Disney+ has removed “Peter Pan,” among other films from kids’ profiles due to “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.”
As Kids Profiles on Disney+ include TV series rated TV-7FV and rated G movies, the streaming service has removed some titles recently viewed as appropriate for children.
“Titles with a content advisory notice related to negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures have been excluded,” Disney+’s help center states.
Disney’s Stories Matter website states more details on some movies which house content advisories. Some advise of “exaggerated stereotypical traits,” “racist minstrel shows,” “portrays Native people in a stereotypical manner,” among others.
Excerpts from Disney’s Stories Matter website:
- Aristocats (Rated G, Dec. 1970)
The cat is depicted as a racist caricature of East Asian peoples with exaggerated stereotypical traits such as slanted eyes and buck teeth. He sings in poorly accented English voiced by a white actor and plays the piano with chopsticks. This portrayal reinforces the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype, while the film also features lyrics that mock the Chinese language and culture such as “Shanghai, Hong Kong, Egg Foo Young. Fortune cookie always wrong.”
- Dumbo (Rated G, Oct. 1941)
The crows and musical number pay homage to racist minstrel shows, where white performers with blackened faces and tattered clothing imitated and ridiculed enslaved Africans on Southern plantations. The leader of the group in Dumbo is Jim Crow, which shares the name of laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. In “The Song of the Roustabouts,” faceless Black workers toil away to offensive lyrics like “When we get our pay, we throw our money all away.”
- Peter Pan (Rated G, Feb. 1953)
The film portrays Native people in a stereotypical manner that reflects neither the diversity of Native peoples nor their authentic cultural traditions. It shows them speaking in an unintelligible language and repeatedly refers to them as “redskins,” an offensive term. Peter and the Lost Boys engage in dancing, wearing headdresses and other exaggerated tropes, a form of mockery and appropriation of Native peoples’ culture and imagery.
- Swiss Family Robinson (Rated G, Dec. 1960)
The pirates who antagonize the Robinson family are portrayed as a stereotypical foreign menace. Many appear in “yellow face” or “brown face” and are costumed in an exaggerated and inaccurate manner with top knot hairstyles, queues, robes and overdone facial make-up and jewelry, reinforcing their barbarism and “otherness.” They speak in an indecipherable language, presenting a singular and racist representation of Asian and Middle Eastern peoples.
Disney’s Stories Matter’s website says the advisory council they use “to increase cultural competency,” is composed of:
- African American Film Critics Association
- Coalition of Asian Pacific in Entertainment
- Define American
- Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
- GLAAD Media Institute
- Hollywood, Health & Society
- IllumiNative
- National Association of Latino Independent Producers
- RespectAbility
- The Science & Entertainment Exchange
- Tanenbaum – Combating Religious Prejudice
Photo: Screenshot of Disney+’s feature image for Peter Pan.
–
Like and follow MyParisTexas.com on Facebook – Reporting local news in Paris and Lamar County, Texas.
