disneyforprincesses:
Okay, so I’m responding to this garbage like I promised I would, but I’m doing it in an individual post so whoever the OP is doesn’t get all the drama in their notes, and also to keep that super long post from being all over your dash. I’ll tag anuvia so they can see/respond if they wish to. Otherwise it’s kind of like talking shit behind someone’s back hahah
just gonna take it piece by piece for my own sanity.
anuvia:
First of all, I’m not even going to acknowledge the “white voice actor” bullshit, because I don’t see why the ethnicity of the VA matters in comparison to the characters on screen?
It matters on a level outside of a child’s perception. It’s the same thing as Johnny Depp playing Tonto. White people should not be playing POC, even if it’s only voice acting. I guarantee you there are people of every possible ethnicity/race/heritage who are in that line of work. It’s not impossible to cast actors who are of the same race as the characters. And not only on a theoretical level is it wrong, it also takes away opportunities from POC who are often at the bottom of the barrel as it is because Hollywood likes to whitewash everything. It bleeds over into other ventures too. For example: Aladdin is coming to Broadway. But not a SINGLE actor—down to the chorus— is middle eastern.
I’m also not going to argue about “being an animal” because 24 of Disney’s 53 animated movies feature all or mostly animal casts and the connection you are trying to make is irrelevant, especially when White characters in Disney movies have transformed into animals as well. That’s just reaching.
There’s a huge fucking difference between having a movie with a cast of animals and having a movie where the main character (emphasis on main) is turned into an animal for the majority of the film while Disney still pats itself on the back for being inclusive. It’s not inclusive when the only black princess in disney canon only spends 19 minutes of her film as a human. Emperor’s New Groove is more of an ensemble cast so the impact is not as great as it is for Brother Bear and Princess and the Frog, but Kuzco is still the titular character and he spends nearly the entire movie as an animal. And whereas there are a couple of examples of white supporting characters turning into animals, there has only been one main character who turned into an animal (that I can remember but as always correct me if I’m wrong): Pinocchio. And he spends all of five minutes as a donkey.
Also, you need to take into account that since there are so few leading POC protagonists (Kida and Esmeralda are not protagonists. They are love interests to the protagonists) that even just three turning into animals erases a huge chunk of that visibility. It’s called Invisible Diversity and it’s when you try and say you had a black princess without forcing people to look at the black princess.
FURTHER, the turning-into-an-animal thing is something Disney added in all three cases. Brother Bear is an original story. There is no “sticking to the text” defense here. The Emperor’s New Groove is based on the Emperor’s New Clothes, and you’ll notice there’s no species switching in that story. And with the Princess and the Frog, rather than adapt the actual story (the Frog Prince), Disney instead chose a modern adaptation to then go ahead and adopt. Why? Who knows. But I find it suspicious that for their first black princess, instead of taking an original story in which the heroine is already a princess and who doesn’t change into anything herself, they chose to base their film off the one that keeps her dark skin and decidedly non-anglo features off the screen.
In addition, I will state that some movies do alter the historical accuracies in ways to both make the film appealing to a broader audience but also children. But the claim for this in just movies with POC is outright hilarious as it’s done in many movies featuring white cultures as well. It’s hard to hold that criticism so highly when Disney is crafting “family entertainment” and not historical documentaries.
Except Disney doesn’t take the lives of actual people and use them as the basis for their stories. Pocahontas existed. Mulan existed. And rather than look within those cultures and find a myth that would be easily adaptable (something I guarantee you would have been easy as pie) they decided to take two actual people. And when you do that, when you take the lives of people who really lived, people who have such an intense meaning to their respective cultures—yeah, you have a responsibility to get it right. Do it right or don’t do it at all. There’s a difference between saying “you know, Snow White’s dress might not be historically accurate to the time period in which the movie is influenced” and “there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that grown man John Smith actually raped pre-teen Pocahontas but hey why not age her up so we can turn their story into one of romance”
Brother Bear:This movie is a lose representation of the native people of the Pacific Northwest. It did not bastardize the concept of a spirit/power animal but rather uses it as a device to teach the male main character about a concept that is a predominately female attribute and smashes the gender stereotype around the concept of love. The movie focuses on the PNW Natives culture, the power of love between family and the ability to overcome mistakes and do the correct thing. This movie is actually VERY underrated and deserves much more praise than it gets.
