From
the Advent of Multiculturalism to the Erasure of
Race: The Representation of Race Relations in Disney Animated Features
(1995-2009)
Eve
Benhamou (University of Warwick)
Abstract
As
one of the most powerful purveyors of entertainment in the world, the
Disney
company has produced blockbuster films, including animated features
that have
enjoyed enduring popularity. Reflecting and shaping to some extent
American
popular culture and ideology, they have left vivid images in our
memory.
Arguably, one of Disney’s most ubiquitous symbol is the beautiful
white
princess. The representation of race relations in Disney films has
always been
problematic, sometimes sparking heated debates: non-white characters
were
either absent or stereotypically portrayed. Nonetheless, in parallel
with the
advent of multiculturalism in the 1990s, a series of films have
foregrounded a
new approach on these portrayals, the most notable being Pocahontas
(1995), Atlantis
(2001), and The Princess and the Frog (2009). In this article, I will
examine
the evolution of the representation of race, focusing on the film texts
and
their historical and cultural context, production history, and critical
reception. I will argue that the apparent messages of tolerance and
promotion
of multiculturalism were accompanied and slowly replaced by a
colour-blind erasure
of race.
Key
words: Disney;
Race; Multiculturalism; Pocahontas;
Atlantis: The Lost Empire; The Princess
and the Frog
Introduction
The release of Frozen
(2013), which has become the highest-grossing animated feature in
history (BBC,
2014), has reaffirmed Disney’s reign within American animation.
Through its
media machinery, economic empire and canon of films still popular with
audiences, Disney has reflected and shaped to some extent American
popular
culture, leaving vivid images in our memory. What may come to mind is
the
beautiful white Disney princess.
The representation of race
relations and minority
identities has been a very sensitive issue within Disney films. The
depiction
of African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos has suffered in
various ways
ranging from mere absence to racial stereotypes. With the advent
of multiculturalism in the 1990s, a new wave of films has promoted a
new
perspective on these portrayals.
How did Disney
represent race relations within this new cultural context? To what
extent do
these films promote features of multiculturalism and/or colour-blind
racism? In
order to examine these questions, I will focus on three films
which either portray
American human characters, are set in the United States, or both, using
them as
case studies: Pocahontas (1995), Atlantis:
The Lost Empire (2001), and The Princess and the Frog
(2009). I will
base my analysis on observations from the film texts, and I will also
look at
their production history and critical reception.
My outline will be inspired
from Valdivia’s theory on
the history of ethnic representation in the United States. She divides
it into
four stages that can be summarized as follow: absence of race
representation
(dating back to the 18th century), adoption of stereotypes (antebellum
and postbellum politics), promotion of
multiculturalism (post-civil
rights up to the present), and hybridity/ambiguity (Valdivia 2008:
271-273). In
my first part, I will provide some historical background on
Disney’s
representation of race relations before the 1990s. In my second part, I
will
focus on the notion of multiculturalism as promoted by Disney, before,
in my
third and final part, dealing with the concepts of hybridity in
representation
and colour-blind racism.
Historical
Background: Disney and Race
Before the
1990s, the representation of race in Disney’s animated films was
limited to
minor racially stereotyped characters, in the margins of the
narratives. These
were characterized as comic and/or dangerous, and therefore perceived
as
inferior, ridiculous, and inherently ‘other’ (Wells 1998:
217-18). For instance, in 1930s animated
shorts, black
people were traditionally caricatured as man-eating African natives.
This is
exemplified in Trader Mickey (1932),
in which they are surrounded by skulls as decorative elements. They
also
communicate through grunts and babbling, wear grass skirts and nose
rings, and
have enormous lips and ample hips. These exaggerated physical
attributes
reinforced their buffoonery.[1]
The approach was similar with Native Americans. In Peter
Pan (1953) the ‘Injuns’ were a parody of the
‘whoopin’ and
hollerin’ Hollywood’s Indians’ from classic westerns
(O’Connor and Rollins
2003: 4). In Lady and the Tramp (1955),
the Siamese cats displayed features such as slit eyes and
yellow-tainted skin.
