When I was little, The Little Mermaid was my favorite Disney cartoon. I watched it hundreds of times; now my four year old is working on beating my record. I still know all the songs and stop what I'm doing to watch my favorite parts with her, but it's just not the same. Now, as I watch, I notice that Sebastian, the crab, is the only character to talk with a Jamaican accent. He also has extremely large lips, I now see this as supporting stereotypes about the difference in appearance between caucasians and blacks. I also see that gender stereotypes run rampant throughout the film. Ariel's only desire is to leave her world to marry Eric, the man of her dreams, even though this means she will never be able to see her family again. She's willing to give up her entire world for a man.
Also, when the sea witch, Ursula convinces Ariel to give up her voice in exchange for three days on land, she sings about the fact that women don't need a voice, and that men “up there don't like a lot of blabber. They think a girl who gossips is a bore. Yes, on land it's much preferred For ladies not to say a word . And after all, dear, what is idle prattle for?” (see all the lyrics at http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/thelittlemermaid/poorunfortunatesouls.htm)
It turns out that Ursula is right. Eric does fall in love with Ariel without hearing her say a word, then he dumps her for the witch who can sing, arranging an immediate marriage because it's apparently not necessary to get to know a woman at all before you marry her.
OK, the movie has a happy ending, and I still enjoy singing the songs along with my daughter, but I can't enjoy the movie because I'm too wrapped up in the stereotypes that I see now that I didn't notice before. I wonder how much those messages impacted my views on relationships and women's roles in them? I think my daughter should watch something else.
Disney is notorious for have blatant stereotypes in their movies. For the longest time the running joke of Disney was that there wasn’t a black princess. Then good news for all after about 100 years Disney finally made a movie with a black princess, The Princess Frog. Now I don’t know if you have seen it or not, but it made me uncomfortable at how stereotypically and borderline straight racist I perceived that movie. Of course it has a happy ending, but leading up to that happy ending is almost ridiculous. The starts with a 2 little girls playing one is white in a huge fancy dress and the other girl is black in a plain dress. The black girl’s mom is making another princess dress for the little white girl. It flashes to the present where the two girls are still friends, but the black girl is working 2 jobs to save up to buy a restaurant where as the rich white girl is going to throw a party to woo a prince who has come to town so she can officially be a princess. It takes place in New Orleans the villain is black, and the characters are drawn to resemble stereotypes as well. It’s awful. Disney does a lot better with their politically correctness with the help of Pixar and their television shows.
ReplyDelete