Disney's Live-Action Thread

It's huge enough that it never even occurred to me in 20 years of watching the movie (repeatedly, it was my favourite as a child), until I read the assertion somewhere on the internet. To me the actual wording of the english text (I grew up with the German one) is more potentially problematic and could be read as stereotypical take on the travelling people.

Here is the deal with Dumbo: I appreciate that me lacking the cultural context of being American, there might be details regarding the crows and the specific wording in those texts I might miss. But that is also kind of the point. If you actually need a cultural context to even have a chance to see it, than it is in my eyes more a commentary on racism which already exists in the viewer than something which will reinforce racism. that is the difference between something like the crows and Coal Black.

Jim Crow Laws were common fact in America for decades. Entire states full of businesses had them segregated. Any US citizen would recognize the reference, and the animators would’ve wanted the audience to considering the popularity of minstrel shows as entertainment back then.

The Crows aren't named in the movie. Watch it, the name doesn't turn up anywhere, not even in the credits. It was some sort of in-joke between the animators (apparently they had those kind of nicknames for each other, too), which became known during the second release of Dumbo and someone run with it.

Which makes the whole Jim Crow discussion so complicated, because if it isn't part of the movie, should you judge it for it? That's not like Fantasia which got (thankfully) edited, it was never there in the first place, it was an information added later on.

That would only make sense if Disney was, itself, separate from the cultural context it's in. But that's not true: Disney's writers and animators were both a part of and writing for the culture that accepted those stereotypes and reference. The attempt at a "it's only stereotypical if you try to see the stereotypes" twist on it just plain doesn't work, because it was made for an audience that built the stereotypes by and for people who thought they were amusing.

That's, indeed, generally how stereotype humor works. Only someone with no context for the stereotypes in the first place wouldn't see them at first glance, and frankly those jokes aren't directed at those audiences in the first place (which leads to another correction: the crows aren't considered blackface examples because they're crows - rather, they exhibit a great deal of blackface tropes and gags in both design, behavior and role, making them being literal crows into what at the time would've been a Visual Pun).

In the interest of being patient with you, Swanpride, given that you're not American and don't really have context for the cultural history here, we can understand how you don't always realize what a major and present factor that context is. But do not conflate the idea that you don't have the personal understanding to see it as important with the idea that it isn't important: those are not the same thing, and is leading you to some patently false conclusions.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 18th 2018 at 12:14:47 PM

I'll try again to explain:

1. Disney is not political. Never was (well...except with Dumbo, though the commentary they made was about people on strike). So when I use the word "commentary", I don't mean it in the context of political commentary, but in the context of reflecting the world how it was in their movie. And, intentional or not, it works like a mirror. So, the moment you are recognizing a stereotype, it says something about you. Like, one stereotype most people don't recognize anymore but I still do because I grew up on jokes about thrifty Scots, is the whole scene with Jock hiding away bones en-mass in Lady and the Tramp.

2. So, you can do two things with the Crows. You can either judge them in the context of the time they were made in. And if you do that, well, for that time they were actually kind of progressive due to being helpful and positive characters (unlike those arrogant Elephants in the Circus). Or you can judge them in the context of today, and then there is the question if the stereotypes of the past still easily recognizable for the children of today. If they are: Poor America. If they aren't: No harm done. They are just a bunch of Crows.

And I still rather have the crows instead of having two lily-white children as main characters in a movie which is set in a circus. And don't get me wrong, there are light-skinned artists, but when I see a performance, I usually see a lot of different nationalities in the arena (before some animal activists tells me that I shouldn't go: I only go when there aren't any wild animals in the program). Disney back in the 1930s got that. If you look at the scene with the parade, there are a lot of people with different skin and hair colours. And I just don't get how we now ended up with what we have seen in the trailer so far.

Not really. Compare Birth of a Nation with Gone With the Wind. The latter film does have its black characters be more heroic, but it's always in a context of helping the white heroes while also spouting stereotypical dialogue. It wasn't that progressive to say "black people can be good as long as they're helping us (the white viewers)". It's less bad, but it's not revolutionary when it's stating favor of the white-dominant status quo.

(Also I wouldn't say "Disney is never political" because Zootopia very much is. Nitpick, I know. )

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Nov 18th 2018 at 1:00:22 AM

> 1. Disney is not political.