This portrayal was the legacy of Orientalist stereotyping, namely the
archetype
of the Asian people as ‘inscrutable’,
‘villainous’, and threatening to the
Western order (Akita and Kenney 2013: 62).
Aladdin (1992) was a
milestone. For the first time, ethnic
characters where in the foreground, but the Arab leads (Aladdin and
Jasmine)
were strongly Americanized through their physique and accent, in
contrast to
the villain, ‘swarthy and hook-nosed’ Jafar (Breaux 2010:
400). Moreover, the
representation of the Middle-East as backwards and violent was strongly
criticized by a minority of viewers, including the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee. For instance, the latter considered the
original
lyrics of the opening song ‘Arabian Nights’ (‘Where
they cut off your ear / If
they don’t like your face’) as ‘defamatory’.
Even if these were ultimately
altered, the line ‘It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s
home’ remained.[2]
The
Advent of Multiculturalism?
Multiculturalism had
established itself as a major
framework for analysing intergroup relations in the United States in
the early
1990s. Celebrating racial and ethnic diversity, it was a late response
to the
conservative race trends of the 1970-80s (Gordon and Newfield 1996: 1,
3). In
mainstream cinema, minorities gained increasing visibility and more
complex
representations. For example, African American actors were cast in
leading
roles and some, such as Denzel Washington and Whoopi Goldberg, became
superstar
icons (Bogle 2003: 326). Revisionist westerns ‘tried to correct
the negative
image of Native Americans that Hollywood had fostered’ (Dick
2010: 138-39), an
outstanding example being the Oscar-winning, critically and
commercially successful
film Dances with Wolves (1990).
This general increase of
cultural sensitivity and
political correctness impacted on Disney, as well as the economic
context.
Valdivia suggests that, given the undeniable growth in the racialized
population and its disposable income, it made sense for Disney to begin
including some form of representation to generate recognition and
audience
loyalty (Valdivia 2008: 270). As a result, it gingerly began to address
issues
of differences in television shows and films.
The first animated feature
tackling these themes was Pocahontas (1995),
the fourth most successful feature of 1995 at the US box office
(Pallant 2013: 95). Contrary to previous approaches, the production
team put an
emphasis on authenticity and respect regarding Native American culture
and
language. For example, costume designer Jean Gillmore stated that they
‘collected
information from historians, specialists in Native American
culture’, going
‘beyond the
fringed-dressed-with-feather-sticking-out-of-headdress Plains
Indians we’re familiar with from movies’ (Rebello 1995:
117). They went even
further with the depiction of Pocahontas. I would argue that she is
portrayed
as a larger than life mythic figure, a goddess in perfect harmony with
nature. This
is epitomized when she is first introduced: she is alone, standing
still on a
cliff which, like a throne, towers above a waterfall and a large
forest. Seen
through a low-angle shot, viewers can only gaze up at her. The camera
gradually
tracks forwards and circles her while, at one with the elements, she
closes her
eyes and lets the wind blow around her. Furthermore, she embodies the
film’s
messages of peace and tolerance, as exemplified in her song
‘Colours of the
Wind’. Co-director Mike Gabriel stated that ‘if this movie
makes one child
begin to question anyone who teaches hatred and fosters
misunderstanding, that
will be a wonderful thing’ (Rebello 1995: 197).
This supposedly revisionist
perspective was not
unanimously acclaimed by critics, often seen as merely politically
correct.
Indeed, Disney’s blend of history, legend, entertainment values
and romance
modernized and oversimplified the historical event depicted. As
D’Entremont
points out, ‘the particular cultural and historical roots’
of the colonists'
depiction of Native Americans as ‘inferior’ was replaced by
a more modern
notion of ‘racism’ ‘in its most uncomplicated
form’, mostly focused on the
villain, Ratcliffe (D’Entremont 1995: 1304). Due to
Disney’s historical
omissions, Pocahontas’ later abduction by the settlers for
instance, the film only
focuses on the myth of reconciliation and the romantic adventure tale,
while
arguably reducing the scope of colonialist violence. Moreover, the
portrayal of
Pocahontas and her people is reminiscent of the stereotype of the noble
savage,
in harmony with nature and victimised. This suggests a latent hierarchy
between
them and the white colonists.
