When Disney Plus
launched, it did so with a vague warning attached to some of its older, more,
well, racist content, citing them as outdated. Recently, that warning got a
whole lot more specific.
As pointed out by NPR,
Disney has recently changed the message that appears before certain streaming
content on Disney Plus, strengthening and elaborating the message. The message
is now much more specific as to what sort of content is being referred to and
contains a link to a Disney website containing more information.
Here’s what the
advisory reads as now, via Disney:
This program
includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These
stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content,
we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation
to create a more inclusive future together.
Disney is committed
to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the
rich diversity of the human experience around the globe.
To learn more about
how stories have impacted society, please visit www.disney.com/StoriesMatter
The linked website
includes more information about Disney’s motives for including the advisory,
which are purportedly “to spark conversation and open dialogue on history
that affects us all” and “acknowledge that some communities have been
erased or forgotten altogether, and we’re committed to giving voices to their
stories as well.”
Later on, the page
also includes some pretty interesting explanations for a few example pieces of
content, all old Disney films: Aristocats,
Dumbo, Peter Pan, and Swiss Family
Robinson. Here’s Disney’s own description of Dumbo’s racist content, for example:
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.”
Which, yes, that is
extremely racist. The move feels like a response to criticism of the original
advisory message, which was very general about what sorts of content had
engendered the advisory in the first place, which, so far as conversation
starters go, isn’t exactly effective. This definitely seems like a move in the
right direction.
https://gizmodo.com/disneys-response-to-mulans-xinjiang-backlash-is-unsurpr-1845024844
The Stories Matter
webpage also includes a list of advisors behind the company’s diversity program
and the new messages on Disney Plus; the list includes the African American
Film Critics Association and the GLAAD Media Institute.
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