As a lot as all of us hate paying $14 for a Mickey-shaped pretzel at Walt Disney World, it’s extremely laborious to dislike any one in all Disney’s most iconic movies.
Shaping our collective childhoods in additional methods than one, Disney’s films stay among the most imaginative movies in all of popular culture, whether or not discussing a movie as groundbreaking as Snow White or Fantasia as comparatively fashionable as Frozen or Moana.
Given its close to century-long existence, nonetheless, it’s secure to imagine that even an organization as world-renowned as Disney has seen its fair proportion of controversies over time, particularly on the subject of among the studio’s extra … allow us to say “dated” movies. From early animated epics to principally forgotten live-action movies from the Sixties, listed below are a number of Disney films which have aged horrendously within the many years since their launch.
Track of the South
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A movie Disney has lengthy hoped may be forgotten by the general public, there’s a purpose Track of the South isn’t streaming on Disney+, nor has it ever been launched on dwelling media. Providing up a stereotypical view of plantation life within the late nineteenth century American South, critics fervently known as out Track of the South’s racist undertones nearly instantly after its 1946 launch. Since then, the film has solely continued to earn the ire of followers throughout the globe, with Disney quietly distancing itself from the movie over the previous seven many years.
Peter Pan
A cherished traditional in Disney’s canon, it’s unattainable to measure the recognition of 1953’s animated movie, Peter Pan. As universally beloved immediately because it was over 70 years in the past, diehard Disney followers proceed to carry Peter Pan in terribly excessive esteem, typically citing it as one of many studio’s absolute best movies. Nevertheless, it’s laborious to disregard the film’s cliched depiction of Indigenous People – one thing made all of the extra offensive by the film’s musical quantity, “What Made the Purple Man Purple?” A completely racist track by means of and thru, each scene that includes Native People in Peter Pan is sufficient to make audiences wince and shake their heads in disgust.
Dumbo
A foundational movie from Disney’s early historical past, there’s no denying Dumbo’s iconic place within the firm’s expansive filmography. But, just like the aforementioned Peter Pan, many up to date followers take problem with the film’s extra disquieting depictions of racial stereotypes. Most clearly, Dumbo introduces a band of jovial crows that attracts on quite a few cliches round Black people – together with a personality named Jim Crow, a ghoulish allusion to the U.S.’s notorious segregation legal guidelines generally discovered all through the Southern U.S. For sure, when it got here to Tim Burton’s 2019 live-action remake, the crow characters have been faraway from the movie altogether.
The Aristocats
Within the years after Walt Disney’s dying in 1966, the corporate struggled to provide animated movies of the identical excessive caliber as Snow White, Pinocchio, or Cinderella earlier than it. Nestled among the many studio’s ‘70s-era movies, most individuals seldom point out The Aristocats in the identical breath as Disney’s earliest movies or their later Renaissance initiatives. As with a number of Disney films of its period, The Aristocats additionally stays steeped in controversy for its insensitive depiction of Asian characters, as personified by the character of Shun Gon. Talking in an exaggerated accent and utilizing chopsticks to play the piano, actually all the pieces about Shun Gon is offensive by immediately’s requirements.
Woman and the Tramp
One other coveted Disney traditional with underlying racist components, Woman and the Tramp’s most troublesome attribute may be discovered with the presence of Si and Am, the meddling twin cats who terrorize Woman midway by means of the movie. As with The Aristocats’ Shun Gon, Si and Am draw on quite a few Asian stereotypes on the subject of their presence in Woman and the Tramp, whether or not their exaggerated facial options or their outrageously thick accents. When it got here time for Woman and the Tramp’s live-action remake, Disney correctly selected to interchange the characters and their associated musical quantity (“The Siamese Cat Track”) with a swinging jazz quantity sung by two Devon Rex cats as an alternative.
Swiss Household Robinson
These days, most individuals in all probability bear in mind Swiss Household Robinson extra for offering the inspiration to the Swiss Household Robinson Treehouse in Magic Kingdom than they do for its achievements as a movie. Having principally been forgotten by viewers within the six many years since its launch, Swiss Household Robinson stays an satisfying sufficient adaptation of Johann David Wyss’s traditional journey novel. Nevertheless, it’s additionally tough to look previous the stereotypical portrayal of the movie’s Asian pirates who seem close to the very finish of the movie. Like a lot of Disney’s extra problematic films, Disney+ has since outfitted Swiss Household Robinson with an advisory discover warning viewers concerning the film’s adverse depiction of Asian and Center Japanese cultures, which is as offensive now because it was in 1960.
