Disney Blocks Young Children from Watching 'Offensive' Movies Like 'Peter Pan' and 'Dumbo'
Disney Plus has removed several of its classic films from children’s profiles due to depictions of negative stereotypes.
These movies include “Dumbo,” “Peter Pan,” “Swiss Family Robinson” and “The Aristocats,” according to WPDE-TV.
Adults can still access the movies, which display content warnings, but children under 7 years of age using kids’ profiles cannot.
Disney’s “Stories Matter” section of its website explained why each of the films had been flagged.
In “The Aristocats,” there is a cat “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,” the company said.
The group of crows in “Dumbo” are problematic because they “pay homage to racist minstrel shows” and the leader is named Jim Crow.
“Peter Pan” displays Native culture “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,” Disney explained.
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“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.”
The pirates in “Swiss Family Robinson” also portray “a stereotypical foreign menace” by speaking in “an indecipherable language” and “presenting a singular and racist representation of Asian and Middle Eastern peoples.”
The movies that have since been pulled from children’s profiles were also slapped with content warnings in October for “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures,” NJ Advance Media reported.
“This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures,” the content warning reads.
“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.”
“Lady and the Tramp” and “The Jungle Book” have the content warning displayed, but have not yet been removed from children’s profiles.
One film that is not available to anyone on Disney+ is “Song of the South.”
The 1946 movie was the inspiration for the Splash Mountain rides at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, but after facing controversy for a “history and storyline are steeped in extremely problematic and stereotypical racist tropes,” Disney announced the imagery will be replaced by a “The Princess and the Frog” theme.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