First thing first. I, me, myself, the person talking to you, am a member of an indigenous tribe from the Pacific North West. And I am telling you that the idea of “spirit animals” is not something that came from this area. Spirit animals are Algonquian in origin. And they have a much deeper significance to those people than what was shown in the
And I realize that in the film they talk about ~finding your totem~ but that is a complete misrepresentation of what a totem means. Totems were from the Ojibwe, who are also not from the Pacific North West and the European equivalent would be like a coat of arms or a family crest. It donated your clan and was a marker for groups of people rather than individualized. Totem poles, which are from the Pacific North West, do literally nothing but function like mailboxes that have people’s names and addresses painted on them. Literally they were meant to be like “this person/this family lives here”.
So, yeah, it was a bastardization. AS WELL as a homogenization of over 600 culturally, linguistically and ethnically diverse tribes/nations of people from an entire continent.
Also intent does not absolve someone of wrong doings. I love Brother Bear. I agree that it’s underrated as a film. the animation and the music is beautiful. the message is great. But it doesn’t change the fact that the film makers took several elements of many different people’s cultures and blended them together and that’s not right.
The Princes and the Frog
Being a strong and independent woman is not exclusive to black women but is a trait that MOST women hold. The hard working character of Tiana is a WONDERFUL character for children to look up to because unlike other Disney princesses, she is not handed the good life, is grounded in reality and works hard to make her own dreams come true.
This is where I know for sure without a doubt you do not have the insight, the experience or the knowledge to talk about these things with any sort of nuance. There is term called intersectionality, and it refers to how things such as feminism and feministic ideas relate differently to women of different circumstances (such as race, class, sexual orientation, trans women, etc) as well as men of different circumstances.
Historically black women are constantly assigned the role of the strong, independent black woman. White women are constantly assigned the role of damsel in distress. One doesn’t “need help” (which is really just code for an excuse for others not to help her even if she does need help) while as the other cannot function without help (even if she’s perfectly capable of saving herself). And sure, to you the idea of a woman who takes control of her own destiny, who doesn’t need a white in shining armor, who defeats her demons herself and achieves her dreams through hard work after decades of princesses in tall towers, maids in glass slippers and asleep on beds is appealing and seems like a feminist move. A proactive woman in charge of her own destiny IS a great thing—but when you apply that same trope to black women, women who have only ever been told from the day they were born that nobody is going to look out for them and that their lives are going to be defined by how hard they work, it’s hurtful. We’ve had white princesses over the years who have fit every role of self agency and sufficiency, but when we get our first black princess ever, instead of giving her a story in which she is allowed to be taken care of, cherished, have somebody do something *for her*, she gets a story where she is completely defined by how hard she works, she gets no help, and for the first 3/4 of the movie, she’s practically babysitting Naveen. In the song “When We’re Human”, Naveen is playing music and lounging around while Tiana is laboring over steering and paddling them through the bayou. If that isn’t a perfect summation of how black women have been treated through out the history of media, I don’t know what is. Tiana wasn’t allowed to be soft because black women aren’t allowed to be soft. That’s why Tiana’s characterization was, at the very least, disappointing to many people.
She is probably one of my FAVORITE Disney princesses because of her personality. Prince Naveen is a take on the princess sterotype; He prefers to party, he’s a womanizer (Which women of all colors, by the way. Watch the movie, notice his lines in “When we’re human), and his interests depend on income and greed.
And you don’t think there’s something wrong with the first Prince of Color (and I mean prince. Born and raised a prince, not a soldier or an urchin who becomes a prince through marriage) is such a useless asshole at the beginning of the movie? Compare the Prince, Prince Charming, Prince Phillip, and Prince Eric with Naveen. All of them raised with every opportunity, privilege and comfort possible and which turns into the asshole? Naveen. Of course, Beast is also a dickhead at the beginning of his movie but the source material demanded that— I mean, he has to be a Beast after all, and they actually made him nicer in the film than the original story. The Frog Prince is just a prince who ran into a witch. But in the film, he’s totally slimy way before he ever secretes any mucus.
It takes spending time with Tiana, a grounded and down to earth female to save him on several occasions and teach him that there is more to life than living on the wealth of others and the party life style. A movie where a -female character- is needed to set the male on the correct path.
Once again, this doesn’t function the same way between white and black women. Refer to a couple of paragraphs above: Tiana is forced into doing the saving— something that in a traditional narrative sense is seen as masculine and hard, while Naveen is saved by Tiana. Tiana isn’t allowed to be dainty and soft. Nobody’s coming to put her on the back of his horse.