Pocahontas was followed
by a series of films featuring ethnic leads outside America: gypsy
Esmeralda in
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1996), Chinese
Mulan (1998), etc. For scholars such
as Sheng-Mei Ma, Disney’s multicultural strategy remained
superficial: these
depictions were no longer blatantly racist, but composites based on
images,
stereotypes, and fantasies of the Other, such as ‘Chinese looking
yet American
acting’ Mulan (Ma, 2003: 162).
In the 2000s, Disney
returned to the frontier
narrative with Atlantis: The Lost Empire
(2001). Set in 1914 in Washington, D. C., the story revolves around
researcher
Milo Thatch, hired to serve as a linguist on an expedition to Atlantis.
Joining
a group of other explorers, described as ‘the best of the
best’, he eventually
reaches the city. However, he discovers a lost civilisation on the
brink of
collapse, while realizing that the real goal of the expedition, led by
Colonel
Rourke, is to steal Atlantis’ treasure. Helped by other members
and the
Atlantian Princess Kida, he manages to defeat Rourke and save the city.
Although often overlooked
by reviewers or merely
considered as ‘politically correct’ (Plath 2013), the
depiction of the
multi-ethnic American crew deserves special consideration. I would
argue that the
production team adopted a paradoxical approach, which would define
Disney’s
representation of race relations in the 2000s. Indeed, in interviews,
the
actors emphasized the film’s multicultural aspect, such as Cree
Summer, who
voiced Kida: ‘it’s a big deal’, ‘we had never
seen that before’ (Turner 2012).
Yet, it was dismissed as irrelevant by the filmmakers. Screenwriter Tab
Murphy
emphasized that they ‘didn’t really set out’ to be
‘politically correct’, but
‘just tried to come up with the most entertaining group of
characters’ they
‘could think of’: ‘an odd assortment’ which was
an ‘homage to all the “team”
movies from the past’ (West 2001). Yet, it seems surprising and
even quite
troubling that the filmmakers associated entertainment with ethnic
characters,
who apparently just happened to be, among others, an African American
doctor, a
Latina mechanic, an Italian demolition expert and a French geologist.
Focusing on the film text,
this paradox stands out. On
the one hand, for the first time in a Disney film, the characters are
given a
detailed background and a family name. They seem to be the harmonious
product
of the melting pot: for example, Dr. Sweet is the son of an African
American
soldier and a Native American woman. On the other hand, the film puts
the
emphasis on unity and team work rather than differences. In the end,
the
multicultural crew seems to function as a minor character bringing
comic
relief. The real leaders are white: Milo, the hero, and Colonel Rourke,
the
villain, there either to exploit or save Atlantis and its people.
Indeed, another striking
aspect in the representation
of ethnicity is the film’s lack of development in the portrayal
of native
characters. If in Pocahontas (1995), a
latent hierarchy between white colonists and Native Americans can be
observed,
Pocahontas remains undeniably the heroine of the film. By comparison, Atlantis’ natives are given little to
do: they must rely on Milo, the American white man, to decipher their
own
ancient language and ensure their survival. Even Princess Kida becomes
immobilised
inside a crystal during the film’s climax. Overall, the white man
maintains a
privileged position in the film, and ethnic characters ‘seem to
appear for the
sake of visual diversity’: race does not come up as an issue
(Valdivia 2008:
282). This transitory film in Disney’s history of representation
of race
relations, often overlooked due to its minor box-office success, brings
us to
its latest trend: hybridity and elision of race.
Hybridity
and Elision of Race
Bonilla Silva defines
‘colour-blind racism’ as
ignoring race and ethnic differences, which are considered to be
‘no longer a
central factor’ in American society (Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich
2011: 190). It
works to justify the contemporary racial order, while Americans remain
mostly
separate and unequal. Current research demonstrates its broad impact
among the
population and institutions. One of its central frames is
‘cultural racism’:
‘the fact of “blaming the victim”—arguing that
minorities’ standing is the
product of their lack of effort’ (Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich
2011: 193).
Bonilla Silva argues that the Obama phenomenon was compatible with
colour-blind
racism: Obama represented the American dream, and ‘did not talk
about racism’,
preaching unity instead (Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich 2011: 198-201).
