Is Disney racist?

The race issue has always been a problem especially lately with all of the BLM protests. However, Disney have now put a racism warning on all of our old beloved movies that we may never have suspected were racist.

Peter Pan, The Jungle Book and Dumbo have been given racist warnings as they are rather stereotypical. On the new streaming site, Disney + they have added a warning to the beginning of all old Disney movies that include offence or racist terms or scenes. The warning added is, “This programme is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.”  Some movies now even include ‘tobacco usage warnings.’ These are; Pinocchio, Hercules, The sword and the stone and many more.

The Aristocats movie came out in 1970, a Siamese cat is seen playing the piano talking about Asian food and plays the piano with chopsticks.

The Jungle Book came out in 1967, it is now getting backlash as the voice of the orangutans sound African-American, and the monkeys suggest caricatures of negative stereotypical African natives

Dumbo was released in 1941 and is seen as racist because of the cigar-smoking crows whose leader is Jim Crows (voiced by a white actor), it refers back to the racist segregation of the South.

Peter Pan came out in 1953, and was massively adored by everyone as a child but it now has a warning at the beginning of the movie because of the song ‘What made the Red Man Red?’ sang by the Native Americans in the movie. However, the stereotypes were extreme and offensive.

Lady and the Tramp was released in 1955 and the movie showed a pair of Siamese cats singing, ‘The Siamese Cat Song’ in stereotypical Asian voices.

Many movies have now been made to add the warnings to prevent people taking such offence. At least the movies have recognised their mistakes in old movies, and can now respect the differences and add the warning.

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