See an elephant fly away
Disney+ blocks ‘Dumbo’ & ‘Peter Pan’ over ‘stereotypes’
More like Disney minus. Months after flagging classic flicks over stereotypical portrayals, Disney+ has now decided to go whole hog and block kids’ access to several of its once-loved, now-controversial titles.
Children under 7 will be unable to access “Dumbo,” “Peter Pan” “Swiss Family Robinson” and the “The Aristocats.” Settings on the Disney+ app will prevent the movies from even showing up on the young viewers’ profiles.
Disney explained its rationale for the removals on the kid-focused “Stories Matter” section of its Web site.
They cited the infamous singing crows in “Dumbo” (1941), which “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,” per the site.
Another animated classic, “Peter Pan” (1953), and the live-action castaway tale “Swiss Family Robinson” (1960), were axed for their negative portrayals of Native Americans and foreigners, respectively.
Even “The Aristocats” — about musically inclined cartoon felines — was deemed problematic due to one Siamese cat’s “exaggerated stereotypical traits,” such as “slanted eyes and buck teeth.”
The cat also “sings in poorly accented English voiced by a white actor and plays the piano with chopsticks.”
Adults will still be able to access — and thereby show their children — the taboo movies with disclaimers.
“These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now,” the advisories read. “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.”