Mulan:
While not entirely an accurate representation of Chinese culture in that time period, it should be noted that this movie -is a piece of children’s media- and some subjects need to be altered for that sake. While I agree on the aspect of some misrepresentation, Mulan delivered a strong character of color, and she was very much my favorite as a child for it. She was a tomboy that didn’t fit into the gender stereotypes held for girls, and as a girl who went through that myself as a child, I loved having that representation on screen. That being said, where the movie lacked in historical accuracy, it made up for representing a person of color strongly, and that is the most important in this instance.
Mulan is a strong character, I agree. But it’s like you didn’t read anything I wrote in my original rebuttal. Disney crammed as many Asian jokes as they could into the film through the minstrel-like character that is Eddie Murphy’s Mushu. Even Mushu’s name is a pun. You also totally disregarded what I said about the character design for the Huns and the Emperor. Just because something is your favorite doesn’t mean it’s above criticism.
The Emerpor’s New Groove
The only complaint you could muster is that the Voice Cast was mostly white with the exception of Eartha Kit. What about the fact that The Emperor’s New Clothes is a European story that could have been told with white people without any change in the plot but instead was chosen to for a South American cast?
True, I only wrote that but I had meant to also denote once again the whole main character turning into an animal thing. It’s also one of Disney’s more sexist stories, at least in its near total exclusion of women. There are two female characters with names: one who is defined by being a homemaker/mother (she’s pregnant the entire film and she literally says things like “I have to go clean something” when she’s stressed), and one who is defined by the others by her age. She’s fired for being old and ugly. She’s taunted constantly (not just from the shallow Kuzco but also the kindhearted Pacha and her own sidekick Kronk) for being old and ugly. And let’s not forget the scene with the potential princesses.
But again the voice actor thing is still huge. David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, while all lovely voice actors, are all not Peruvian, or even Latin@. And that matters on a meta level.
But I will give this film props for being the perfect example of how it is not hard to take a European fairytale and set it somewhere else. You can just do it without erasing half of your leading characters.
But there’s also no referencing to actual Inca or even Peruvian culture. I mean tbh they’re practically white characters with a light light tan.
Pocahontas:
First of all, Raping, Pillaging, ect do not a family movie make. Instead, they followed the story loosely and used different strengths to pull the character together.
IT’S NOT A STORY, IT’S THE LIFE OF A REAL PERSON WHO WAS BRUTALIZED AND DISNEY TURNED HER LIFE INTO A KUMBAYA WANK OF A MOVIE . If Disney had done a film based on the life of Anne Frank, but they had aged her up ten years and had her fall in love with a Nazi and sing songs about how they’re not so different after all, would you be saying the same thing?
First of all, Pocahontas was not a tool of the “super dreamy” white man; In fact, despite loving him she chose to stay with her people where she was needed and -she rescued him-.
You don’t seem capable of understanding that the writing of these films does not happen in a vacuum and that the writers of the film were using Pocahontas’ life and legacy as a tool within the film and that in Pocahontas’ actual life, she was used as a tool by European colonizers more than once. That is even touched upon in her sequel, even if it is totally skewed as well.
The stereotype of “Native Americans being one with nature” is not only a widely accepted stereotype, but was very romanticized and glorified to almost push a eco message on the side because white people are too disassociated with nature to value it’s importance.
This is genuinely disgusting and I can’t believe you wrote this thinking it could be taken in any way that didn’t make you look glaringly racist. “Native Americans being one with Nature” is only a widely accepted stereotype among white people. Among Natives, it’s not only annoying, it’s infuriating and you’ve literally just said “Meh. us whiteys like it so it’s a good thing.” Don’t use our bodies and our histories to “push an eco message”. Push your own damn message your own damn self. Call out your own people for destroying everything they come into contact with. But turn us into fucking elves to do it.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
This one is hilarious as to how you could disregard it’s significance. The movie centers over the tyranny of a white religious official using his beliefs to oppress and murder the people of Romanian descent.
That…I mean…. you do realize that the name Rroma has nothing to do with Romania, right? Like you realize that while there are Rroma in Romania, they don’t originate in Romania. Esmeralda is not Romanian. I can’t even.
Esmeralda is sexualized not only because her appeal is what causes the villain to lust after her and take out his frustration even further on the Romanian people but also because classically speaking, Gypsy women used sexual displays to garner attention and make money on which they survived.
