Bibliography

McGregor, Susan E. "Black Princess Joins Disney Royal Line" The New York Amsterdam News 22 Mar. 2007: pg 17


"Snow Whitey? Stereotyping in the Magical Kingdom". September 1998. Canadian Dimension. April 1 2010. http://sks.sirs.com.wf2dnvr13.webfeat.org

Reflection

In the beginning I had my mind set on the fact that Disney is racist. Now I still have the same opinion. The only difference is that now I have data to back me up.
I don't know how I will ever be able to go back to just enjoying the movies for what they are. From here on out I'm going to notice the diversity, the stereotypes, and racist comments that come from Disney movies. In fact maybe all movies now, not just Disney ones.
I don't know whether or not this is a good thing. On one side I have recognized a significant problem and researched just to have my points proved. On the other side I will never enjoy a movie for what it is and that alone.
Now the question is does the term "They all lived happily ever after!" apply here.
I'm almost hoping it does.

Conclusion

After a lot of researching, surveying, and analyzing I have to come to the conclusion that Disney is racist. However I feel that it isn't as apparent and as strong as I felt it was. In the survey that I gave my class I realized that majority of people though that Disney portrayed it's non-white male characters fairly and that Disney is only mildly racist. One question I thought really proved Disney was racist was Who do you think is more racist? with answer choices Dreamworks, Disney, and Pixar. Disney got 66.6% of the votes, Dreamworks had 33.3%, and Pixar got no votes. After I got these results I decided to do a little research on Dreamworks. I found out that Dreamworks was a side company of Disney's. This surprised me a lot.
Before this blog ever even came into existence I strongly felt that Disney was racist. But now I feel like I may have been over analyzing and being too critical of the movies rather then just sitting down and enjoying them. So Disney is lacking diversity and at times can be racist but I think Disney is aware of this and is looking for a solution. Good luck Disney! Meanwhile I will just try to enjoy your movies for what they are.

Data Interpretation

This image/result surprised me a bit. I was really expecting more people to think Disney was racist. This image could be interpreted in two ways. The first being that Disney is not racist and that I'm just an over-analyzer. The second being that Disney is racist but people just haven't noticed that much . I will let you take your pick from the two.



This question was kind of a trick for the people being surveyed. The only movie Disney produced from the choices was Aladdin. If a person answered Aladdin as being more racist then at the same time they answered Disney. While Shrek was almost tied with Aladdin it had some interesting history behind it. Dreamworks was the company that produced Shrek which also happens to be a break off company of Disney's. I think this further proves that Disney is racist.

This image was what I was actually expecting only because I expected people to feel pretty neutral about this question. I thought that there would be more people that though that Disney is racist because it's a child hood memory and people tend to be protective of those memories and cherish them.




This is the question that we distributed to the whole ninth grade at my school, so more opinions were expressed. This gave us a little bit of more information to work with. I wasn't really sure what to expect from this question because I think that Disney portrays it's non-white male characters in both good and bad ways. It looks like majority of people feel the same way.



I was absolutely expecting these results! I know that this chart proves my point when I say Disney is racist.

Primary Research

After reviewing my secondary research I decided to conduct some primary research. To do this I am creating a survey for my peers to answer. Hopefully the results will provide me with some more information that I can use in my blog.
The survey will consist of five questions that Jonathan and I came up with. They are the following.

1. Disney is racist.
a. strongly agree
b. agree
c. neutral
d.disagree
e. strongly disagree

2. Out of the following movies which one do you think is the most racist?
a. Nemo
b. Aladdin
c. Shrek
d. Twilight

3. Which company do you think is the least diverse?
a. Pixar
b. Disney
c. Dreamworks
d. Summit

4. How do you think Disney portrays its non-white character?
a. very negatively
b. negatively
c. neutral
d. positively
e. very positively

5. Does Pixar portray women more negatively than Disney?
a. strongly agree
b. agree
c. neutral
d. disagree
e. strongly disagree

New Disney Princess Joins the Royal Line

So at the moment I'm doing some "secondary research" on Disney and Diversity. So far I've only located two articles.
The first is called "Black Princess Joins Disney Royal Line" by Susan E. McGregor. It basically answered my first question. Why has it taken until 2010 for Disney to have an African-American princess?
The article said that when questioned why there weren't any African-American princess' Disney simply stated that "There are no African-American fairy tales." I thought long and hard about the answer they provided, and have yet to come to a conclusion of whether or not this is an acceptable answer.
This article also said that a woman who visited the Disney Theme Park was so disturbed by the fact that there were no Disney princess' who were African-American, that she began an online petition to the company.

The second article was called "Snow Whitey? Stereotyping in the Magic Kingdom" by Gail Robertson. This article basically provided a list of Disney movies and how each character stereotyped a race, gender, or religion in the real world. The way the characters represented real people seems cruel now.

To continue some more research I'm going to view some Disney movies and analyze them.

The questions that will be answered

So during my first post I told you what I had discovered and that I plan to research it. I plan to answer these three questions with my good friend Jonathan
( http://lackofdiversityindisneymovies.blogspot.com/).

1. Why has it taken until 2010 for Disney to have an African-American princess?

2. What message is Disney sending to it's viewers with it's lack of diversity?

3. When Disney does use diversity, how are the characters portrayed?

Now I begin my research!!!