Sunday, February 12, 2012

Even in Disney Movies!

Disney movies have been known to have several racist subliminal messages. The movie, The Princess and the Frog was highly anticipated for people to watch before it was released in theaters because of the first African American Disney Princess. After watching the movie many people were upset due to the massive racism they included. The excitement of the movie was because she was the first African American princess. Instead of being the black princess, she was a frog most of the time throughout the movie, when the other Disney princesses were themselves the whole time. It’s ironic having an African American villain because African Americans ended up looking worse than what the movie was expected to bring to the audience.
The way Dr. Facilier is designed is racist towards African Americans. They added a gap in his teeth. African Americans are highly known to have diastema in their teeth
Paula D. Woods critiques the movie and makes a good point in her article, "black males are either dead like Tiana’s father (a throw-away role voiced by Terrence Howard) or evil charlatans in the person of Dr. Facilier." The father is only seen at the beginning of the movie. Dr. Facilier is the villain in themovie. Besides being an African American villain, he is involved with voodoo. Voodoo is considered witchcraft and symbolizes evil. He wants to take over New Orleans and give the people's souls to the “friends on the other side” which are evil shadows. The villain can be the “criminal” of the movie.

Even though the fairy godmother, Mama Odie, is not the enemy of the movie, she is also involved with Voodoo. She is African American as well, making them look like cruel people. Disney movies are mainly targeted to kids. At those ages, the kids don’t know what racism mean. They enjoy those movies because they are teaching them good morals through friendship, dreams, love, and life. At an older age you get a different meaning of the movies. Regardless of the lessons they are trying to teach to the audience, you notice they have hidden messages. Through this movie, people will get the idea that African Americans are evil.



"The Princess and The Frog: What's Wrong with This Picture."
      www.thedefendersonline.com. Ed. Paula L. Woods. 18 Dec. 2009. Web. 15 Feb. 2010.

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2 comments:

  1. Karina and stephanieFebruary 12, 2012 at 10:58 PM

    I think you did a great job in comparing the issue with a disney cartoon because kids are the ones who are watching these shows. This makes it want to think twice for parents, may be mostly the african american parents in wanting to show their kids. They are also probably too small to even notice these issues. It also shows that you went deeper into the subject to point out the voodoo and how it is evil. Overall, this is informing for myself and maybe open the eyes of other individuals.
    -Stephanie.

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  2. emilyFebruary 12, 2012 at 11:31 PM

    Daniela,
    You make a great point when analyzing this movie. It has actually also been going around that many Disney movies are actually very discriminatory but in a very non-obvious way. And kids are too small to understand this but sometimes when we grow up we go through life by what we've learned and have seen on TV. So it actually is possible that this may be affecting kids already, even if they don't know it. You make great points though, good job!

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