Racism in Animated Films

Disney, Pixar, Universal Pictures, and Dreamworks movies are some of the most well-known and sought-after films in the world, guaranteeing to pack in the theatres and become a blockbuster hit. Although they try to promote positive messages in their movies, they do have underlying controversial views that can prove dangerous for children to learn. Ignoring the body image and sexist values also promoted, racism is a very prevalent concept that needs to be noted and fixed. Not only are they valuing white characters and voice actors in their films, but they are also giving off derogatory views of minorities and favoring ethnic stereotypes when designing their characters.

In an article from The Guardian called “Repressed Brits, Evil Mexicans, Arab Villains: why are Hollywood's animated movies full of racist stereotypes?”, they talk about how these film company’s racist connotations need to be fixed and that they need to move on from their “1970’s views”. For instance, in Universal Pictures Despicable Me 2, the villain Eduardo, aka El Macho, is “a grossly caricatured Mexican… who is fat, big-nosed, sentimental, and wears an open-necked shirt exposing a large medallion over his hairy-chest.” (The Guardian). To make matters worse, as a cover for his villainous ways, he owns a Mexican restaurant called “Salsa and Salsa” and he owns a chicken. This is not only an extremely degrading portrayal of Mexicans, but one that is too often used in films and that needs to be fixed. Sadly, Hispanic culture is not the only culture that is being demeaned in films, but also African-Americans, Asians, Middle-Easterners, and even Native Americans. 

When Disney, or any other film company, is creating a non-white character, it seems as if they always choose a modern stereotype to include in their design. For instance, in Disney’s Scottish princess movie Brave, majority of the characters are donned with flaming red hair and bulky bearded men. The same goes for Dreamworks Viking-themed movie How to Train Your Dragon, with majority of the men sporting burgundy or blonde facial hair, fur clothing, and helmets with horns. Another type of racism posed in a Disney film that The Guardian commented on was about the new Disney hit Frozen. Although there is not an obvious stereotyping seen in the movie, Disney made the movie completely dominated by Caucasians and missed an opportunity to place other types of people in the film.

Not only do these companies create socially conventionalized characters, but they also assign voice actors to characters based on their role in the film and appearance. For instance, in Disney’s The Lion King, a movie based in Africa about a lion fighting for his rightful position as king, they assign Matthew Broderick, a very talented, but very white man, to be the voice actor for the main character Simba. They proceed to predominantly assign all the main characters with white voice actors and leave the outcast, evil hyenas to be voiced by Whoopi Goldberg, who is African-American, and Cheech Marin, who is Mexican-American. I wish this weren’t true, but there are many more examples proving that these companies do place non-white, ethnically inspired characters in stereotypical positions. For instance, Donkey in Shrek, Gloria and Marty in Madagascar, Nico and Pedro in Rio, and so many more. 

Although Disney has made a little bit of progress in fixing this matter with adding Tiana, a black princess, and Finn, a black storm-trooper in Star Wars, they need to keep progressing and fixing their character designs so that they don’t come across as extremely stereotypical. But why must we really fix this problem? Because as The Guardian said, “… racism is learned, and how diversity is portrayed on screen is a big part of that learning process. One day, our children could look back on these movies in the same way that we see Song of the South, and wonder why their parents did so little about an iniquity that was staring them in the face.” The world is changing and new views are forming, and in order to save the integrity of kids and anyone who watches these films, our media must change with it.