The Summariser

Original text:

The company has been addressing its historical racism and sexism, adding disclaimers to films and altering theme park rides. But these moves have stirred contempt as well as approval.

Very little ammunition is required for a culture war these days, so long as your troops are primed to mobilise at the drop of a blog. Julie Tremaine and Katie Dowel, two writers for the online newspaper SFGate, discovered this last month. Their review of the revamped Snow-White ride at Disneyland was generally positive but queried a new scene showing the prince giving Snow White the all-important “true love’s kiss”.

“A kiss he gives to her without her consent, while she’s asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it’s happening,” they wrote. “It’s hard to understand why the Disneyland of 2021 would choose to add a scene with such old-fashioned ideas of what a man is allowed to do to a woman.”

Matters escalated quickly and predictably. Within 24 hours, the review was reported across Twitter and conservative media. Fox News ran 13 segments on the story in one day: “Cancel culture going after Snow White”; “The woke movement taking aim at Disneyland”, etc. The UK’s Sun chimed in: “Snow White may be CANCELED” [sic]. As did Piers Morgan in the Daily Mail: “Leave Snow White’s Prince alone, you insufferable woke brats.” Then Fox News reported on that: “Piers Morgan slams consent criticism over revamped Snow-White ride.” And so forth. All of them triggered by a single paragraph in an online review.

Disney increasingly finds itself caught in the crossfire of these skirmishes. Understandably, to some extent, since it is the biggest target. Already a byword for family entertainment, Disney is now the dominant purveyor of popular culture following its gradual acquisitions of Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Avatar, Alien, The Muppets, The Simpsons, and numerous other household-name properties. But having successfully captured entertainment’s centre ground, Disney now finds itself under attack on both flanks. From one side, it is criticised for its old-fashioned and bigoted legacy; from the other, it is criticised for being too “woke”. What’s an unprecedentedly powerful media corporation to do?

It would be fair to say Disney had some ground to make up. In the era of #TimesUp, #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, the company has had to look at both its current practices and its back catalogue. With the launch of its streaming service, Disney+, in 2019, that back catalogue became both an asset and a liability. The classic Disney films are part of the draw for subscribers, but Disney’s history of racist caricatures and ethnic stereotyping has been well documented and routinely criticised: the crows in Dumbo that drew on racist minstrel caricatures of African Americans; the Islamophobic tropes in Aladdin; the mockery of Native Americans in Peter Pan … the list goes on.

Contrary to the hysteria, Disney has not “cancelled” these titles; nearly all of them are available on Disney+. However, they are appended by an advisory notice warning of “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.” “These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now,” it 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.” As well as Dumbo, Aladdin, The Aristocats and Peter Pan, the advisory notice appears in front of titles such as The Muppet Show (the episode where Johnny Cash sings in front of a Confederate flag), and the live-action 1960 adventure Swiss Family Robinson (for its stereotyped Asian pirates).

Last October, the company also introduced its “Stories Matter” initiative, pledging to be more inclusive and consultative, and acknowledging Disney’s responsibility to “consciously, purposefully and relentlessly champion the spectrum of voices and perspectives in our world”. Disney has been making progress in this area with its recent movies, such as Moana, Coco, Zootropolis, Raya and the Last Dragon and Soul – all of which steered away from white, western, male-dominated perspectives. Its remakes of titles such as Aladdin and Dumbo have also been an opportunity to scrub out contentious aspects of the originals.

On the theme park side, too, Disney has also been removing problematic aspects of its rides and committing to workplace inclusion such as allowing gender-inclusive hairstyles, jewellery, nail styles, costume choices and even “appropriate visible tattoos”. (Before 2012, front-of-house workers were not even permitted to have beards). As with the movies, there is a long history here. In the 1990s, for example, Florida’s Walt Disney World opened a resort named Dixie Landings, which was themed as a pre-civil war cotton plantation (it was renamed in 2001).

