For lots of girls, Disney is a major part of childhood. Halloween in elementary school is a parade of miniature Cinderellas, Snow Whites, and Belles. Personally, I’m pretty sure that I went to at least six Disney princess birthday parties between the ages of 4 and 8. Because I had so much love for Disney as a child, I decided to attend a viewing of the movie “Mickey Mouse Monopoly,” hosted by my dorm’s Gender Relations Council Commissioner. (Side note: GRC commissioners are basically in beta testing right now—there are only 6 out of 29 dorms that have them on a trial run at the moment.)
“Mickey Mouse Monopoly” is a documentary that was made in 2001 which is described as “looking at Disney without rose-colored glasses.” The entire documentary covers many aspects of the Disney Corporation; however, for this event we focused on the part of the film that discussed gender, race, and class roles in the classic Disney films. I have nothing but fond memories of Disney movies, but it’s been years since I’ve seen one. I’ve never looked at Disney through an adult’s eyes (I just called myself an adult…that’s terrifying), and finally doing so was eye opening to say the least. Here are issues raised about some movies:
The Lion King (1994)
The documentary raised the point that all of the “bad” characters in this movie—namely the evil hyenas (remember those guys?)—speak in stereotypical African American dialects. A woman interviewed in the film told a story about how her friend’s child was in a store and kept telling his mom that the hyenas were there. When the woman turned around, she saw a group of black women. She tried to tell her son that these people were not the hyenas from Lion King, but he didn’t believe her.
I’m still scared of them.
Aladdin (1992)
I always fast-forwarded (lolz VHS tapes) through the intro of this movie, so I never saw the scene that was the documentary’s main contention in Aladdin. I’m glad I did though, because the movie opens with a pretty disturbing song. As everyone knows, Aladdin takes place in an ambiguous Middle Eastern location. To convey this, the first scene of the movie features a man riding a camel through the desert while singing “Oh, I come from a land, from a faraway place/ Where the caravan camels roam/Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face/It’s barbaric, but hey it’s home.” Um…what? Naturally, this caused an uproar, and after a lawsuit the lyrics were changed, although the part about the place being barbaric remained.
Peter Pan (1952)
Plimouth Plantation, an accurate replica of the original Plymouth colony in Massachusetts, is home to many Wampanoag Indians who help educate visitors about their culture at the time of the Pilgrims. In the documentary, a descendant of these native peoples spoke about how when children encounter Native Americans at the plantation, they often run around imitating the Indians in Peter Pan, and how offensive and upsetting it is to the people who are trying to inform them about their culture.
This documentary raises many questions. First, why does Disney do this in the first place? What benefit do these stereotypical characters add to the movies? Second, who is responsible for what a child internalizes? Elementary school aged children, Disney’s target audience, are often described as “sponges.” They soak up everything in front of them, and are very easily molded. Will the child who told his mother he heard hyenas grow up to have a negative perception of African Americans because of The Lion King, even if he doesn’t realize it? Is it Disney’s responsibility to keep these kinds of stereotypes out of their movies which are predominately shown to impressionable kids? Or is it the parents’ responsibility to keep their kids from seeing things that might affect them negatively? In addition, I think it is important to consider the context in which these movies were made. I was shocked when I saw that in 1992, executives thought that a song about a whole region being barbaric was okay. I was less surprised that in 1952 Disney was perpetuating stereotypes of Native Americans (an era when the real world wasn’t super nice to many groups, including women). Since this documentary was made, Disney has taken steps to increase appropriate diversity in their films, including the release of “The Princess and the Frog,” which has an African American princess.
Overall, the documentary was very intriguing. I’d always seen the feminist argument with Disney movies, but I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t thought much about race and class in these classic movies before now. Not all dorms have GRC commissioners and events, but if yours does, I’d definitely advise attending some of the events—they’re off to an illuminating start.