Disney is for the sexists/racist, Dreamworks is for children

[john9blue]

Sorry, but after watching Mulan again I can't help but bump this shizzle. Mulan has to be the biggest pro-feminism film that came out ever. Obviously a lot of characters in it are sexist (you know, they only want to kill females who cross-dressed and fought in the army), but that's like saying everyone in Schindler's List is anti-Semetic because there were a few Nazis in it.

i'd agree with this if the best song in mulan wasn't a song about how awesome it was to be a man

[Haggis_McMutton]

Sorry, but after watching Mulan again I can't help but bump this shizzle. Mulan has to be the biggest pro-feminism film that came out ever. Obviously a lot of characters in it are sexist (you know, they only want to kill females who cross-dressed and fought in the army), but that's like saying everyone in Schindler's List is anti-Semetic because there were a few Nazis in it.

i'd agree with this if the best song in mulan wasn't a song about how awesome it was to be a man

Also, it's been a while, but wasn't the ending something like:

"Thanks, but rather than taking a position of big political responsibility I'm going to choose to marry some guy so I can make him tea and wash his shorts"

I remember a girl saying that ending always bugged her.

[Army of GOD]

Sorry, but after watching Mulan again I can't help but bump this shizzle. Mulan has to be the biggest pro-feminism film that came out ever. Obviously a lot of characters in it are sexist (you know, they only want to kill females who cross-dressed and fought in the army), but that's like saying everyone in Schindler's List is anti-Semetic because there were a few Nazis in it.

i'd agree with this if the best song in mulan wasn't a song about how awesome it was to be a man

Also, it's been a while, but wasn't the ending something like:

"Thanks, but rather than taking a position of big political responsibility I'm going to choose to marry some guy so I can make him tea and wash his shorts"

I remember a girl saying that ending always bugged her.

No, she denied the political position so she could return to her family because, keep in mind, she couldn't have been more than 18.
Then, the military captain, whom she fought under, came to her house and was like "yo, wanna f*ck me?"

[BigBallinStalin]

Sorry, but after watching Mulan again I can't help but bump this shizzle. Mulan has to be the biggest pro-feminism film that came out ever. Obviously a lot of characters in it are sexist (you know, they only want to kill females who cross-dressed and fought in the army), but that's like saying everyone in Schindler's List is anti-Semetic because there were a few Nazis in it.

i'd agree with this if the best song in mulan wasn't a song about how awesome it was to be a man

Also, it's been a while, but wasn't the ending something like:

"Thanks, but rather than taking a position of big political responsibility I'm going to choose to marry some guy so I can make him tea and wash his shorts"

I remember a girl saying that ending always bugged her.

No, she denied the political position so she could return to her family because, keep in mind, she couldn't have been more than 18.
Then, the military captain, whom she fought under, came to her house and was like "yo, wanna f*ck me?"

But, yo, think feminist.

"Return to her family" = "women's place in society is in the family; private interests are second, family first."

That reeks of 17th century philosophical discourse regarding the woman's morally correct position in society.

[Army of GOD]

Hm, that's an impressive valid comparison. Let me try one:

1. Eddie Murphy is black
2. Mushu is voiced by Eddie Murphy
3. Dragons make fire
4. Matches also make fire
5. Matches are made out of wood

BLACK PEOPLE ARE MADE OUT OF WOOD ACCORDING TO DISNEY

[BigBallinStalin]

You just hate women.

[Army of GOD]

You just hate women.

Personally, I prefer my humans to be made out of wood.

[BigBallinStalin]

I bet your ancestors burned witches back in the day.

[MeDeFe]

I bet your ancestors burned witches back in the day.

They probably burned black people, too, seeing how they're made of wood. And we all know what that means.

[PLAYER57832]

There are absolutely fair points here. That said, Disney was a product of the 50's and 60's. Judging a man by today's standards is just not "fair".

And... a lot of people still do buy into those steretypes, ergo their popularity. What we really need is a mix, different options of REAL entertainment, not boxes that are either "old-fashioned" or PC. That will come with time.

