davidh777

Thanks for the double-hosting, LJG!

caligulathegod

Yeah, that's what I meant by non-animal characters. They did have animals that "coded" as black. But outside of the crows in Dumbo, the servant centaur in Fantasia (I watched an uncensored version), the orangutans in Jungle Book, and some less stereotypical ones like Pearl Bailey as an owl in Fox and the Hound, they had NO human characters who were of African descent. This includes walking around in the background! I didn't phrase it as "of color", because they did have Indians in Jungle Book, Indigenous peoples of North America in Peter Pan and Pocahontas, South Americans in the travelog films, Middle-Eastern people in Aladdin, Asians in Mulan and so forth. Now, once the Nine Old Men died off they seemed to pull it off with less condescension. They went right to Ving Rhames within a few movies and he was cool. As i said, i don't think they were being deliberately racist, but that's just how things were at the time. Even something like Song of the South (which is not in the official Disney classic canon) was meant to celebrate African culture but was just so tone deaf in execution they didn't realize how offensive it really is. It's a shame, too, because James Baskett as Uncle Remus is so wonderful and the stories are treasured African folklore well animated and acted. There really should be a way for them to acknowledge the shortcomings of the film yet allow it to be enjoyed for what it is. Pretty much every ethnic group was portrayed as a stereotype. One of my favorite character voice artists did at least five in one movie! (Lady and the Tramp, where Bill Thompson [AKA Droopy Dog] did five dialect parts, as Jock the Scottish Terrier, Bull the Cockney bulldog, Dachsie the German dachshund, Joe the Italian cook, and the Irish policeman in the zoo.).


Oh, and thanks for hosting.