Search results for disney

This Clymer for Pennsylvania governor poster attacks his opponent, Geary, and the Republican exponents of black suffrage, with a familiar caricature of blackness  (Jim Crow History):

Text:

Every RADICAL in Congress VOTED for NEGRO SUFFRAGE.  Every RADICAL in the Pennsylvania Senate VOTED for NEGRO SUFFRAGE.  STEVENS, FURNEY, & CAMERON are for NEGRO SUFFRAGE; they are all Candidate for the UNITED STATES SENATE.  NO RADICAL NEWSPAPER OPPOSES NEGRO SUFFRAGE.  GEARY said in a Speech at Harrisburg, 11th of August, 1866 — “THERE CAN BE NO POSSIBLE OBJECTION TO NEGRO SUFFRAGE.”

For more caricatures of black people in U.S. history, see these posts: one, twp, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen.

And for examples of modern reproductions of these stereotypes (literally), see these: one, two, three, four, and five.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

I borrowed these two ads from Jim Crow History.  According to the site, Bull Durham tobacco was among the most recognizable trademarks in the world circa 1900.  These two ads include caricatures of “foolish looking or silly acting blacks to draw attention to its product”:

NEW (Dec. ’09)! Pete W. scanned in and sent along a third ad in the series:

For more historical U.S. representations of blacks, see these posts: one, twp, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen.

And for examples of modern reproductions of these stereotypes (literally), see these: one, two, three, four, and five.

Interested in the decision to remove the iconic bull’s scrotum in advertisements? Go here.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Kay, a student at a University in Munich, sent along an invitation for a Corps Isaria fraternity, or or “Burschenschafts,” party. The cover for the invitation reads “Isarias Gute Kinderstube” which, she explains, “translates literally to good nursery and means something like being well raised, knowing how to behave.”

When you open the invitation you see a naked woman, covered only by a teddy bear, alongside baby-related items (a Snuffalufagus, a rocking Zebra, and a crib) and party-related items (a disco ball, a stag’s head, and high heeled shoes):

Kay explains that the copy, “Das Corps Isaria gibt sich die Ehre und laedt zur eskaloesesten Pyjamaparty der Stadt” translates into something like “The Corps Isaria is honored to host the most risque sleepover in town.”

The invitation is another example of the infantilization of women. Or, as Kay put it, a “mixture of the male gaze and child porn fetishism.”

For more infantilization of women, see here, here, here, here, and here, and here.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Joshua found a post over at Letters of Note about this letter, written by an Australian government employee in 1963 to the Director of Trade Commissioner Services, arguing against hiring women:

Text:

WOMEN TRADE COMMISSIONERS?

Even after some deliberation, it is difficult to find reasons to support the appointment of women Trade Commissioners.

In countries where publicity media is well developed, such as North America and England and where there are no other major drawbacks, such as the Islamic attitude towards women, a relatively young attractive woman could operate with some effectiveness, in a subordinate capacity. As she would probably be the only woman Assistant Trade Commissioner in the whole area, as other countries employ women in this capacity hardly at all, she could attract a measure of interest and publicity.

If we had an important trade in women’s clothing and accessories, a woman might promote this more effectively than a man.

Even conceding these points, such an appointee would not stay young and attractive for ever and later on could well become a problem.

It is much easier to find difficulties, some of which spring to mind are:-

(i) Women are not employed, except to an extremely minor degree, as career Trade Commissioners in any known service;

(ii) It is difficult to visualise them as Trade Commissioners, firstly because they could not mix nearly as freely with businessmen as men do. Most mens clubs, for instance, do not allow women members;

(iii) Relationships with businessmen would tend to be somewhat formal and guarded on both sides. This would make it more difficult for a woman to obtain information;

(iv) It is extremely doubtful if a woman could, year after year, under a variety of conditions, stand the fairly severe strains and stresses, mentally and physically, which are part of the life of a Trade Commissioner;

(v) A man normally has his household run efficiently by his wife, who also looks after much of the entertaining. A woman Trade Commissioner would have all this on top of her normal work;

(vi) If we engaged single graduates as trainees, most of them would probably marry within five years;

(vii) If we recruited from the business world, we would have a much smaller field from which to recruit, as the number of women executives in business is quite small;

(viii) A spinster lady can, and very often does, turn into something of a battleaxe with the passing years. A man usually mellows;

(ix) A woman would take the place of a man and preclude us from giving practical experience to one mail officer. She could marry at any time and be lost to us. she could not be regarded as a long term investment in the same sense as we regard a man.