1)Everything and anything can be political,and it's impossible for something not to have something political somewhere it doesn't have to on the surface but it's there woven into the story

2) The matter stands,the crows are named Jim after the Jim crow laws,the crows act like stereotype,these are bad stereotype and I'd wish you'd stop trying to excuse their portrayal by saying they're progressive and 'helpful' because they sure aren't even by their standards or ours

3)The rest of your argument makes no sense to me and I'm losing my patience

Also, at the time blackface humor wasn't perceived as political. It is now, but it wasn't then. That's something a lot of people nowadays don't get about blackface, and why they find it so hard to understand just how ubiquitous it was.

It wasn't a thing people did to show the world how much they hated black people. It was a humor style based on the fact that the predominant audience considered people outside of that audience to be worth making fun of, especially those who a generation ago were the lowest of classes - essentially popular but lowbrow humor. In time, the humor itself became the phenomenon, rather than the intent, and it ultimately became a genre of comedy of its own.

That's why a lot of Golden Age comedy movies included minstrel routines or characters just on a Throw It In! basis: it was popular, so studios pandered to it. In fact, several blackface stars were, themselves, black, using the popular genre as a means of breaking out of poverty.

You know how nowadays, movies will have stereotypical, overly effeminate homosexual characters for humor, or stereotypical Hispanic people, or Chinese people, or Jamaicans or so on? Its the same thing. People find others outside what they consider "normal" to be strange, and making fun of those people for being strange has been a staple of humor for a very, very long time (in short, it's the 19th and early 20th century's version of something we have in full nowadays: Acceptable Targets). The people who do it don't see it as wrong at the time, because they're just playing to what people are used to, and what they've been used to seeing as funny their whole lives.

Hence the crows. They're non-human, but the dialogue and actions are blatantly made to play to the jokes the audience knew from minstrel shows. A pretty good modern equivalent is Mater, who is a character based on Larry The Cable Guy's redneck jokes. The character himself has an role that isn't based on the joke itself, but said jokes define their personality and general design.

Blackface is a good example of something that was, specifically, railed against and became a political topic. So studios by and large stopped specifically doing blackface and things that were that level of intensity, but didn't stop relying on stereotype humor in general, so the phenomenon is still around. Individual examples go away when people criticize them to a large degree, but generally entertainment then just goes on to the next Acceptable Target.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 18th 2018 at 1:46:29 AM

You are right, Zootopia is...Gone with the Wind was made WAAAAAY later, around the same time Song of the South was made. Dumbo falls more in the "what, there are black people?" part of movie history.

I'll tell you what: Show me the part of the movie where the Jim Crow joke is made and we can discuss it as part of the movie. Until then it is additional information which is interesting to know, but just as relevant to the end product as the information that the Choir which voiced the Crows later said about the production or that the animators said about the wider context of the joke.

Look, I am not saying that Dumbo is perfect. It clearly isn't. But most of what is problematic about it, is not really inherent in the movie. It is like the scene with the clowns. It is pretty much meaningless until you know the complete context with the Disney Strike. And, btw, I don't get the references in Mater either, because I to this day don't know who the hell Larry the Cable guy is.

I think that there is a distinctive difference between reflecting something which already exist, or ensure that something lives on. The crows can't ensure anything because they are crows. If they were human characters, well, that would be a different story.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 18th 2018 at 1:49:13 AM

I don't have to show you where,but I can point at the model sheets as to why naming a crow 'Jim' stands out

Once again, you're conflating "it's meaningless to me" with "it's meaningless," and "I don't know the context" with "the context is superfluous."

That you don't know the context that makes it meaningful doesn't mean it doesn't have meaning. You not knowing the context means you know less than you should, and - frankly - are ill equipped to be handling a conversation like this.

The fact that you're very stubbornly not listening to people who are trying to educate you just exacerbates this, and makes you look more bullheaded than I think you're intending to be. Your last point, especially, makes it look like you have no idea how fiction or abstraction works.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 18th 2018 at 1:53:53 AM

No, I don't. You don't understand what I am trying to say.

Like, when I see half a dozens movies with black people eating Watermelons I will eventually come to the conclusion "oh, black people in the US really like Watermelons, don't they? That's odd".