Or, to get away from Disney to illustrate a point, The Jefferson's and Good Times are both almost repulsively racist by today's standards. But, at the time, they were marked for being the first shows that protrayed blacks positively, albiet imperfectly so. Yet, without them.. there would have been no Cosby.

[BigBallinStalin]

There are absolutely fair points here. That said, Disney was a product of the 50's and 60's. Judging a man by today's standards is just not "fair".

Agreed. It's totes not fair to judge people who burnt bitches, burnt witches, enslaved people, raped women after looting a city, killed indigenous tribes in the name of Manifest Destiny, etc.

[Army of GOD]

There are absolutely fair points here. That said, Disney was a product of the 50's and 60's. Judging a man by today's standards is just not "fair".

Agreed. It's totes not fair to judge people who burnt bitches, burnt witches, enslaved people, raped women after looting a city, killed indigenous tribes in the name of Manifest Destiny, etc.

Don't forget about the people Jesus killed

[natty dread]

http://www.cracked.com/article_15677_th ... cters.html

[Army of GOD]

http://www.cracked.com/article_15677_the-9-most-racist-disney-characters.html

Dammit, appeal to Cracked. That's an auto-loss for Disney.

[Dukasaur]

There are absolutely fair points here. That said, Disney was a product of the 50's and 60's. Judging a man by today's standards is just not "fair".

Agreed. It's totes not fair to judge people who burnt bitches, burnt witches, enslaved people, raped women after looting a city, killed indigenous tribes in the name of Manifest Destiny, etc.

Okay, you're a soldier, circa 1200 A.D. There virtually no such thing as medicine, and no commoner can afford nursing care. After a battle there's normally a detail sent out to kill off the seriously wounded (who are not going to recover anyway) and collect their weapons and other useful gear for the use of the living. Today, your commander has given you this detail.

Are you an evil person, just because 800 years later wealthy industrialized nations will have modern hospitals and airborne MedEvac units, and will evolve the luxury of a "get the wounded out at all costs" doctrine?

Damn right that morality has to be seen in the context of its time.

[BigBallinStalin]

There are absolutely fair points here. That said, Disney was a product of the 50's and 60's. Judging a man by today's standards is just not "fair".

Agreed. It's totes not fair to judge people who burnt bitches, burnt witches, enslaved people, raped women after looting a city, killed indigenous tribes in the name of Manifest Destiny, etc.

Okay, you're a soldier, circa 1200 A.D. There virtually no such thing as medicine, and no commoner can afford nursing care. After a battle there's normally a detail sent out to kill off the seriously wounded (who are not going to recover anyway) and collect their weapons and other useful gear for the use of the living. Today, your commander has given you this detail.

Are you an evil person, just because 800 years later wealthy industrialized nations will have modern hospitals and airborne MedEvac units, and will evolve the luxury of a "get the wounded out at all costs" doctrine?

Damn right that morality has to be seen in the context of its time.

Mercy-killings don't equal witch burnings. Actions can be justified given economic constraints. I agree that context matters, and I'm not applying modern capabilities and constraints to the past, nor does your example exempt the immoral actions within my examples.


But let's presume that morality has to be seen in the context of its time, with the implied meaning that one can't judge someone in the past from today's standard. Please explain how the eager SS officer role in holocaust was morally correct--given the context, of course!

Anyone who finds moral relativism appealing would have to reasonably balk at that point, so some degree of impartiality matters--as does taking into consideration political, social, and economic factors (which can be used to justify mercy killings circa 1200 AD). If similar constraints were faced in today's world, then the mercy-killing is justified.

It's not that morality must be seen in the context of its time. Judging moral decisions depends on awareness of the economic, social, political, etc. constraints and opportunities which face the individual. The difference of time from my world and 1200 AD doesn't matter, nor am I applying modern constraints and opportunities on past constraints and opportunities.