CONCLUSION

It would seem that the noes have it.

(Signed)

(A. R. Taysom)

13th March, 1963.

P.S. I have since ascertained the following, which, it would seem, only serves to support the foregoing views –

Mr. H. W. Woodruff, U.K. Trade Commissioner:

They have a few women Trade Commissioners but only in capital city posts, for they have found that women cannot operate where contact with businessmen is necessary.

The women are fairly senior people from the U.K. Departments and presumably handle trade policy work only.

Mr. N. Parkinson, External Affairs:

Since their recruitments of trainees are made under the Public Service Act, there is no way of precluding women from applying and in fact, many more applications are received from women than from men. Some are chosen and all appointments are made on the basis of the quality of their educational achievements. About one woman is appointed to every twelve men. This year one out of sixteen, last year one out of twelve and the previous year, none.

They have to be trained for 18 months before going to their first post. The average marries within five years.

It is a very expensive process, but External Affairs lack courage to slam the door because of parliamentary opinion, pressure groups and so on.

(Signed)

(A. R. Taysom)

I find point (v) particularly fascinating, as it expressly recognizes the benefits to male professionals of having a wife at home doing many types of behind-the-scenes labor that contribute to his success, and that a female professional might be at a disadvantage in a world in which she is expected to compete against men who do not have to do a “second shift” of childcare and housework after they get home.

I am 34 and unmarried. Do I qualify as a “spinster lady” yet?

See also our recent post on a U.S. letter from the 1930s begging for women to be fired so men could have their jobs and this rejection letter, based on sex, from Disney’s Painting Department.

As a fan of both sci fi and pre-WWII pop culture, I naturally have a lot of affection for Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. There’s much to be enjoyed about the original comic strip (which basically invented the style that led to the creation of super-hero comics), the 1936 serial starring Buster Crabbe, and even the 1980 movie, which I’ve mentioned before.  The 1970’s softcore porn version, Flesh Gordon, is also a lot of fun.  Although the various incarnations get pretty complicated, the basic story is of a regular guy from Earth who ends up on a bizarre alien planet, where he inadvertently becomes a hero in the struggle against Emperor Ming, the tyrant who has been keeping the whole planet under his thumb.  With the recent rebirth of big budget sci fi and comic book adaptations, the time almost seems perfect for a new Flash Gordon movie.  It’s never quite been done cinematic justice, and the basic story would hold up well to a modern interpretation.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

As you may know, Disney has a movie coming out later this year called “The Princess and the Frog,” a retelling of the story of the princess who kisses a frog that then helpfully turns into a handsome prince for her to marry. The noteworthy aspect of this film, aimed at a mainstream audience, is that the female protagonist is African American. We’ve seen Disney films with non-White protagonists before–“Mulan” and “Pocahontas,” for instance–but to my knowledge there haven’t been any with a Black main character, unless I guess you count the Uncle Remus stuff, and that’s just a whole lot of ick.

While many people have eagerly awaited “The Princess and the Frog,” Disney’s long history of negative or stereotypical portrayals of non-White characters (i.e., “Fantasia“) meant many were concerned about what the final product might be, expressing concerns based on the trailer and other promotional materials that have emerged so far. Margaret Lyons at EW.com says,

Disney’s track record with racism and racist caricature makes me a little nervous when I see stuff like that toothless firefly.

According to Jezebel, “…Tiana was originally a maid named Maddy (to0 close to mammy?)…” And Leontine says,

…based on this trailer, the other things that Black people get to do are voodoo shit, playing jazz and dancing, and making jokes about their butts.  Charming.

For the record, the protagonist is only African American for part of the movie; for a good chunk of it she’s a green frog. But then, doesn’t the princess turn into an ogre in at least some of the “Shrek” movies? I can’t quite recall.

The movie website has a video game. In the game (from io9),

…Tiana, is sent on a mission to retrieve the rich white girl’s tiara, so she can borrow it, but along the way she’s asked to fetch some hot sauce for the gumbo before she has permission to get to the rich girl’s bedroom.