WOW. I mean. Just… WOW. You are literally pulling this out of your ass. Or a Cher song. Either way, you’re full of racist shit. And stop using the woryd g*psy. It’s a slur. I said that the first go around. Esmeralda is sexualized because she’s a WOC surrounded by white men. It’s not an accident. Aside from Jessica Rabbit, no other Disney character has been drawn to look as objectively sexual as Esmeralda. It’s not a coincidence that she’s also Rroma which you so disgustingly proved in your above statement. It’s not because Romani women used their bodies to make a living, it’s because white Europeans wanted an excuse to rape and exploit Romani women.
This aspect is also one of the few they stuck to that was present in the Novelization. Esmeralda sings a song about the plight of her people, about how they are all people under the same god and how they did not deserve prosecution, they emphasized the plight of her people in such a way that is was central to the story and the removal of the oppressor was the revitalization of Paris.
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say here. “God Help the Outcasts” is a beautiful song but it didn’t bring about the end of Frollo and his reign. That started when one white man (Phoebus) was suddenly not okay with persecuting the Romani people after he had fallen for Esmeralda. Notice he didn’t defy Frollo when he was shown the torture chambers, or when Frollo openly declared his intentions for an ethnic cleansing while crushing the ants. No, it wasn’t until they were hunting for Esmeralda and he refused to burn down a house in which a white family was locked up.
Quasimodo’s own act of defiance that leads to the defeat of Frollo stems from his love and desire for Esmeralda herself, not any kind of kinship he develops between him and the people who are in reality his real family.
I also see that you ignored the part about Quasimodo being white even though his parents had similar appearances to Esmeralda.
Lilo and Stitch
While stitch is main marketing point, the movie is very much about Lilo and her sister Nani and the hardships they endure after losing their parents and dealing with the harsh reality that they may not be able to stay together. The Hawaiian culture is very emphasized in this movie and while the term “Ohana” may be overused, the film still makes a strong point about the racism the natives encounter from the white tourists.In fact, there was a deleted scene dedicated to it.
The fact that they deleted it and did not include it in the final cut of the film is proof enough that they didn’t really want to concern themselves with the abuse native Hawai’ians face at the hands of white tourists and colonizers. The only other instance of that would be maybe Nani saying she didn’t want to work at a fake luau. I said originally that Lilo & Stitch did probably the best job of including culture in a way that wasn’t exotifying but it still isn’t person. “Ohana” is the central theme of the movie and it’s literally just a word that a Disney writer heard a tour guy say when the writer visited Hawaii to research the film.
NOW, I incited specifics from each movie for a reason; They were all explaining the amazing aspects of the characters and what made them stand out. They may have been POC, but they were still strong characters all the same. These are the important aspects when we talk about the representation of POC in movies because the quality of the person matters so much more than the little idiosyncrasies of a culture.
Racist tropes, stereotypes and erasure of characters are not “little idiosyncrasies of a culture” omg. Don’t presume to tell people what is important about a discussion, especially when you are jumping in with no idea what the hell you are talking about. This conversation has been going on for literally decades and it was never about you or people like you. But you felt the need to jump in and spew what you consider logic but what was really just a whole bunch of racism and a “i don’t care how it makes entire groups of people feel because i like it as a novelty” attitude.
While not always historically accurate, I would say the POC mentioned here have a good representation and Disney exhibited no sign of racism in using them.The definition of Racism does not bend or alter because you need an excuse to be mad.
You’re an objectively disgusting human being. And I mean that on a very sincere level. You are not a good person. The things you just wrote above prove that you are not a good person. The proof is there for all of us to see. You’re a racist piece of shit.
Furthermore, to attack these movies for cultural inaccuracies is hysterical because even for films where white characters are the stars and source of the culture, they often don’t follow it as precisely either.
I’m glad you find the pain that so many POC feel about being the victims of racism funny, but what I find funny is you thinking that most of the films surrounding white characters are set in real places that have real cultures. Because they aren’t. They are set in mythical lands that may be influenced in design but actual locations in Europe, but in reality given ambiguous settings as to make them ubiquitous. White people don’t have to prove their right to exist in a fantasy setting, but POC sure do. China, Virginia, Paris, Hawai’i, New Orleans. With the exception of Aladdin, none of them are set in a fantasy land where the culture is literally created for this world. No one ever claimed to be representing the culture of 18th century France in Cinderella but they sure as hell did presume to represent the cultures of the indigenous people of what is now known as Virginia. And they did it poorly and they did it offensively. And they get called out on it. Simple as that.
