Race, Gender, Hidden Sexual Messages in Disney Films

"Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. "—Walt Disney (Disneydreamer.com). Take this quote from Walt Disney, he is telling his audience that whatever the mind of man can conceive is what will be animated; he failed to mention what the minds of men and women can conceive. Disney films have been around since the 1930’s with Walt Disney’s first animated cartoon “Steamboat Willy” to Walt Disney Pictures most recent animated film “Ratatouille”. During this time period Disney has produced countless animation films, some have received controversy and also criticism from critics as well as concerned parents. Some of these films include Snow White, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Rescuers, and Cinderella, just to name a few. Each of these films represent race, gender, and some even have hidden sexual images associated with them during the course of each animated feature. Over the course of my paper, I will be addressing these issues as well as talking about how Disney portrayed women and men in their animated films as well as the nine racist characters found in Disney films. I will be offering a thorough analysis of each topic over the course of my paper.
Kids growing up see these Disney films as harmless family fun, but through my research on Disney animated films I have discovered that the animators have placed “hidden” sexual images over the course of these animated features. By using these features in their films, they are basically telling society as a whole that sex sells, which it does but these are children’s films and they should not think about incorporating these “hidden” messages into their animated features (bgsu.edu). With Disney doing this in their films, sex is selling even more at a disturbing rate, but this time it is to young children who do not understand what the real image means. Take the Lion King for example when Simba falls on a bed of pollen or dirt, a cloud of dust flies into the sky and the words “S-E-X” appear. You have to look closely but the letters do appear because over my research I pulled out the original VHS and saw it with my own eyes and in the DVD version it does not appear (bgsu.edu). Another example from the Lion King is that when Simba is talking to Mufasa in the sky, as he appears in cloud form, if you connect the stars male genitalia is formed. Children do not need to be exposed to these images because they are the targeted audience in this situation. One of the most blatant examples of “hidden” sexual messages occurs on the front cover of the Little Mermaid as well as the promotional posters. If you look and focus your attention to the towers, you will notice that one of the towers is shaped like male genitalia. The artist claimed that “this was the result of rushed background detailing”(bgsu.edu). The most criticized “hidden” sexual message occurred in The Rescuers. As Bianca and Bernard are just about to take off in the sardine box on top of the albatross, Orville, if you look closely in the window there is an image of a naked women in the window of the building in two separate frames, but they are not consecutive frames (bgsu.edu). This image can be clearly seen because I recently watched the movie to make sure that this claim was true, and it is the most blatant “hidden” sexual image. As a kid growing up I never noticed these things but through my research everything has come full circle and the younger audience’s were becoming exposed to these images and they had no idea that they were being exposed to such images.
In today’s society race happens in everyday life, but race also happens in Disney films as well in which I discovered through my research. The two most criticized movies that had race in them were the Lion King and Aladdin. In the opening of the movie Aladdin, the song “Arabian Nights” has a racial lyrics in it. The first 6 lyrics are: “Oh, I come from a land, From a far away place, Where the caravan camels roam, Where they cut off your ear, If they don’t like your face, It’s Barbaric but hey its home” (units.muohio.edu). They had to change the lyrics because there were protests from the American-Arab-Anti-Discrimination committee and after 6 months they changed the lyrics to: “Where it’s flat and immense, And the heat is Intense;” which is now on the DVD version (units.muohio.edu). In the Lion King, the hyenas in the movie contain African-American and Hispanic characterizations because the voices of the hyenas are done by these two nationalities. The hyenas reside in an inner city ghetto equivalent of the jungle. Their behavior and environment reinforced stereotypes of these two cultures are represented by the hyenas (units.muohio.edu). The average child would not pick up these racist stereotypes but if an adult were watching these films, they would be able to pick out the racist stereotypes. You would not think that Disney would include such a thing in a children’s movie because of the audience it pertained to, but in reality they did and they received a great amount for criticism from what they did in these films.
Another thing Disney portrays in their films is that women are seen as objects rather than human beings and they can’t do anything unless a male is involved. Snow White is a homemaker that takes care of the Seven Dwarfs and is always seen with a smile on her face but in order to come our of her coma she needs a kiss from the prince (newint.org). Ariel in the Little Mermaid had to lose her voice in order to get her legs so she could pursue her prince charming who happened to be Prince Eric, and all Disney movies have a happy ending so Ariel got her voice back and she ended up with the Prince as well (newint.org). Belle is a prisoner of the Beast and held captured in his castle and later on in the movie she becomes his princess. Jasmine is the only women in Aladdin and she is also a princess (newint.org). Each one of these characters are slim, slender, and tend to the male’s needs. While the males are the main characters, they are powerful, jacked, and are the so called “hero” figure. In Beauty and the Beast, the movie is basically saying that if a women is sweet-natured and pretty, that you can change an abusive man into a kind and gentle human being (newint.org). When you look at this from a critic’s standpoint the message is saying that it is your fault as a woman if a male is abusive (newint.org). That is not a good message Disney is sending to young girls. Finally the most obvious way how women can not survive with out a male that Disney portrays is in The Lion King. The lionesses can not defend themselves when Simba runs away due to the fact that Scar told him that he killed Mufasa and the lionesses have to wait years later until Simba returns to Pride Rock to take is kingdom back from the evil Scar. This just shows that women are weak and cannot do anything with out a male in their lives. These characters were our role models growing up as kids, but now I have discovered through my research that there is a lot more under the cover than what meets the eye.
