Editor’s Note: For the last few months, RANGE has been working with the junior and senior students at The Community School to help each of them develop a piece of journalistic writing about a local or recent news topic that interested them. As they reached the end of the capstone project, we selected a few articles that we professionally edited and will be publishing on our website in the coming weeks as part of a series we’re calling The Young RANGE. Through this project we’ve been constantly in awe at the level of student engagement, the quality of work and the RANGE of topics the youth were passionate about. We’re beyond excited to introduce you to these students and their work. – Erin Sellers
I will always remember my younger self playing Disney princesses with my friends. I always wanted to be Belle, but “You can’t be Belle, you can be Jasmine,” they would tell me. I was always Jasmine.
When I was a kid, nearly every little girl dreamed of being a Disney princess. We had a favorite we looked up to and wanted to look or act like. Many girls my age growing up had many options from Aurora to Rapunzel, but my options were limited. Because I was brown, I was stuck with one princess when they had so many choices. We didn’t know what race was as a kid, but we knew who we looked and who we didn’t look like.
It’s 10 years later, and I still have limited options.
Still, Disney is trying to fix their mistakes by remaking older cartoons as live actions and even remodeling their parks to include newer characters. But despite the changes, some people are still remembering Disney’s concerning past — including mistakes that should be acknowledged.
Let’s start with something personal: the over-sexualization of Women of Color (WOC) in Disney movies. Jasmine from Aladdin (1992) and Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) are the most sexualized characters in Disney, and it’s not just the two of them. Many WOC in media are portrayed as rebellious, fierce and seductive in a way that reinforces negative stereotypes.
“[Esmeralda and Jasmine] are a white man’s wet dream, and a constant reminder of the long-lasting effects of colonialism and orientalism on how women of color are seen in mainstream media,” Keshav Kant said in an article for OffColour.
One of the first times you see Esmeralda, she dances around a pole, which catches the villain Claude Frollo’s attention. Later, Frollo sings a song expressing his attraction to Esmeralda, where a figure of her in a fireplace proceeds to do another seductive dance.
Jasmine’s most scandalous scene in the 1992 cartoon includes a sleeveless red bandeau top and matching pants. She kisses and tries to seduce Jafar, using her body to distract the villain while Aladdin tries to steal the lamp.
Now, if those expressions of sexuality in children’s movies don’t already flag as odd to some people, I think it’s important to note that the characters are teenagers: Jasmine is 15 years old and Esmeralda is 16, at least according to the original novel the movie is based on. Despite being minors, both characters are made to use their bodies to manipulate the main villain of the story. Try to think of any white Disney princesses alluring bad guys with sexual appeal.
Spoiler: there aren’t.
The director for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Kirk Wise, openly said Esmeralda was created to look like she’d “been around.” Even back in the ‘90s, when The Hunchback came out, Spokane news outlets were writing about the sexualization and representation of WOC characters.
As someone who grew up loving and looking up to these characters, it’s sad to realize now how they were sexualized. Disney has not just wrongfully represented WOC in their movies but People of Color (POC) as a whole. Think back to other representations of POC in Disney movies. Notice any similarities?
Several of these films feature people who have been turned into animals or other creatures, or POC-coded animal characters: The Lion King (1994), Princess & the Frog (2009), Emperor’s New Groove (2000), The Aristocats (1970), Soul (2020), Brother Bear (2003) and Spies in Disguise (2019). Each falls into this pattern. From lions to llamas, Disney has undermined stories by and for POC by replacing human characters with animals.
Some of the representations of POC — or POC-coded animals — in these films are so blatantly racist that content warning have now been inserted at the beginning of them, like The Aristocats and Lady and the Tramp (1955), which both feature Siamese cats as caricatures of East Asian people. The content warning states that each of the films “includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.”
Older films from the company are often blatantly racist or problematic. In Peter Pan, for example, Indigenous characters are such drastic caricatures that they are literally red-skinned.
#notmyAriel
One of the ways Disney has tried to remedy the wrongs of their past is by doing colorblind casting for their live action remakes, which is the practice of casting without taking race into account. The most notable example of this was the casting of singer Halle Bailey as Ariel in the 2023 live action remake of The Little Mermaid.
Disney faced online criticism for the casting decision, with some calling Bailey’s casting “blackwashing,” — a term coined in opposition to whitewashing, the practice of casting white actors in roles written for Black or brown characters. The hashtag #notmyAriel circulated widely, with white pundits disavowing Bailey’s casting.
The decision also faced criticism from BIPOC communities — a Facebook post went viral in 2022 after the author complained about Disney trying to be diverse, arguing that the company “kept getting it wrong.” Many POC shared their struggles with Disney. One commenter wrote, “It’s as if we don’t have our own culture and/or stories that can be told; that we have to piggyback on white stories to be seen.”
Another comment reads, “Changing white fan favorite characters black isn’t showing representation for black people, it shows they don’t think we deserve new characters.”
Other online criticism of the casting decision was clearly rooted in racism, attacking Bailey for her appearance or vocal performance, making derogatory memes and claiming the casting was part of the “woke agenda”. By casting POC actors as characters who were originally white, Disney is subjecting these actors to online vitriol. I wonder why the company hasn’t supported POC representation by telling more genuine, original stories about POC people. Many others are confused as to why Disney chooses to remake old films instead of making new movies that represent POC people and cultures.
There are so many cultures without a Disney princess to represent them, and even the cultures that are represented are done so in ways that reinforce problematic stereotypes. Disney could have many new characters and unique stories to share, but the company chooses to remake their own movies instead.
And even the brief moments when Disney (and its subsidiary Pixar) has made new animated films featuring POC characters, like Turning Red (2022) and Luca (2021), have appeared to have been a fluke, with the chief creative director Pete Docter recently disavowing those films. He stated in a recent viral interview that moving forward, the Pixar studio doesn’t want “autobiographical films” like Turning Red and Luca, but instead wants films with more “universal” messages, like Inside Out 2, which is about the inner life of a white character.
In response to the backlash and controversy, Disney’s CEO Bob Iger has spoken out a few times about how he feels. He has said that he doesn’t want to be “agenda-driven” and is sensitive to the “woke agenda.” According to Iger, Disney doesn’t want to feel forced to make certain movies and include certain things — or people.
Despite Disney’s response to criticism, I still want to believe it’s possible for fans to influence Disney’s media representation. Maybe Disney’s dark past won’t discredit Disney’s future if they continually improve inclusivity and diversity in the media they produce. Even if they aren’t making the right decisions now, with the voices of you and I, we can advocate for the company to aim for positive, inclusive messages and stories in their media that will help shape and build the morals of future generations.
