It’s Disney time again! It’s also discussion of modern-day
racism time again! … I can’t be alone in thinking that these two shouldn’t be
together. Sure, teaching kids from an early age that discrimination be bad is
always good, but when directly dealing with racist attitudes, it tends to get a
lot more complicated than even the more intelligent filmmakers give it credit
for. Yeah, treating someone differently because of their skin colour is pretty
basic stuff, but then there’s the continuing discussion about the root of such
things. Hell, the word ‘racism’ seems to wildly vary in terms of definition,
some attributing more direct labels to it than others. Now to add Disney to the
mix and, while I give them all the goddamned credit in the world for making
something as poignant as Inside Out, their habit of Disneyfying complex issues
is well on record by this point. I mean, one of the last times they looked at
racism was with Pocahontas and… well, let’s just say that ‘surface level’ would
be putting it very generously. But, given how the world has decided to heap on
the praise for this film’s approach on the subject, I figure looking into the
background of its depiction in family films was worth delving into first. If
for no other reason than to set myself up for a fall in case it should happen;
in the name of Katzenberg, I hope I’m wrong.
