It's hard to know if Cracked's Ben Joseph is genuinely outraged at the racial stereotypes found in old Disney movies, or if he's being provocative with his story, "The Nine Most Racist Disney Characters" (a little bit from Column A, a little bit from Column B).
Joseph slams various Disney flicks, from Fantasia to Aladdin, for racial insensitivity. Like those moral hawks who rage on William Shakespeare's lack of political correctness, Joseph applies 21st Century morality to movies, shorts and books made, in some cases, nearly 70 years ago.
Note: the accompanying YouTube sequences were removed, likely because of a "request" from Disney's legal beagles.
Does Joseph have a point? In several cases, yes. However, in his haste to be holier than thou, he plays fast and loose with the facts. Here's what Ben Joseph forgot to tell you.
9) The Merchant in Aladdin (1992)
In addition to voicing the Genie, Robin Williams also sang the opening song, written by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. However, the lyric "where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face" made Arab American advocacy groups explode.
In response to protests, Disney changed the line to "Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense" for the Aladdin DVD. However, many still point to this sequence as a sign of Islamophobia on the part of Disney (and, by extension, the USA). Unfortunately, Arab justice does have an unfortunate reputation.
Joseph also juxtaposes the more Western-looking Aladdin, sporting his American accent, against "the more, um, ethnic looking villain, Jafar." However, even a cursory look at (a) the characters in Aladdin and (b) the facial features of your average Saudi Arabian show that Arabians that look like Disney's Aladdin are more common than Joseph would have us believe.
That said, Disney's habit of getting main characters to speak So-Cal while the villains and colour characters speak in a more territorial accent is irritating, but that's standard procedure in Hollywood.
Consider Pixar's Ratatouille, where the ostensibly French Remy and Linguini spoke with American accents, and everyone else used European patois. Movie executives think that giving heroes American accents will make them more appealing to domestic audiences. Ethnocentric? Yes. An accurate reflection of what Americans want to see in their protagonists? Yarp.
8) Sebastian from The Little Mermaid (1989)
Joseph called the Jamaican-accented crab "a stumble backwards for civil rights." He claims that Sebastian tries to convince Ariel to stay "under the sea" because she doesn't have to get a job, unlike those poor unfortunates on land. According to Joseph, this implies that all Jamaicans are lazy.
Unfortunately for Joseph's thesis, Sebastian in the rest of the movie is a hard-working, rules-following type who vainly tries to moderate Ariel's excesses. Oops.
7) The Crows from Dumbo (1941)
In hammering a 66-year-old film, Ben Joseph ignores the prevailing attitudes of the time. Yes, the crows in Dumbo are obviously black, lazy and uneducated. "You could pretty much pause this video at any second and use it as evidence in your hate-crime lawsuit against Disney," he says.
Joseph later damns it with faint praise, telling us that "For its time, though, the portrayal of the crows was almost progressive. (They) . . . help Dumbo learn to fly, so they're counted among the heroes of the film." So, according to Joseph, Disney has gone from being racially insensitive to being progressive "for its time."
However, things get truly silly when Joseph criticizes Disney for the crows' incessant smoking, forgetting that cigarettes were portrayed as being glamorous up until the mid-1970's. Witness Humphrey Bogart, who lit up entire tobacco plantations for himself, and his leading ladies, in flicks like Casablanca and The Big Sleep. It's that little bit of context that Joseph doesn't seem to catch.
But, in his haste to strike a blow for race relations, Joseph missed an even more offensive stereotype in Dumbo: Disney's portrayal of unionists as clowns who go "hit up the Big Boss for more money." At the time, the studio was experiencing a crippling animator's strike, not helped by Walt's bitter attitude towards those who wanted a more equitable pay scheme.
6) King Louie from The Jungle Book (1967)
"Having outgrown the crude portrayal of African-Americans as black crows, in 1967 Disney decides to portray them as monkeys," Joseph writes. "All animals in the jungle speak in proper British accents. Except, of course, for the jive-talking, gibberish-spouting monkeys." And protagonists Mowgli and Baloo, who speak with American accents.
Joseph really hammers those monkeys, especially the orangutan King Louie, as yet another racist stereotype. However, King Louie was really a tribute to, and voiced by, swing cat Louis Prima. Prima, best known for penning and performing tunes like "Jump, Jive and Wail" and "Just a Gigolo," was from New Orleans and came by his jive-talking honestly.
And no, Ben, you can't call Prima "the whitest White man to ever rest his head in the Big Easy." That honour apparently goes to Randy Newman.
Joseph concedes that his characterization of King Louie as racist might be a stretch, but justifies it by saying The Jungle Book's author, Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936), also came up with the phrase "the white man's burden." Uh-huh.
5) The Siamese Twin Gang from Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers (1989)
"Even as criminals, Asian-Americans immigrants, represented here by a gang of cats, . . . own a laundromat, run an illegal, basement gambling operation and speak in horribly mangled "Engrish," Joseph writes. "It's like a designer of World War II propaganda posters accidentally quantum leaped into the body of a late '80s cartoon writer."
I haven't seen this series, so I can't reply to his assertions piecemeal the way I have with the others. I'm also not that big a fan of the Eisner era animation in any case, since I feel it lacked the heart that Walt Disney brought to each and every one of his movies.
(To check out Part #2 of this story, click here)
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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