Disney Plus adds disclaimer about racist

movie stereotypes

Disney’s new streaming service adds disclaimer to "Dumbo," “Peter Pan” and otherclassics over racist stereotypes

By MAEANDERSONAPTechnologyWriter

NEW YORK -- Disney’s new streaming service has added a disclaimer to"Dumbo," “Peter Pan” and other classics because they depict raciststereotypes, underscoring a challenge media companies face when theyresurrect older movies in modern times.

The move comes as Disney Plus seems to be an instant hit. It attracted 10million subscribers in just one day. The disclaimer reads, “This program ispresented as originally created. It may contain outdated culturaldepictions.”

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Disney launched its new service, ‘Disney+’

The treasure trove of streamed content including more than 500 movies, plus thousands of TV episodes, issure to be a game-changer.

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Companies have been grappling for years with how to address stereotypesthat were in TV shows and movies decades ago but look jarring today.Streaming brings the problem to the fore.

In “Dumbo,” from 1941, crows that help Dumbo learn to fly are depictedwith exaggerated black stereotypical voices. The lead crow’s name is “JimCrow,” a term that describes a set of laws that legalized segregation. In“Peter Pan,” from 1953, Native American characters are caricatured. OtherDisney movies with the disclaimer include “The Jungle Book” and “SwissFamily Robinson.”

“Pocahontas” and “Aladdin” do not have it, despite rumblings by some thatthose films contain stereotypes, too.

On personal computers, the disclaimer appears as part of the textdescription of shows and movies underneath the video player. It’s lessprominent on a cellphone’s smaller screen. Viewers are instructed to tap ona “details” tab for an “advisory.”

Disney’s disclaimer echoes what other media companies have done inresponse to problematic videos, but many people are calling on Disney todo more.

The company “needs to follow through in making a more robust statementthat this was wrong, and these depictions were wrong,” said PsycheWilliams-Forson, chairwoman of American studies at the University ofMaryland at College Park. “Yes, we’re at a different time, but we’re also notat a different time.”

She said it is important that the images are shown rather than deleted,because viewers should be encouraged to talk with their children andothers about the videos and their part in our cultural history.

Disney’s disclaimer is a good way to begin discussion about the larger issueof racism that is embedded in our cultural history, said Gayle Wald,American studies chairwoman at George Washington University.

“Our cultural patrimony in the end is deeply tethered to our histories ofracism, our histories of colonialism and our histories of sexism, so in thatsense it helps to open up questions,” she said.

Wald said Disney is “the most culturally iconic and well-known purveyor ofthis sort of narrative and imagery,” but it’s by no means alone.

Universal Pictures’ teen comedy “Sixteen Candles” has long been decriedfor stereotyping Asians with its “Long Duk Dong” character.

Warner Bros. faced a similar problem with its “Tom and Jerry” cartoonsthat are available for streaming. Some of the cartoons now carry adisclaimer as well, but it goes further than Disney’s statement.

Rather than refer to vague “cultural depictions,” the Warner Bros.statement calls its own cartoons out for “ethnic and racial prejudices.”

“While these cartoons do not represent today's society, they are beingpresented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would bethe same as claiming these prejudices never existed,” the statement reads.

At times, Disney has disavowed a movie entirely.

“Song of the South,” from 1946, which won an Oscar for the song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” was never released for home video and hasn’t been showntheatrically for decades, due to its racist representation of the plantationworker Uncle Remus and other characters. It isn’t included in Disney Plus,either.

Disney and Warner Bros. did not respond to requests for comment.

Sonny Skyhawk, an actor and producer who created the group AmericanIndians in Film and Television, found the two-sentence disclaimer lacking.

What would serve minority groups better than any disclaimer is simplyoffering them opportunities to tell their own stories on a platform likeDisney Plus, Skyhawk said. He said that when he talks to young Indian kids,“the biggest negative is they don’t see themselves represented in America.”

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Associated Press Writer Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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