Does Disney need more African American heroines?

Though if Disney wanted to do an animated version of Shaft, I'd be behind that idea all the way. That'd be awesome.

I liked Princess And The Frog. The Louisiana south, jazz, Mardigras, and voo-doo are all pretty big parts of African American culture, and Disney did a good job representing it in a unique story.

But do we need more of it? I don't think so. Racial diversity is cool, but it all depends on the story. I don't expect a huge, multi-racial group in, you know, Kansas.

Just wanted to second that the novel The Princess And The Frog was supposedly based off of doesn't really sound similar at all. I wonder if it was one of those things where they bought the rights so someone else wouldn't have them/so they wouldn't be sued for any similarities that were there.

The insinuation here is that writing characters with the sensibilities of a diverse audience in mind automatically makes them unlikeable and/or unrelatable. I find this illogical at best.

Well, no.

I feel, personally, that the best writing shows the world how it really is—hateful things and all—and simply doesn't bother trying to justify those things. Why try to hide the bad when you can just discredit it?

Now, granted, this is Disney, but...

You also have to consider the story you're trying to tell. If Disney had accurately portrayed the nastiness of race relations in the 1920s South, it would have overwhelmed everything else about the story.

A lot of people seem to misunderstand what PC is. It's not about preventing anyone but wealthy white straight Christian males from ever being portrayed with any negativity and it's not about pretending that good people have always been color-, gender-, and creed-blind throughout all of history. Mostly, when it comes to storytelling, PC is about not being lazy. Relying on stereotypes is lazy. Letting the loudest and most dominant sector of your society determine the viewpoints you will use is lazy.

Well, I mean, yeah, this is Disney making stuff for kids, so I don't expect them to go through the deconstructive worldbuilding motions of creating a world where the hate festers in the background of whatever story is being told, depending on the main characters, the era, and the political alignment of the author.

~shrug~

Characters are what they are. If it feels right as some race or some gender, then the character should be that. I don't think forcing the issue is conductive to good storytelling, though...

Are we just discussing token minorities, or entire movies based around multicultural settings?

But as I said before, how do you tell the difference? What does it mean for it to "feel right" to have a character be a particular race or gender? Wouldn't the more important thing be to avoid a casting choice that feels wrong? If there's no particular reason to make a character white or male, why not make them non-white or female?

For one of my worldbuilding projects, I've developed an "extras roster" with very high ethnic diversity. Why? Because a) I like diversity, and b) I'm basing it on the demographics of my native Southern California, which has very high ethnic diversity. Does the fact that I openly admit to a) drown out the relevance of b)?

Just my two cents, but a badly-written character is a badly-written character. Race is irrelevant.

A peripheral character who happens to be a minority has no effect, for good or ill, on the moviegoer population and their preferences.

So...my point exactly?

Bad Writing is Bad Writing is Bad Writing. If being politically correct is portraying a character without stereotypes, then most authors hit the mark they intend to hit. Of course, as I said, a character can still be cast as a stereotyped character, and even be static in nature, yet still be likeable by an audience and important, in some way, to the story that's written.

The question, as far as I understand it and under what you're asking, is, "Is being politically correct a good or bad thing?" It depends. If a character is well written and well presented, then that character being politically correct never comes to mind because at that point it no longer matters. As far as I know (and I may be wrong here), being politically correct isn't even an issue for most fiction writers and readers; this kind of thing primarily comes up with non-fictional work, since a writer can dig themselves into a big hole if they're trying to make a point and not being politically correct.

edited 6th Oct '11 11:30:03 AM by Newfable

Black heroines? Sure, Why Not?

African-American heroines? Nah, it'd force the stories to take place in America.

I think Savage just won the thread.

Nice!

The two things I think we really need:

• Characters who don't play to stereotypes, in children's movies. For this, we just need minority characters that aren't just token minority characters. Seeing other races like this can help our kids recognize that race doesn't matter.

• ALSO: Movies that use racism and it's effects to their advantage. For this, I point you to the Extra Credits episode on racism. They discussed L.A.Noire, and the way it used racism as a device to further the story: by seeing how different characters react to these subjects, we can be given insight into who a character is.

Disney is pretty good about not using Token Minority characters in their animated movies. Where they tend to slip up is in having entire movies play Token Minority roles in their canon. They have an Asian movie, a couple of Hispanic movies, an Arab movie, a Native American movie, an Indian movie, and now a black movie...and thirty or forty lily-white movies.

I doubt those movies were made to be "Islam: The Movie", or "China Chauvinism, A Cinematic Adventure". They were stories. Disney told them.

However, movies like Saludos Amigos & The Three Caballeros were documentary-esque films, which explored the cultures they were focusing on. So yeah, those are both Brazil: the Movie and Mexico: the Movie respectively, but even then it attempts to shed some light on culture, so no harm there.

Call me crazy, but it looks like there seems to be a feeling of entitlement insofar as race is concerned, at least with this conversation. Brazil and Mexico got some documentaries made for them, and there's been representation for other cultures in other movies, so where's our slice? I still have to ask: where’s the problem?

I'm sure you're right. But I just have a nagging suspicion that you could never get them to do another movie with an Arab or Asian protagonist because they wouldn't want to "repeat themselves." Whereas they're more than happy to produce any number of films taking place in England or France.

And just to be clear, I'm talking about the decision-makers here. The actual production teams are one of the finest examples of Doing It for the Art in the entirety of Hollywood; it's upper management who seems to treat ethnic minorities like a To-Do list.

Also true, and it was a little off the mark for me to throw them in with the others, but I was going for completeness. Even so, I failed to mention the Incan movie, the Polynesian movie, and the Inuit movie. (Huh...I guess they've actually done pretty well with the indigenous American peoples...)

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm certainly not motivated by any feelings of ethnic left-outness. I'm as white as can be.

Oh, I know. That last comment wasn't aimed at anyone, but more at conversations like this. I've seen it before (hell, it's probably a subtope for Everything Is Racist).

To be fair, they probably won't touch on a lot of stories that they could do well, due to competition. Just as an example, Sinbad is probably out, as is Swan Lake.

That, and they're so big a company, once they hit a demographic, it'd be smart to stay away from it for a good long while; otherwise, viewers would probably think that they're recycling material.

They might be able to get away with Sinbad or Swan Lake. Neither of those movies garnered much attention or is well remembered. Dreamworks is the studio they really have to avoid bumping against.

But you know what? Forget political correctness or social inclusiveness or whatever. Disney should keep tapping an ever-wider variety of cultures and ethnicities for story ideas because it will help them keep their work fresh, challenge the artists, let them play with different styles of design and music. It will improve the art of animation itself, and to a greater extent than it would if any other studio tried it, because Disney is still the gold standard in American-made feature animation. I'm greedy and easily bored; I want to see variety.

I could agree with that too. I loved the style of Mulan, and matching an art style to a culture would be a fantastic way to push the envelope, especially since their animation department is back in business with their new animated flicks.

And while I know Disney would be good at it, a lot of those kinds of films would be Americanized. Aladdin and Mulan were, and those were good, but other culture might not make it through the process unscathed. With that being said, the creative department is pretty good at adapting tales and stories and such without stepping on too many toes.

I'm waiting for Disney to legitimately step out of its comfort zone and make real movies for people in my (15-19) age range.

You could tackle issues like racial discrimination and still appeal to young people...

Short answer: No, they don't need any more African-American princesses. An African one could be really interesting, though.

I thought that Disney stated after Tangled that they weren't going to make many more of their traditional 'princess' movies?

What Princess movies? All I've seen are movies with a princess subplot that mainly focused on Animal Characters.