If I see half a dozens movies with crows eating watermelons, I will eventually come to the conclusion: "oh, apparently crows in the US really like Watermelons".

That is my point. One thing introduces a stereotype and reinforces it, another just reflects it. It can't create stereotypes by itself.

That's the difference I am trying to explain. It's not "I see it, so other people shouldn't see it", that's not my point, I get that other people see something else. My point is that what they see is not caused by this movie.

Your point is that character who aren't literally an representation of a sterotype can't figuratively be an representation of the stereotype?

Or, I guess to put it more precisely, that a thing can't be in reference to an idea unless it is identical to the idea in every way?

Because that's... well... ridiculous. It's not how metaphor or symbolism works, especially in fiction. People have been using abstract concepts and characters to represent and propagate societal ideas - including stereotypes - for millennia.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 18th 2018 at 1:57:23 AM

No, my point is that different people read something different into something at different times. Like the whole discussion around Tolkien's elves. I wonder how they will be read in another century.

There is just a difference between something being inherently problematic, no matter where and when you show it, and sometimes which can be seen as problematic in a specific context.

I am for example wondering if the whole "Jim Crow" name hadn't become public, how people would see the crows then. How much is the way they act and how much is just the name? I frankly can't tell, because I am missing the "oh, that is something a black would do" frame.

Though, if you can list me which behaviours exactly are stereotypical black, I would be obliged.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 18th 2018 at 2:00:47 AM

Which then leads to the fact that, sometimes, different contexts come about as a lack of knowledge, rather than simply a difference of perception. The perception of someone in a context that lacks that knowledge doesn't make the reality of that knowledge different, it only mean that the person with that context does not have the full picture.

That you're trying to simplify this as "it's only a stereotype because you choose to perceive it that way" is the problem: it's blatantly excluding the actual reality and context of the situation, and doing so in the face of people who actually know and have experienced that context and reality is, frankly, offensive.

Especially since you've been very clear that you don't have any of the context for the situation, but simply don't care. As I said before, this is not a conversation you're well equipped to handle.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 18th 2018 at 2:04:06 AM

Yeah people don't need to know the Crow's name to recognise the stereotype when they see it,unless they're called Swanpride

If I offended you I apologize. But isn't exactly the fact that I have a different perspective an asset in a conservation like this? Because this way I only see the movie itself, what is actually on screen. It's a completely different perspective. I don't think that it is less valuable than any other perspective. That is kind of the point of movie criticism, isn't it? Just like I can learn something by asking questions about the meta-text of Black Panther (which I can recognize being there, but not equipped to actually understand), can't you learn something by seeing movies which were made for a broad audience from my perspective? To claim otherwise is like me saying that people are wrong about Star Wars because George Lukas freely used fascist symbolism with little understanding of what it actually meant.

Well, then explain it to me. Point they out to me. Educate me. (But I hope that you acknowledge my point that the name is not part of the movie).

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 18th 2018 at 2:12:13 AM

As said to you, a perspective that comes from a comparative lack of knowledge does, in fact, come from a place of ignorance and should be considered valid than others.

It's on you to acknowledge where you simply don't have the information and better yourself, not stubbornly push forward believing that you're still exactly as right as everyone else despite knowing you have a poor idea of that you're talking about.

That's what we've done for the past page. If you need context, it's already there. If you want explanation, it's already there.

Every time, you've straight up ignored it with the claim that because you have a different perception none of what people are trying to tell you is actually real, but it's still there for you to peruse if you need education.

You have what you need. It's not our responsibility to ensure you listen - or at this point, throw facts at you on the hope that you care to acknowledge them.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 18th 2018 at 3:37:36 AM

But that's the point. You haven't. You say: Well there is a clear connection to minstrel shows. And I ask: What part exactly? And then I get the answer: You can't miss it because the character is called Jim Crow. And then I point out that the name is no-where in the movie, it is an additional information from the production which has been explained to have a very specific context.

