For
this blog post I want to talk about a few of the points made in our Disney section
of the class. I want to talk about a few key points in that documentary that we
watched and how they make absolutely no sense. Now that being said, unless it
pertains to me as a Hispanic female, I wont talk about it. My discussing other
issues with the supposed racism in Disney movies carry no merit, so unless I’m
talking about the representation of women and Hispanic or Latino individuals, I
won’t even begin to approach the subject.
The
first segment I want to talk about is the shortest. And that is the
representation of Hispanic people in Disney movies. In the documentary we were
shown in class, the women speaking had told a story about how her three-year-old
daughter had approached her and said, “Mommy, why do all the Mexicans in Disney
movies have to be criminals?” Her examples used were the movies Oliver and Company, and The Lady and The Tramp. Ok, number one,
what toddler forms sentences like that? I know that seems to be me nitpicking
but that took away a lot of credibility for me. This woman used her child in a
lie to further her point. I don’t like it. Tell it like it is or don’t quote
the kid directly. Good Grief. Second of all, she chose two DOG movies to pick a
bone with 😉. The speaker didn’t like how Mexicans and
other Hispanic cultures were represented, but she explicitly said she didn’t
like that they are all represented by Chihuahuas. Chihuahuas are distinctly Mexican dogs, their
origins are in, wait for it, Mexico! So, unless you’re going to have a dog
whose voice and accent makes absolutely no sense, you need to use a chihuahua.
I don’t want to watch a movie with a bloodhound or a retriever talking with
that Mexican/Hispanic accent chosen to be used by voice actors, that makes no
sense! Similarly, to how in the same movies, the Scottish terriers have Scottish
accents! If Disney selects a breed with a distinct characteristic, they use
that and play on it! Its the logical step in animation!
The
last issue I had with this woman, despite her exaggerating what her child had
said, and her gross misunderstanding of where dog breeds come from, was that
she took things out of context and blew them way out of proportion. Tito was
the chihuahua from the movie Oliver and
Company. In the scene the speaker has chosen to show us, Tito is seemingly
getting ready to steal a car all by himself, implying that all Hispanic
individuals like to steal things. But what she neglects to tell you, and any
one who has seen the movie knows this, is that the WHOLE group of dogs was working to
steal the car, Tito is just the only one who knows how to DRIVE IT. There was
nothing specifically racial about that scene Tito’s smaller size made for him driving
the car to be a more comical bit in the movie. Not a slam against the Hispanic
community.
Once
we got past this part in the doc, we started to discuss feminism and how misogynistic
Disney is. Which right from the jump is a stupid thing to say. They were using
examples like Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves and Fantasia to prove their
points. Which were movies made in the early 1940’s. They are movies that are so
far removed from our time here in 2018 that they shouldn’t have even been
considered in this argument. When Snow white is lost in the woods and stumbles
upon the cottage, she gets to work cleaning. Not because she’s an oppressed woman,
but because she is now homeless and lost in the woods, and suddenly finds a
place to live. If I was in her shoes, I would want to start cleaning right away
too! And not cleaning for the men that might live there, but because I like
living in a clean home and not a total pigsty. In Fantasia a lot of that material is taken from Greek or roman
mythology, and women were portrayed a particular way and the animators at
Disney, in the 40’s, didn’t see a need to change it. These two movies are too
far removed from our time and climate today and aren’t even on the same spectrum
as other Disney flicks.
Another
problem I had with this was the whole “issue” with a damsel in distress. Ok
fine I get it, Women don’t always need saving but again your examples are
GARBAGE. In the Little Mermaid after
Ursula is 10 stories tall, Ariel has only her fins back and is totally helpless,
Prince Eric comes in and saves the day. Ariel couldn’t do a single thing about
her situation and was in big trouble, of course she needed Eric’s help, he had
the boat! She couldn’t drive the boat, she lost her legs, but he still had his.
So, she needed his help in that instance! In the Hunchback of Notre Dame Esmeralda is tied to a burning stake. I don’t
know about you guys, but I couldn’t get out of that situation by myself! I
would be praying for someone to swoop in and save me! No way was she getting
out of there alone! But the point is that even the strongest women, sometimes
needs a little help. And of course, it’s nice to see that help come in the form
of another woman or a few encouraging words, but the fact that people are upset
that a man saved them is asinine and it makes no sense.
The
last point I want to make, because I could go on forever and need to hit the brakes, is the example they
used in Aladdin. When Jasmine
pretends to be interested in Jaffar to help Aladdin get the Genie back. It was
being said that actions like this teach little girls that its ok to act like a
tramp to get what you want. Implying that young children are watching this and
then making those connections. Sure, if your kid is acting like that on the
playground for a piece of candy or a toy, then it’s a problem, but as a parent
it is your job t bridge the gap. For you to sit them down and say that what
goes on in movies isn’t how the world works and you need to find some better
coping skills. Just be a parent, be an example, or even if you’re not a parent,
working with kids and answering questions and being a role model would go a
long way in them not misconstruing everything they see and then applying it to
their own lives.
Overall,
I hated this portion if the class, I didn’t feel like anything made sense in
this documentary, with one or two exceptions (The Siamese cats were such brutal
caricatures). All of the speakers stretched truths and looked outside of contexts
and appropriate time frames. Look at the scenes in a movie as a whole, not just
the snippets of it and you’ll see that these claims are all bologna. I couldn't take a single one of these speakers seriously throughout the duration of the video, their claims were just way too ridiculous.
