In the class Contemporary Social Problems, a video was shown which discussed how these certain Disney movies are racist, sexist, or historically inaccurate. It claimed that it corrupts the minds of young children who watch them. Now before I begin, I will say this: yes, racist stereotypes have existed in Disney, but not in movies of the modern 90's generation that the video was describing. Racism in Disney from the 40's and sometimes 50's era is completely a product of its time when there were still black servants and official segregation. And remember who the target audience was: whites. It used to be a big deal to go to a theater to watch movies and not even all whites could afford it. So of course stereotypes will be featured as entertainment since it was acceptable at that time. We cannot look at the past and judge fairly through our current more-enlightened and progressive lens. So I suggest just watching those movies such as Fantasia, The Jungle Book, Dumbo, and Peter Pan for entertainment and just appreciating the story, characters, and songs. The movie in class was trying to say that all of the following snippets of movies taint the way young children see the world, and I think that is completely far-fetched and downright asinine. The movies it mentioned are Pocahontas, Mulan, The Lion King, Aladdin, Tarzan, and Lady and the Tramp. These next paragraphs will break down the movie's argument, its example(s), and my counter-argument(s).
I'll begin with Pocahontas. Was Disney trying to create historical fiction with this movie? Is that what its genre is? Or is it in fact a children's movie for the purposes of entertainment? The latter of course is correct. The movie used three children as examples of this "brainwashing–" two of them aged 6 and one aged 9. As you can guess, all of them agreed that the conflict ended between the Indians and the White Man because Pocahontas jumped in front of John Smith, said her bit, then they decided to be friends (in one...