I mean, okay, I guess I don't have the context of being American, but I actually read all about how the name came to be, I read what the animators had to say about it, I read about what the voice actors of the crows had to say about it, I read about the animation style they used for this scene and why they picked it, I actually did my research in this matter, from both perspectives, I read what people who don't like the crows had to say and I read what people who like them had to say, back in the day and today. And I have come to the conclusion that either the whole matter is not as clear cut as some people make it out to be, or there is some sort of explanation what exactly about the crows is unforgivable offensive which nobody ever wrote down because they felt that the name (which again, is NOT in the movie) is explanation enough. There are two common misconceptions regarding the crows: One is the name, the other is the assumption that they were all voiced by white voice actors (no, they weren't, only the lead crow was - there is btw a very interesting bit of what might be internalized racism or a biting commentary in one of the behind the scenes notes in that one of the choir voice actors said that Cliff Edwards could do a "black voice" better than they could. Hall Johnson voiced the Deacon Crow, btw).

So, there are different perspectives on the crows (which is all I have ever said, I have never insisted that what I see is the only right way to see them), and I would like to hear which part of the crow exactly is so unforgivable offensive. They don't wear blackface - they are crows after all, they don't even have lips. They don't act stupid - they are the smartest characters in the movie, I mean, they are basically using psychology on Dumbo. And the one element they use which I recognize as common in a minstrel show - the cigar - looks really cool in the movie (frankly, I am ready to bet that there is at least one campaign somewhere against the movie because it encourages children to smoke and drink).

Or we can just agree to disagree.

They're crows and they act just like minstrels. That's basically all there is to it. Demanding more investigative proof is like looking at the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp and saying "well they're just cats and they said they're Siamese, not Chinese, so clearly they don't play into any racist Chinese stereotypes".

But here is the thing: I get what the problem with them is. They aren't exactly unusual because every single character in it is some sort of stereotype, but they are the only ones who come off as vaguely threatening and not trustworthy. They clearly connect "Asian" with "danger", which is another level as turning the beaver into a working class stereotype, a Scottish terrier into a thrifty Scott stereotype or a hunting dog in what is either a British or South-State stereotype (I kind of fear it is the latter which makes maybe the whole "hunting criminals in the swamp" part even more questionable than the cats, but somehow that bit tends to fly under the radar).

I would get it if the crows were actually falling into the magical negro trope, but they don't do that either. Sure, they are helpful in the end, but that alone doesn't make a magical negro, that trope kind of requires of the character to be eager to help from the get go as if that is their only purpose in life.

Magical Negro isn't solely "black character eager to help", it's also "the black character comes in to the story only to help and then is gone once they're not providing advice anymore". It's about how their shallow writing keeps them in a position of only providing free advice, displaying no life or priorities of their own. As soon as the crows give Dumbo and Timothy the secret, they're out of the story because that's their only purpose.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Nov 18th 2018 at 9:00:02 AM

They aren't, though. They even get the last word in the story. They are more like the Geese in Aristocats, characters which are busy with their own life, but happen to encounter the protagonist of the movie. They are also not magical. Remember the "magical" part of their advice fails eventually.

Btw, when did the trope originate?

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 18th 2018 at 10:22:57 AM

The magical part of magical negro is rarely literal.

To give an example, Uncle Remus - is one of the trope's biggest codifiers. The trope originated in slavery, but really took off in Reconstruction (around the same time blackface took off) due in large part to wistfulness over the days where black folks were "helpful" and not "uppity." It's known for being a defining trope of Reconstruction Revisionism, along with Happiness in Slavery, which is why classic examples of it (like Uncle Remus) are often associated with that trope even in situations where the character isn't necessarily enslaved.

In essence, the idea revolves around a black or black coded character whose entire purpose is to help the white or white coded character through their trying emotional or personal journey, often through seemingly low class but ultimately sage, folksy wisdom. That the crows' jive talking insights don't pan out (though there's a case to be made that they do, ultimately), that doesn't make their characterizations any less emblematic of the trope.

Word, though?

This is what I'm talking about. You've been told multiple times by multiple people more knowledgeable than you that there a lot more to it than just the character being named Jim Crow, and why, but you've elected to ignore all of that in favor of assuming it's just that simple - presumably because you think if it is just the name, you can argue against that.

Again, your perspective comes from a place of ignorance about the thing you're trying to talk about, and is quite equivocally not valid. Take that advice and drop it.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 18th 2018 at 10:56:48 AM

Swan, I get that you might feel that you have an objective perspective here, but I think that being removed from the cultural context in this case is really hurting your argument. To put it bluntly, you don't know what you're talking about, and really should defer to the people who do.