These features can be found
to some extent in The Princess and the Frog (2009). The classic fairy-tale story of The Frog
Prince is transposed to 1920s
New Orleans. Tiana, a young hard-working and talented African American
woman,
has saved money all her life in order to fulfil her late father’s
dream: she is
about to buy her own restaurant. At a masquerade ball, she meets Prince
Naveen from
the fictional country of Maldonia, who was turned into a frog by voodoo
sorcerer Dr Facilier and begs her to kiss him in order to become human
again.
Then, unexpectedly, she turns into a frog herself. After numerous
adventures,
they manage to defeat the sorcerer, become humans again, and Tiana ends
up
happily married to the Prince and owner of her restaurant.
At first glance, race was
foremost for the studio. The
production team consulted representatives from the NAACP, and in
response to
negative feedback, changed the heroine’s name and employment.[4]
Contrary to previous princesses of colour, Tiana’s body was not
over-sexualized,
like Pocahontas, or caricatured, like Mulan. For a number of critics
‘the very
reality of an African American princess’ in the Disney pantheon,
after such a
dearth of fully-fledged black animated characters, was a ‘moment
of great
celebration’ (Lester 2010: 297).
Paradoxically, if Tiana was
marketed as the first
African American Disney princess, the film both addresses and erases
blackness.
Turner argues that her race is ‘not the point’: viewers
have to overlook it in
favour of her personality and achievement (Turner 2013: 84). The
message seems
to be: ‘here is the story of a successful black woman who,
through hard work’,
now has ‘access to the American dream’ (Turner 2013: 86).
This colour-blind
vision ‘sidesteps any direct questioning of inequality or
poverty’, leaving
whiteness un-interrogated (Blu Barnd 2013: 67-68).
This becomes even more
problematic if we consider that
the historical period depicted corresponds to the peak of the Jim Crow
era. It
is completely rewritten, ‘sanitized’, and
‘idealized’ through a nostalgic
recreation of the Jazz Age (Lester 2010: 301).[5]
Segregation
is only subtly suggested and smoothed down. Admittedly, Tiana and her
mother sit
at the back of the street car, but they do not seem to suffer that much
from
discrimination. The African American community is actually portrayed as
happy:
their houses may be small but they are open, their inhabitants seem
warm,
friendly and share meals together. This contrasts to the closed
stately homes and empty street from the white Garden District. White
characters may be wealthy, but they are harmless and comic: their power
is not
questioned.
Even more troubling is the
fact that the only
character who directly expresses his discontent is the villain, Dr.
Facilier
(‘Aren’t you tired of living on the margins while all those
fat cats in their
fancy cars don’t give you so much as a sideways glance?’).
Admittedly, he
shares his frustration with Naveen’s white and similarly
exploited servant:
this maintains the rhetoric of colour-blindness, and tones down his
potentially
subversive voice in this sanitized picture of the Jim Crow era. Yet, at
the
very same time, the representation of this African American character,
nicknamed ‘The Shadow Man’ and practicing sorcery
surrounded by animated African
masks, seems to draw negative connections between ethnicity and voodoo
magic.
Indeed, contrary to Tiana and her family, who embody American values of
self-help and work ethic, Facilier is portrayed as ‘other’,
in a way which
recalls Aladdin’s Jafar. As Lester
points out, it also raises ‘serious questions about
Disney’s construction of
African American maleness’: Tiana’s father dies very early
in the film, the
other black males are ‘physically challenged, illiterate and
old’, and Tiana’s
Prince is racially ambiguous (Lester 2010: 301).
The latter exemplifies
hybridity in race
representation. Gehlawat underlines that the studio ‘has gone out
of his way to
keep Naveen’s “roots” unclear’: spokespersons
said he was ‘not white’, he was
voiced by a Brazilian actor, and came from a fictional land that bore
some resemblance
to India (Gehlawat 2010: 423).[6]
Nevertheless, one should not forget that the latter and Tiana spend two
thirds
of the film as frogs. As such, the difficulties in portraying an
‘interracial romance’
within a ‘segregated reality’ is significantly reduced, as
Gehlawat points out.
