Friday nights were dedicated to one thing and one thing only; Disney Channel movies.

From 7pm- to 9pm no one in my household was allowed to speak or interrupt my movie time, as

long as I had all my homework done. As a young kid I looked up to these Disney channel

movies, they served as my inspirations, my role models and my teachers. However, recently

during our discussion on wearing certain Halloween character costumes, such as Pocahontas, that

depicted racial characteristics in negative and stereotypical ways that can be perceived as racist, I

began to wonder if Disney Channel had contributed to our society’s stereotypes and painted

stereotypical images of minorities and gender roles in our children’s heads. Disney Channel was

created in 1987 and is primarily aimed for children between the ages of 2 to 14. Through the

years, Disney Channel had made a strong effort to appeal to a wide variety of minority groups,

depicting an array of relatable characters that can appeal to many different children around the

world. These characters ranged from images of strong independent females, such as Merida from

Brace, Tiana in The Princess and the Frog, and Mulan to the shy and quiet Belle and Snow

White. However, although many commended Disney for displaying a wide range of

diversity in popular media, evidence of racial stereotypes and gender roles within their

movies has begun to appear, which reinforce negative stereotypes within society. We can

see this in the way Disney subtly promotes racial oppression, depicts negative stereotypes of

minority groups, and enforces ideas of white privilege.

One strikingly obvious and incredibly racist example of outright racism in a Disney

movie is the character Jim Crow from the movie Dumbo. One needs only look at his name to see

how this character is inherently offensive. On top of his name, Jim Crow is depicted in a

stereotypically black manner, acting loud, lazy, rambunctious and uneducated. To top it all off,

Dumbo was released in the height of the Jim Crow era, premiering in the year 1941. These

negative depictions did nothing but harm the civil rights movement, reinforcing in American’s

minds these harmful racial stereotypes. These stereotypes are also presented in another Disney

classic, Pocahontas.

Throughout the movie, Pocahontas is depicted as a “good Indian” by the European

settlers, stereotypically categorizing other Native Americans as savages. This negative depiction

furthers the idea that white is “normal” and everything else is irregular. When we look at how

Whites are portrayed in Disney Channel, we can see a contrasting view. More often than not,

they are the princesses, princes, heroes and knights in shining armor, usually holding positions of

high power and living luxurious lives. These ideas of white superiority and the inferiority of

Native Americans reinforce the idea that many Americans hold that race is a natural thing, and

that divides and disparities are merely natural forces at work. Another example of this depiction

of racial stereotypes is in the movie The Princess and the Frog. Tiana is depicted as a poor black

woman working a low end job, scraping to make ends meet and try to accomplish her dreams. In

Lecture 6 on September 24th, we discussed how people in media are reduced to racial stereotypes

and can only be fit into specific roles. We can see these ideas employed even in Disney’s

animated film, perpetuating the idea that certain roles are meant to be filled by certain races and

genders.

Amongst these many racial stereotypes, Disney also classified gender roles within their

movies that negatively categorize females and males into certain stereotypes. Snow white is an

example of stereotypes that have continued throughout society and have had many detrimental

effects for both males and females in society. Snow White is depicted as a beautiful, obedient

and naive princess who spends a majority of her free time cleaning and cooking, portraying the

stereotype that women are only capable of household duties. The Dwarfs, however, are

illustrated as the hard-working male bread earners, who bring in money but depend on Snow

White, the stereotypical female figure, to take care of the chores. These stereotypes have

continued to been seen in society today and play a role in what roles society thinks people of a

certain gender are allowed to fill.

There is no question that Disney Channel has contributed to our societies stereotypes and

has further kept them alive by humorously and nonchalantly introducing these stereotypes in

their movies. Children are very impressionable, and presenting these stereotypes to them at a

young age will ingrain in their still-developing minds that racial differences are definite and

natural. These ingrained stereotypes help to explain why my classmates, including myself, had a

hard time realizing the effect dressing up as Pochantas might have on the people who are

negatively stereotyped by her portrayal. Disney reinforces these stereotypes with their depictions

of different groups, ranging from women to minority groups, and these reinforcements

negatively impact the perceptions of our society. I will always love Disney Channel, but after

analyzing the subtle racist undertones in their films, I will definitely be watching with a more

critical eye.