While doing research for our presentation/paper, I came across a great article relating Disney and racism and sexism. Since we've talked about the link so often in class, I thought I would blog about it.
The citation (from Proquest is): Seeing White: Children of Color and the Disney Fairy Tale Princess Dorothy L Hurley. The Journal of Negro Education. Washington: Summer 2005. Vol. 74, Iss. 3; pg. 221, 12 pgs.
The article examines six Disney movies: Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, and Aladdin. They examine these films because movies and other visual images teach children cultural lessons about themselves and others; in order to have a positive self-image from these, children need to be able to see themselves. There are not a lot of minorities in Disney movies, especially not any African American, or other darker skinned characters. Aladdin does take place in an Arab culture, but, the article argues, that they are still represented in a 'euro-american' way. Also, the movies does not show the Arab culture in the best light (i.e. the trouble in the market place and threatening to kill Jasmine for giving an apple to a child).
In all of the movies analyzed it was found that white was overwhelmingly used to symbolize good and beauty while black was used to signify evil and danger. There are so many specific examples from each movie, it would be hard to go into them all. An overriding example to all of the movies is how the good characters have something white associated with them (white birds, white outfit, skin as white as snow, white horses, white coach, etc). while the 'evil' characters have black associated (clothes, darker skin in comparison with the heroine, black birds/crows/eels, etc). They also argue that Ursula is depicted as black because of speech and movements (I have not seen this movie in years, so I don't really remember).
When I was reading this article, I was reminded of our discussion of oppression and privelege and the "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies" article. In the article, she has a long list of components of white privelege. After reading the Disney article, I would add "having positive role models in children's films that look like you." to her list. When I was growing up, and even now, Belle was always my favorite Disney character, one because she had brown hair like me, and two because she loved to read like I did (although when they show what Belle is reading, it was a romance story and very whimsical, but that's another story). The point is I liked Belle because I saw myself in her. If I was a child of color, who would I see myself in? I think that is one more invisible part of privelege and oppression. When children of color do not see themselves as princesses, they internalize that. In the Disney article I read, they refer to an experiment where they asked minority children to draw a princess, and they overwhelmingly drew a white girl with blonde hair. A quote from one of the children: "I drew her yellow [haired]...because...she was good, so I wanted to make her pretty." This is getting into internalized oppression.
Overall, this was a great article, and I encourage anybody reading this blog to look this article up.
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