Instead, they craft entrainment for children and adding POCs is a wonderful way to boost the confidence in younger children of color. I’d LOVE to see Disney continue this and I’m hoping Moana will be wonderful! I’m going to make a guess that the movie centers around the Māori, and they are a very under represented culture that I personally loved learning about.
I appreciate the sentiment here but you clearly do not understand the many levels on which children of color digest media and how things you consider innocuous can actually really be damaging them, and you also don’t understand how those same levels are digested by white children and turn into stereotypes about others that they grow up believing.
Then again, judging by the vitrol you spewed all over this, I’m not really getting the feeling that you actually care.
You should take some time to actually educate yourself about these matters before jumping into conversations like these, because you did not come of well at all. But I’m sure you know that.
—Lauren
Great post. If I may, I’d like to add a little more on The Emperor’s New Groove, because while it is a very funny movie, it’s also incredibly racist, for much the same reasons as Brother Bear, listed above. Yet apart from the issue of the all-white voice cast, I rarely see anybody talking about its blatant racism, maybe because there’s such a black hole of knowledge about South America in the States? (Caveat: I’m not an expert on this by any means, so please don’t think I’m trying to present myself as one. I’m just someone who’s spent time in Peru, as limited as it was, and is passionate about the country. I know I missed a LOT here also, so please feel free to chime in.)
The OP asks: “What about the fact that The Emperor’s New Clothes is a European story that could have been told with white people without any change in the plot but instead was chosen to for a South American cast?” Which is fine and good if they’d actually done that, but they didn’t. I don’t know what the setting is in the Emperor’s New Groove, but it certainly isn’t Peruvian.
In The Emperor’s New Groove, the setting is supposed to be the Inka empire (though it’s never named, the protagonist’s name is a dead giveaway). But the people don’t behave right (especially around their Emperor), the food isn’t right, the flora and fauna aren’t right, even the geography isn’t right – where is this movie supposed to be taking place, that there are soaring mountain spires and cloud forests, but a day’s trek takes you far enough into the Amazonian basin to encounter caimans? It sure isn’t taking place near the actual capital of the Inka Empire, Qosqo/Cusco, which is in the highlands and nowhere near the Amazon.
The art, architecture, clothing, pottery, etc. are a mélange of pre-Columbian styles across the Americas and from a variety of time periods not contemporary with each other. I’m definitely not a Pre-Columbian art scholar, but even I could pick out motifs used by Mayas, Aztecs and Olmecs, none of which were even remotely geographically close to the Inka. I mean, for godsakes, in one scene they put Yzma in a Mexican sombrero charro. What?
Meanwhile, few of the most common artistic motifs of that region – the condor, the puma, the snake, the Andean cross, the stairstep motif, etc. – appear in the film. And the clothes are inauthentic to what Quechua would have worn (though I guess they get props for putting Pacha in a chullo?). And there’s fucking Riverdance in the movie,but not actual dance authentic to the region. Okay.
The technology is all wrong too. I mean, even if you set aside all the anachronistic stuff like stovetop ranges and glass beakers and bunkbeds, none of the setting looks even remotely contemporary to the place or time period. None of the villages/palaces/mountains have stone terracing. Pacha’s house is made oftimber, not thatch and adobe or stone. None of the roads are laid with stone or have stairs. Pacha owns a cart with wheels. (Haha yeah good luck lugging that up all those mountain stairs.) It’s like the concept artists couldn’t be bothered to even do a Google search on what Peru might have looked like at that time period, much less any actual research on the region or its people.
Speaking of whom, none of the names are actually Quechua names, as far as I can know, though a few of them are Quechua words. “Pacha” means earthly domain/world, which is inoffensive enough I guess. But his wife, Chicha, is literally named “corn beer”. Er, okay. His daughter’s name, Chaca, is the Quechua word for “bridge”. What? As for the other names, Kuzco is a bastardization of Qosqo/Cuzco, the capital of the Tawantinsuyu/Inka empire. Yzma is an Arabic name. Bucky is English. And Kronk is just a sound effect.
Don’t let the marketing fool you. This isn’t a movie about South America. The Emperor’s New Groove is basically a movie about white people who have been re-skinned brown and plunked into some nonsense location in a nonsense “jungle” that never existed except in the fantasies of Americans who couldn’t be bothered to even crack open a book.
The only thing in this movie that was somewhat authentic is that, yeah, generally, llamas are dicks.