by Naomi Blackman

Created on: January 14, 2009

Where American
Dreams Come True

A close look at how Disney animated films neglect cultural differences and promote American Ideals

For several decades, children have grown up with Disney animated films. As much as these films are intended for a younger audience, Disney manages to entertain a wide variety of age groups. Older classic Disney films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Pinocchio

featured moral lessons usually influenced by traditional Anglo-Saxon, Christian Americans. This narrow illustration started to change with newer Disney movies such as Aladdin, Mulan and Pocahontas. As the Disney conglomeration grew, they started to produce more and more films with characters of various races. This inclusion is supposedly showing Disney's acceptance and integration of all ethnicities; however, despite Disney's incorporation of various races, traditional stereotypes are used to represent these races and their associated cultures. Although Disney's portrayal of race has is not blatantly racist, contemporary movies such as Aladdin, Mulan and Pocahontas
still encompass racial stereotypes that continue to be prominent influences on children's perception of racial norms. Whether or not these stereotypes are accurate or inaccurate, negative or positive, or harmless or hurtful, these Disney films simultaneously present cultural diversity while overriding cultural and historical differences by promoting American ideology as universalistic.

Often Disney films featured white protagonists, with ethnic minorities reserved for supporting characters and villains. Much of the time, Latino, African American and Asian cultures were represented solely through animals. Latino's have only ever been depicted as fast-talking Chihuahua's as is seen in one example in the character of Tito in Oliver and Company (Sun 2002). The only early Asian representations seen in Disney films are the mischievous and stealthy Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp (ibid). Perhaps the most common early stereotypical representation belongs to African Americans, who have been portrayed in Disney films as crows in Dumbo, hyenas in The Lion King, and apes in films such as The Jungle Book and Tarzan (ibid). In earlier years, anytime an African American voice and character was used, they were seen as jiving, hip-hop dancing and carefree (Sun 2002). Earlier Disney films tended to use racialized animals as subdominant characters whose main purpose was comic relief.

Aside from using racial stereotypes as comedic

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