Last summer, Disneyland, California, pledged to re-theme its Splash Mountain log-flume ride around the 2009 animation The Princess and The Frog. Previously, it had been themed around the notorious 1946 movie Song of the South, one of the worst chapters in Disney’s history. Even before it was released, Song of the South drew objections from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) among others for its Black stereotyping and its depiction of happy, singing slaves on an idyllic southern plantation. Disney ignored the criticisms and released the movie anyway, then re-released it several more times up until 1986 (the fact it did decent box office every time tells its own story). Song of the South was quietly removed from circulation after that, but in 1989, Disneyland still chose to theme its expensive new Splash Mountain ride around the film. It is one of the few titles not on Disney+.

According to one long-term Disneyland employee (who did not wish to be identified), the parks’ problematic aspects were regular topics of conversation among staff. “Disney would get complaints all the time from people inside the company, who were saying, like: ‘Hey, this doesn’t feel right to me.’ But there’s a culture that has existed for a long time of ignoring these things. By staying silent, they just created a bigger and bigger problem.” Black visitors, especially, often felt unwelcome when confronted with rides such as Splash Mountain, the employee says. The Black Lives Matter protests of last summer were a catalyst for change: “Now the company has gone in the opposite direction of saying: ‘Hey, if you see something that seems problematic, or seems like it’s not going to be welcoming to our audience, talk about it, send an email, bring it up with your leads.’ That openness to conversation didn’t exist prior to 2020.”

Every change Disney makes in this direction is more ammunition for the “Disney pushing its woke agenda” outrage machine. The Snow White incident followed in the wake of similar flare-ups over, to name a few, the inclusion of a gay character in the 2017 live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast; the advisory notices (“Disney+ cancels the Muppets?”); the dismissal of Mandalorian actor Gina Carano after she appeared to compare the treatment of Republicans in the US to that of Jewish people in Nazi Germany; and even Disneyland’s relaxation of its employee dress code.

Earlier this month, the anti-woke brigade felt they had struck gold with the disclosure of an internal Disney document titled “Allyship for Race Consciousness” that gave advice on how to talk and what to do about race issues. It discussed concepts such as systemic racism, white privilege and offensive rhetoric such as “all lives matter” and pointed to external reading materials. The document was advisory, rather than proscriptive, but in the words of the journalist Christopher Rufo, who exposed the document, it was proof that “Disney executives have elevated the ideology of critical race theory into a new corporate dogma”. Or as Tucker Carlson put it on Fox News, “Disney is encouraging book-burning, telling us that equality is wrong, that we’re not all equal and that some of our lives matter more than other lives.”

Disney – which declined to comment for this piece – responded with a statement that “these internal documents are being deliberately distorted as reflective of company policy, when in fact their purpose was to allow diversity of thought and discussion”. This is the larger culture war some conservatives are itching to wage: that Disney is part of a radical socialist agenda; that examining the US’s racist past is itself somehow racist; and that white conservatives are the real victims. As with the often-misused word “woke”, “critical race theory” is a vague, semantically elastic notion rather than an actual thing, but Republicans are now passing legislation to ban its teaching in schools. And, inevitably, some conservative pundits have been calling for people to boycott Disney. For its perceived “cancel culture”, Disney itself must be cancelled.

Walt Disney himself strove to avoid political statements, the better to claim that his films were for everyone. But he engaged in anti-trade unionism and McCarthyist anti-Communism in the 1940s, and generally leaned towards conservatism in his espousal of “traditional family values”. He may not have been overtly racist, but he was at best stubbornly ignorant of cultural sensitivities and non-white sensibilities. His attitudes were reflected in his products.

“Disney has never been apolitical,” says John Wills, director of the University of Kent’s Centre of American Studies, and author of Disney Culture. “Although it gives a superficial identity that its stories and its products are harmless entertainment, there have clearly been agendas within Disney over time and those have very much shifted over the past 100 years. Historically, Disney was about Walt’s vision of preserving an America that in many ways had already passed. It’s a kind of nostalgia for a conservative landscape.”

