male, with every other minority checking in at or less than 2 percent. That its demographics could be coincidence is unbelievable given the results in question. With competition from the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs, the Oscars has every reason to maintain its lofty pedestal, but clearly at the cost of biting the hands that feed it.

Racial representation is hardly the Oscars’ problem alone. People want to see stories about their own experiences – that is natural. Hollywood wants to tell stories about Caucasian men. Its audience is clearly ready for something different and it has been for a long time. If the customer has always right for Hollywood, than they can afford to see the Oscars as the broken byproduct it is.

AMERICAN SNIPER: Why it doesn’t matter if Chris Kyle was racist

Oscar-Nominated film American Sniper came to theaters on January 16^th, and since its release has not escaped a moment of controversy in the global media. The Clint Eastwood film follows the life of Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in U.S. history, on his four tours to Iraq. However, the film has faced controversy for the manner in which the Iraqis were portrayed in the film and has eventually simmered down to the debate over whether Chris Kyle himself was a racist.

A New York Post article discusses the main disagreement of the controversy; an NBC reporter allegedly described Kyle as having “racist tendencies towards Iraqis and Muslims when he was going on some of these…killing sprees in Iraq.” This led to an outrage by members of the military who were enraged that someone who nobly fought for his country could be questioned in character.

The truth of the matter is that Chris Kyle’s beliefs are irrelevant. The debate of his character is futile—it is impossible to know the inner thoughts and subtleties of this man. Conversely, this debate has acted as a scapegoat for a bigger question behind American Sniper: is this film inherently racist?

Throughout the film, the Iraqis are portrayed as brutal, dishonest people who will go to any means to eradicate the American soldiers. Some of the more poignant representations of this include an Iraqi terrorist drilling the head of a man as well as an Iraqi mother sending her young son on a suicide mission.

What American Sniper fails to achieve is a range of people and their beliefs. Where are the moderates? The film portrays the war between the two countries as a black and white matter; both sides believe that they are right without question or consideration of the other point of view. In an interview with an Iraqi interpreter for Chris Kyle during his tours, the interpreter described times that Kyle would laugh and joke with the Iraqi soldiers who helped them fight the extremist groups; yet, this aspect remained untouched in the film.

American Sniper does not fairly represent the real world, though it claims to be a biographical war film. This is not because of the “racist tendencies” of the man it was based on nor the extreme representations of the Iraqis in the film; this is because of the omission of all other groups in between which would have provided an increasingly well-rounded and complete snapshot of the entire story.