But since the Disney Renaissance one third of the Disney movies which featured human characters had a non-white protagonist...if you consider secondary protagonists too, the ratio is even better. That is WAY more than the other studios have to offer. I mean we can hardly blame Disney for not being the most diverse studio in the 1930s...(and compared to the crab other studios produced during the same time, Disney was far ahead of them even back then).
So why is it specifically Disney which is taken to task again and again? shouldn't we ask "What animated movie we would like to see"?
I only saw arguments why it is important that there is a representation in the media (which I don't deny btw)...but none why specifically Disney is responsible for providing this representation and not animation companies (and other publishers in the media) in general.
edited 10th Feb '14 12:09:46 PM by Swanpride
Because they're by far the most popular, long-standing and influential production house for children's entertainment out there? I'd say the sheer influence their products can have on the mindsets of millions, if not billions of children around the world does sort of give them a moral obligation to be careful about what they release. With great power comes great responsibility, and all that jazz.
Disney is not specifically responsible for doing it. All the studios are. But Disney is a) the biggest fish in the pond—thus the most visible and in possession of the most resources, b) always promoting themselves as wholesome and all-American, and c) the subject of this thread.
And another factor is that Disney, unlike most animation studios, still promotes its older IPs into the present day. You tend to defend the regressive values present in the older fairytale movies by pointing out how long ago they were made...but Disney is still merchandising those movies and characters, maintaining the visibility of those stories. That makes the company responsible for continuing to present said regressive values. If they don't keep balancing them out with more modern ones—and balancing the overstock of white characters with POC characters—then they deserve the criticism.
Relevant to the thread topic.
It's not totally accurate, but it's a pretty good breakdown. It includes Pixar too.
You know what, I want to see Disney make another compilation movie again. With a theme like Saludos/Amigos in that it's vignettes of a culture.
Like a whole movies of different legends taken from around West Africa, or Aboriginal Dreamtime tales from the Cape York tribes. Or hell, an adaptation of some of the "Just So" Stories.
That would be a great way to show a diversity of culture from one area (especially considering something like the myths of Anansi are very episodic in nature).
I'm having to learn to pay the priceAbout countries, here are some of my suggestions:
- Latin America: C'mon, it's just a matter of time; a Latina Princess even makes sense from a commercial point of view. Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela in the XIX or early XX century it has the potential for a very good "Disneyable" enviroment.
- India: Seriously, this is such a diverse, rich culture that you could either go ancient Indian, colonial India, even modern India and you'll get something colourful and creative.
- Ancient Egypt: Maybe they want to avoid be compared with The Prince Of Egypt, but there's still so much potential left to that country.
- Eastern Europe: I know, I know: white countries are over-represented and all, but most of them are Western (England, France, Germany). Once again, they could be trying to avoid Russia to avoid comparations with Don Bluth's Anastasia, but they could take Poland, or Romania or the Balkans.
- West Africa: A disneyfied version of the Mali or the Kingdom of Ghana? That just screams "awesome"
They don't need to touch anything like The Prince Of Egypt did for a story in that time period. There's plenty of ancient Egyptian lore. As long as they don't make it like Hercules, I'd like to see something based on Egyptian gods and whatnot.
The Egyptian lore isn't exactly Disney Friendly - that was after all the problem with Hercules, too. I also don't see them doing any Germanic lore anytime soon for the same reason.
What they could do, though, is reading "101 Nights" again...there are a lot of lesser known stories which would work perfectly for Disney.
Do you think the Bowdlerization was actually a problem with Hercules? I didn't mind it. It's not like it was meant to be Bullfinch's Mythology, and anyway no one "owns" myths so there's no concern about misrepresenting a person's work.
Actually, I was thinking it would be cool if they set a story in Egypt but made it a pulp adventure from the other side—the protagonist is an Egyptian folklorist trying to protect their cultural heritage from all the British and American Adventure Archaeologists trying to plunder it.
I'd like to see a Disney film based on an African or First Nations myth. I can understand why they'd consider it something of a challenge - you can change Rapunzel, for instance, quite a bit and still get a decent and popular movie out of it, but there's a lot more issues around how far it's appropriate to change things when you're dealing with someone else's culture. But I think it's worth doing and could be very interesting.
The map is neat, but it misses that the animated films set in Africa have animals or white people as protagonists; similarly, most of Up takes place in Venezuela, but the protagonists and antagonist are still white.
I agree that Disney's been better on diversity than some of the other studios - in particular, better than Pixar. Granted, that's largely because most of Pixar's films have non-human protagonists, but the general culture underlying all of them - every single one - is Western. Dreamworks has Kung Fu Panda (which, despite having animal as protagonists, does an okay job of Chinese culture) and Prince of Egypt.
edited 13th Feb '14 6:06:42 PM by WarriorEowyn
Headcanon accepted that The Little Mermaid is set in the Caribbean. I do recall palm tress in the scene where Eric takes Ariel on a tour of the kingdom.
Misunderstanding the myth? I doubt it. Deliberately choosing to alter it to make it more palatable to modern American audiences? Bingo. Perhaps they could have chosen a different myth that didn't require so much alteration. It's not like Greek mythology is non-stop incest, rape, and violence...but much of it is pretty grim, and therein lies the quandary. That body of myths is part of the cultural heritage of all Western Civilization and kids deserve to be exposed to it in a format they can enjoy...but that almost necessarily entails softening up the themes of the stories. That, and many of them are "Just So" Stories that don't, in their original form, lend themselves well to a complete film narrative.
That's not really the problem...I didn't expect them to add the more family unfriendly details. But the whole point of Hercules is that he had the choice to life either a happy but meaningless life or a glorious life full of hardship. He choose glory over happiness. And making Hades the villain was the most family unfriendly thing they could have done (not that I don't enjoy the performance of the guy who speaks him). "So my dear children, if you die, you'll end up in the clutches of a Disney Villain." Right...
Honestly, I feel that if they had been so inclined, keeping Hera as the villain would not have been that difficult... all they really needed to do was be willing to acknowledge that Zeus is kind of a jerk (which they, by the way, already did in Fantasia, so it's not like portraying him positively was a prerequisite). She could even fit their Evil Stepmother mould quite nicely. Would American audiences for a children's film be that resistant to the idea of a heroic character born out of wedlock? Because I can't help but feels that sends a demeaning message to actual children whose parents were never married.
edited 14th Feb '14 8:02:56 AM by DrDougsh

My point is, disproportionate focus on white people is not some apolitical default. It's not the "natural" state of things, with diversity some abnormal state that moviemakers have to try abnormally hard (at the expense of artistic integrity) to reach. Disney chooses to use white casts in most of their movies, and they can choose to do otherwise. And they should choose the second, because their audience is diverse and its non-white members have been and continue to be underserved by the media.
Yes, I'm talking about ethics here. I don't think it's unfair to demand ethical behavior from media makers.