A screenshot of the hot sauce part:

Rebekah R. pointed out a deck of promotional cards handed out at Comic-Con (also at io9). There are some interesting gender and racial elements. Here are Tiana’s parents; note that her mother is “nurturing” while her father is “inspirational”:

Dr. Facilier is a “witch doctor,” practices voodoo, and looks a bit like cartoonish images of pimps I’ve seen now and then:

I did notice that the valet (is that the same as a butler?) for the prince is White rather than Black:

The text for one of the cards says “It’s not in yo’ cards”:

Here’s Mama Odie, the godmother figure, is a “seer” with a snake:

These images and objections are interesting by themselves, but they also bring up some of the difficulties in portraying groups that have historically been stereotyped negatively and occupied a subordinate social status. For instance, the fact that Tiana was originally going to be a maid wouldn’t, on the surface, necessarily be that different from “Cinderella,” in which the (White) protagonist is basically a maid. And there’s nothing wrong with playing jazz or, for that matter, practicing voodoo (which could be seen as very similar to the magic that is so common in kids’ films).

But of course, an image of a Black woman as a maid carries different connotations than that of a White woman doing the same job. There have certainly been large numbers of White maids  in the U.S. as well as other countries; in the late 1800s many female Irish immigrants to the U.S. took jobs as domestic servants. But they fairly quickly transitioned, as a group, into other types of work. African American women were stuck with jobs as maids a lot longer because of job discrimination. The “Mammy” figure, a happy-go-lucky servant pleased to take care of the White family she worked for, was applied exclusively to Black women.

Depicting Cinderella as a maid doesn’t play into pre-existing stereotypes of White women; it’s just an individual portrayal. A Black character cast as a maid, to many people, reproduces an image of Black women that goes beyond the individual–whether the creators intend to or not, such images bring with them associations to the Mammy character and real oppression of African American women in a culture that saw them primarily as servants for more privileged groups.

Disney may have intentionally tapped into those cultural images when Tiana was originally imagined as a maid for a White character (as well as including other stereotypical elements). Or the creators may have unthinkingly reproduced stereotypes because, when thinking about characters to use in a movie set in New Orleans with a Black protagonist, they drew on existing cultural imagery. In the absence of a concerted, thoughtful effort to avoid reproducing them, it’s not surprising that problematic elements show up in TV shows, movies, and so on.

Anyway, this should be an interesting situation to watch unfold when the movie is finally released.

UPDATE: Commenter John Lewis says,

This movie’s worth analyzing, but Gwen’s commentary here is not among the most insightful I’ve read on this blog. From my viewing of the trailer, without knowing much else about the film, I think she’s really reaching.

I don’t know that I’m “reaching,” exactly–we know quite a bit of other stuff about the film, such as the fact that Disney originally had Tiana cast as a maid, and that many people who want this to be a good film are very frightened about how it might turn out, which I think is fascinating in and of itself–but he’s right about it not being the best commentary ever. Meh. It’s free content, people, and this is the first week of classes. My brain works better at putting together a coherent argument some days than others. Taking the post down b/c it’s not my best, or b/c people say I’m off-base, seems sort of intellectually dishonest, like I’m trying to hide anything that gets criticized, so I guess I’ll just leave it up and people can read the critical comments.

And in my defense, it also turns out Disney has recut the trailer and some of the scenes that were in it when I first started writing up some commentary aren’t in it any more. I didn’t realize when I found a link to the trailer after the original link disappeared that it had been changed to leave out some things I found odd in the first one.

See also this post that includes a discussion of concerns that the movie “Up” wouldn’t be popular because it had an Asian lead character as well as our post on gender in Pixar films, gender roles in “Bee Movie,”

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Matt C. snapped some pictures of the advertising campaign for the movie Captivity (2007) in Los Angeles.  According to this billboard, it’s about abduction, confinement, torture, and termination:

What Matt found interesting was that some of this advertising was placed immediately outside of stores that cater to small children and their parents.  Check it out:


Does this suggest to you that we have become so desensitized to violent imagery that no one thinks to, or is empowered to, object when such images are placed at the entrance to children’s spaces?  Or, is the image in question considered tame compared with other imagery we regularly consume (the billboard, for example) and, therefore, unremarkable?

More pictures on Matt’s blog.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Genderkid, Andrea J., Laura S., and Jessica C. all sent in links to the Fallen Princesses photographs. About her project, photographer Dina Goldstein writes:

These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues… Disney’s perfect Princesses [are] juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.

You may want to check out a discussion on Racialicious about presenting Jasmine in a war zone and Women’s Glib‘s discussion of the representation of fatness as “fallen” (and the stereotype that fat people gorg on fast food).

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.