Moreover, Turner stresses that the black body ‘evokes socially
and historically
constructed tropes’: black women are associated with the
stereotype of the
nurturing mammy or the hyper-sexualized jezebel, for instance (Turner
2013: 90).
This might explain Disney’s ‘avoidance’ in dealing
with blackness and race more
in depth, and its ‘adherence to the politics of
colour-blindness’ (Turner 2013:
90).
Conclusion
Beyond messages of
tolerance and an effort to
diversify characters, which obviously contrast from its racist history
of
representation, Disney’s depiction of race relations in the
1990s-2000s was undoubtedly ambiguous. The promotion of
multiculturalism remained rather
superficial, and race in itself was not overtly dealt with. Historical
and
racial conflicts were simplified and sanitized, when they were not
erased. In
the 2000s, Disney reconstructed a colour-blind world in which race not
only did
not matter anymore, but seemed invisible. Yet, when the white man was
not
privileged by the end, extreme versions of 'otherness' were still
vilified. Therefore,
while trying to appeal to a wide audience, the studio was not really
willing to
challenge the racial status quo.
Since The
Princess and the Frog (2009), the character of the white Disney
princess
has regained much popularity. Indeed, with the success of Tangled
(2010), Disney/Pixar’s Brave
(2012), the box office hit Frozen
(2013), and the live-action retellings of classic Disney films Maleficent (2014) and Cinderella (2015),
it seems that the
studio is resetting whiteness as the norm in its fairy-tale worlds,
which was
deplored by a minority of critics and bloggers.[7]
Even
films such as Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
featured an almost entirely white cast.
However, Disney might
surprise the audience in terms
of diversity and multiculturalism with the forthcoming Big
Hero 6 (2014), and its next princess project, Polynesian Moana (2018). The former is set in San
Fransokyo (a combination of San Francisco and Tokyo), and includes
Asian
American, African American and white protagonists (McMillan 2014).
Little is
known about Moana at the moment, but
it has ‘already managed to inspire its own very lively
fandom’ (Baker-Whitelaw
2014). Will Big Hero 6 rely on the
same colour-blind rhetoric as The
Princess and the Frog and Atlantis?
Will Moana be an answer to viewers’
demands for convincing portrayals of non-white heroines?
As one of the major
purveyor of entertainment in the
world and a leader within animation, Disney’s future animated
output will
undoubtedly provide much scope for further investigation and debates.
Furthermore, it is through the most constructed of all moving images of
race,
namely in animated films, that the most telling aspects of race
relations in
Hollywood iconography and American popular culture can be found.
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[1] For a more
detailed analysis of this animated short, see Willetts, 2013: 15-16
[2] The
lyrics after alteration were: ‘Where it’s flat and immense
/ And
the heat is intense’. However, both versions concluded the verse
with the
sentence ‘It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home’.
See Wise, 2003: 105 and Barnes,
2009
[3] Reviewers
such as Paul Rudnick characterised her as ‘luscious’ and
‘sexual’, Laura Shapiro pointed out that she looked like a
‘Native American
Barbie’, and Sioux tribe member and literature professor Paula
Gunn Allen
deplored that this ‘sexual stereotyping eclipses much of the
power women held
in native cultures’. See Ward, 2003: 36
[4] From Maddie the chambermaid to Tiana the waitress. See Turner,
2013: 84
[5]See also Breaux,
2010: 399
[6]
Some in-depth analyses of Naveen and his parents’
language and looks, as well as the etymology of ‘Maldonia’,
lead to suppose
that he possibly comes from ‘Pondicherry, the French colonial
outpost near the
south-eastern tip of India – or rather, that
“Maldonia” lies in close proximity
to this site of cultural and regional influence’. Gehlawat,
2010: 423
[7] For instance, Martin (2010) pointed
out that
having Tangled ‘coming on the heels
of the first African American princess’ was problematic: Rapunzel
appeared to
‘reset the standard of what princess means’. Similarly,
some bloggers
questioned the mere absence of ‘racial diversity’ in Frozen, considering the Scandinavian
setting which offered ‘a great opportunity for indigenuous
representation’. See
Stephanie (2013), Pless, (2013), and Smith
(2014)