Finally, I will be examining the nine raciest characters Disney has ever created. Over the course of my research, I found these characters to be the raciest of them all by the roles that they play in the films themselves. We will start with the ninth racist character and that happens to be the merchant from Aladdin (cracked.com). The reason why he is the ninth racist character is because of the lyrics he sings in the opening scene of Aladdin. I’ve already covered these lyrics previously in my paper. Sebastian from the Little Mermaid happens to be the eighth racist character that Disney has produced because of his lyrics to “Under the Sea” (cracked.com). He teaches Ariel that life “Under the Sea” is much better than life up on the surface with these lyrics “Up on the shore they work all day, Out in the sun they slave away, While we devotin’, Full time to floatn’, Under the Sea” (cracked.com). You really don’t pick this up as a kid, but now that I have done research on it the lyrics are totally racial seeing how the voice is done by a Jamaican man. The Crows from Dumbo are seventh on the list because of their role in the film. The lead crow was called “Jim Crow”, they were black birds acting like African-Americans, and the voices were even done by white males (cracked.com). They also were constantly smoking, wore “pimptastic” hats, and they were experts on everything “fly” (cracked.com). If you don’t think that this isn’t a stereotype then you better open your eyes and see the visuals that are staring you right in the face. The sixth person on the racist list is King Louie from The Jungle Book. All the animals in the jungle speak in highly accented British accents, but the monkeys. Just like the crows in Dumbo, African-Americans are portrayed as monkeys in the Jungle Book (cracked.com). The Siamese Twin Gang from Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers are fifth on the list. They are Asian-Americans represented by a gang of Siamese twin cats. They own their own laundry mat, run an illegal basement gambling center by having Japanese fighting fish fight inside washing machines, and they speak horrible “Engrish” (cracked.com). Moving forward to the fourth racist character in Disney films which happens to be Sunflower from Centaur from Fantasia. They are African, they polish the hoofs of prettier Aryan Centaurs, oh, and I forgot to include that while they are doing polishing the hooves they are smiling. The Indians from Peter Pan are third on the list because according to the song that they sing its for their thirst for knowledge, but they are red because the lyrics say “a long time ago a Native American blushed red when he kissed a girl” (cracked.com). Even the dance that Tiger Lilly (who was the chiefs daughter) resembled a hussy dance rather than a traditional Indian dance, it was more for laughs than anything and that’s why the racial stereotype is towards Native Americans. Uncle Remus from The Song of The South is the second on the list of racist characters because he is a happy African-American working on a plantation post Civil-War era telling stories about Br’er Rabbit; this was never released to video for that reason alone (cracked.com). Finally, the number one raciest character that Disney has ever produced is Thursday from Mickey Mouse and The Boy Thursday (Book). This was a book from 1948, where Mickey gets a crate of full of West-African bananas and instead of getting bananas he finds an African inside (cracked.com). The savage gets confused by Mickey’s lifestyle and soon starts to commit random acts of violence. One of the quotes from the book says "Let me see. A genuine African native, Mickey murmured. Perhaps I should start showing him off" (cracked.com). I do not know how they let Disney writers get away with this but I was shocked when I saw this and could not believe that they let this happen. This by far is the most racist character for a reason, and now you know why he is number one on the racist characters list.
In conclusion, the whole reason I chose this topic of “Race, Gender, and Hidden Sexual Images in Disney Films” was Professor Frechette’s influential lecture on the “Mickey Mouse Monopoly” on October 18, 2007. This lecture was what started my whole thought process on this topic and then finding out we had to do an analysis for our final research paper posed the perfect opportunity to further my research on this topic. Over the course of my paper, I gave specific examples from Disney films that had the most representation of “race, gender, and hidden sexual messages in Disney films” through my research. When I was a kid viewing these movies, I watched these movies for pleasure and fun, but after analyzing them through my research, I have learned that there is more under the cover than what meets the eye and Professor Frechette is one of the main reasons why because she was the one that introduced me to this topic through her lecture. You may think that Disney’s animated films are innocent but from a critic’s standpoint they are not what so ever because they represent race, gender, and stereotypes that do not need to be included in children’s films because children are innocent and do not need to be exposed to such content. The world today is full of these stereotypes, and when you place these into children’s animated films, they are being exposed to a way that we do not want to continue pursuing in society. So the next time you view a Disney film remember this, there is more under the cover than what meets the eye.

Disney

I am doing a paper for my Media Criticism class about race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and stereotypes found in Disney films (cartoons) dating back all the way to snow white and the seven dwarfs. So if you could provide me with your thoughts I would highly appreciate it. Thank You.