This is not the first time Disney has been targeted for departing from those values. In 1996, Christian groups led by the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Family Association waged a nine-year boycott of the studio for “increasingly promoting immoral ideologies such as homosexuality, infidelity, and adultery”. Their motivation was the adult-oriented films such as Priest and Pulp Fiction (being released by Disney subsidiary Miramax), its ABC talk show presented by Ellen DeGeneres, an out lesbian, and its gay-friendly employment terms.

This is the other reason why Disney has become such a target in the culture wars. If culture is upstream from politics, as the saying goes, then Disney is close to the river’s source. Its products are not only near ubiquitous, but they are also aimed at children. Indeed, they are among the first movies and characters many of us see. Every generation has grown up with them and absorbed their values. So, nostalgia for the Disney of the past readily feeds into nostalgia for the America of the past – at least for those who believe the past was a better place.

The backlash against Disney reassessing its history and discussing matters such as white privilege and systemic racism, mirrors current interrogations of America’s own racist history. For some, putting a disclaimer in front of Dumbo or questioning Snow White is on a par with removing Confederate statues or teaching schoolchildren about slavery.

If Disney is forced to pick a side, the conservative agenda is likely to lose out, says Shilpa Davé, assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. This is not purely a matter of principle. “It’s self-interest, too,” she says. “What has happened is that they realise that they must appeal to a changing demographic, so the bottom line for them is: how are they going to get more customers? And how are they going to appeal to new generations? And so, part of this is: yes, we want to include diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, because that’s where our generations are going. They must be forward-thinking if they want to succeed. We live in a global world. And we also live in a racially diverse, a class diverse, a religiously diverse world, and we cannot isolate ourselves. Corporations understand that.”

The Disney employee agrees: “It’s quite fascinating to see how there’s this whole thing of: ‘They’re bowing to the woke mob.’ It’s, like, no, they’re doing this because it’s good business to do things that appeal to a larger demographic. They can’t just appeal to the conservative audience; they need to appeal to everyone. Capitalism isn’t on your side here.”

There will surely be further battles to come. Just as Disney’s legacy on race has undergone an overhaul, so the Snow-White incident suggests issues of sexual consent could be the next battleground. This is not a new problem. In 2018, the Frozen voice actor Kristen Bell told reporters she used Snow White to teach her daughters about stranger danger and consent, asking them: “Don’t you think that it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission?”

Keira Knightley raised similar misgivings the same year, even as she was promoting Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Knightley did not want her daughter to watch Cinderella, a story about a woman who “waits around for a rich guy to rescue her”, or The Little Mermaid, who “gives up her voice for a man”. Teen Vogue went even further in a 2017 article titled, “Why These Disney Films May Help Perpetuate Rape Culture”. How long before we see advisory warnings in front of those titles, too?

Most of Disney’s classic stories were already out of date to begin with. Adapted from European folk tales, they were rooted in patriarchal values and considerably more violent. In the original fairy-tale, the Evil Queen demands the huntsman kill Snow White and bring back her liver and lungs. When he brings back the organs of a deer, the queen eats them, believing them to be Snow White’s. There is no “true love’s kiss” either; Disney added it in. In the original, Snow White awakens when the poisoned apple is dislodged from her throat.

The same goes for Sleeping Beauty. In Basile’s original, the heroine is not awakened with a kiss; she is raped in her sleep. She wakes up with twins nine months later. Essentially, it is all the same process: just as Walt Disney refashioned those stories to fit in with mid-20th century American values, so contemporary audiences now find Disney’s versions an awkward fit with 21st-century values. Even tales as old as time have a sell-by date.

Reading notes:

• Disney has been facing criticism over the non-consensual act of “true love’s kiss” given by the Prince to Snow White while she was asleep. This issue came to light following an online review of the Snow White ride at Disneyland; in a matter of hours, different media outlets such as FOX News engaged in criticism against Disney claiming that the so-called “cancel culture” was after its products;
• Disney finds itself increasingly caught in the crossfire of the culture wars between conservatives and “woke” progressives.
• On one hand, it is criticised for its legacy of racism and bigotry, while on the other hand, it is criticised for being too “woke”. This is happening because Disney is the biggest target, being the dominant purveyor of popular culture, which is consumed especially by children, who absorb their values and ideas;
• To address these issues, Disney introduced advisory notices to some of its titles, and initiatives, such as the “Stories Matter” initiatives, which pledge to be more inclusive and consultative by including titles that steer away from white, western, male-dominated perspectives. It also removed allegedly problematic aspects from theme parks, making them more workplace-inclusive by allowing gender-inclusive hairstyles, jewellery, nail styles, costume choices, etc.
• Disney also pledged to re-theme its Splash Mountain log flume based on the 2009 animation “The Princess and the Frog”, itself based on the notorious “Song of the South”, which depicted happy, singing slaves on an idyllic southern plantation. One employee testified that such rides often made black visitors feel unwelcome, and the Black Lives Matter protests were a catalyst for these changes.
• However, every change Disney makes is often met with contempt in the conservative camp, accusing it of wanting to push their progressivist “woke” agenda that allegedly seeks to normalise LGBTQ+ characters and eliminate or “cancel” those who do not comply with their vision.
• When an internal document titled “Allyship for Race Consciousness” was disclosed, the so-called “anti-woke brigade” accused Disney of elevating their critical race theory to a new corporate dogma. In response, Disney stated that such documents were meant to foster discussion and allow diversity of thought.
• The author points out that such attacks against Disney are part of a larger culture war that conservatives are keen to wage. They believe that Disney is part of a radical socialist agenda that seeks to subvert or undermine (or cancel altogether) American culture and moral values.
• The company, deeply intertwined with American culture and values, has always navigated the political and social mores of its times, albeit with varying degrees of awareness and sensitivity. The critique extends to Disney’s founder, Walt Disney, whose legacy combines innovation and controversy. The text mentions that Walt Disney’s political views were often duplicitous; ambiguous;
• The author further argues that Disney’s plight mirrors current interrogations of America’s own racist history, and it needs to go against the conservative agenda simply out of self-interest. It needs to appeal to a changing demographic because otherwise, it would lose customers and business.
• For Disney, the author asserts, there are more wars to come, and they may be related to issues of sexual consent.
• The author concludes the article by saying that Disney’s classic stories were outdated to begin with because they were adapted from European folk tales, themselves rooted in patriarchal values. Those stories were also significantly more violent, and Disney modified them to fit the taste and expectations of the public, which is what it is doing now.

Summary of Steve Rose’s article “Cotton Plantations and Non-consensual Kisses: How Disney Became Embroiled in the Culture Wars”:

In this article – entitled “Cotton Plantations and Non-Consensual Kisses: How Disney Became Embroiled in the Culture Wars” and published in The Guardian in June 2021 – author Steve Rose discusses the controversy around the adoption of intersectional-inclusive imagery and semantics by Disney Corporation. Conservative media outlets reacted polemically to product changes, accusing the company of forwarding a political agenda that supposedly conforms to “cancel culture” canons.

According to the author, the corporation had been accused of perpetrating a racist, classist, and ethnocentric discourse through its products. The corporation underwent a problem-solving process to widen the pool of customers in the entertainment market from a politically correct perspective. Such a process included adding advisory notices to each controversial title on its on-demand platform, loosening workplace etiquette, and promising the release of new culturally inclusive and diverse products.

However, as the author reports, despite the efforts undertaken by the company to satisfy an ever-changing array of potential buyers, conservative outlets are never satisfied – e.g. accusing the corporation of advancing a radical socialist agenda, yet at the same time assuming controversial, racially divisive monikers in theme parks to be accepted.

Arguing with such criticisms, Rose elaborates his thesis: over time, each commodity is bound to become stagnant and commercially unattractive, such as the folk tales which inspired Disney movies. Disney’s goal would not be to advance any explicit political agenda but rather adapt its product to its times.