[daddy1gringo]

You're completely ignoring historical and cultural context. Disney didn't make up those stories. Most of them are from Grimm's fairy tales, collected by the Grimm brothers from the mediaeval peasants and villagers who developed them. (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, etc.) Aladdin is part of the 1001 Arabian Nights, also from the middle ages or before. The little Mermaid was written by Hans Christian Anderson in the early 19th Century. Non-feminist views of women were rather common in those days. Dumbo was made in the 1950's. Even the most liberal of white people shared those patronizing stereotypes of African-Americans. You're anachronistically imposing standards of our day on stories that are not from our day.

Incidentally, about half of the movies you mentioned were made after Walt was dead.

[natty dread]

That they're based on older stories is no excuse. The disney versions aren't exactly faithful to originals in the first place, so they could have changed the racist & sexist parts as well if they wanted.

[MeDeFe]

d1g, Andersen's Little Mermaid does NOT involve Jamaican crabs who're unwilling to work, nor fish in blackface.

[daddy1gringo]

d1g, Andersen's Little Mermaid does NOT involve Jamaican crabs who're unwilling to work, nor fish in blackface.

Right. You got me on that one. In defense of Walt, that movie is one of the ones that was made after he was a frozen head, so it's not evidence of racism on his part, but that doesn't work if the complaint is against Disney Studios in general.

[daddy1gringo]

That they're based on older stories is no excuse. The disney versions aren't exactly faithful to originals in the first place, so they could have changed the racist & sexist parts as well if they wanted.

Really? In "Sleeping Beauty" instead of the fainting princess known primarily for her beauty, who is rescued by the prince who has just fought and defeated evil to win the right to take her, Walt could have changed her into a feminist Amazon who takes up the sword and fights beside the prince, or rescues him? Meh. Kind of a different story.

[natty dread]

That they're based on older stories is no excuse. The disney versions aren't exactly faithful to originals in the first place, so they could have changed the racist & sexist parts as well if they wanted.

Really? In "Sleeping Beauty" instead of the fainting princess known primarily for her beauty, who is rescued by the prince who has just fought and defeated evil to win the right to take her, Walt could have changed her into a feminist Amazon who takes up the sword and fights beside the prince, or rescues him? Meh. Kind of a different story.

"Feminist amazon"?

[Dukasaur]

There are absolutely fair points here. That said, Disney was a product of the 50's and 60's. Judging a man by today's standards is just not "fair".

Agreed. It's totes not fair to judge people who burnt bitches, burnt witches, enslaved people, raped women after looting a city, killed indigenous tribes in the name of Manifest Destiny, etc.

Okay, you're a soldier, circa 1200 A.D. There virtually no such thing as medicine, and no commoner can afford nursing care. After a battle there's normally a detail sent out to kill off the seriously wounded (who are not going to recover anyway) and collect their weapons and other useful gear for the use of the living. Today, your commander has given you this detail.

Are you an evil person, just because 800 years later wealthy industrialized nations will have modern hospitals and airborne MedEvac units, and will evolve the luxury of a "get the wounded out at all costs" doctrine?

Damn right that morality has to be seen in the context of its time.

Mercy-killings don't equal witch burnings. Actions can be justified given economic constraints. I agree that context matters, and I'm not applying modern capabilities and constraints to the past, nor does your example exempt the immoral actions within my examples.

But let's presume that morality has to be seen in the context of its time, with the implied meaning that one can't judge someone in the past from today's standard. Please explain how the eager SS officer role in holocaust was morally correct--given the context, of course!

They were not morally correct. They were wrong, but they were wrong in their own time, by their own standards. The fact that they are also wrong by our standards is coincidental.

The fact that the Nazis were guilty by their own standard is evidenced by the fact that almost all tried to conceal their wartime activities or deny responsibility in some way. At Nurnburg, of the major Nazi accused, only the madman Julius Streicher tried to maintain that what he did was right. All the others tried to evade and excuse themselves in other ways -- they didn't know what was going on, they weren't in charge of what they were in charge of, they had no choice but to follow orders, etc., etc. By attempting to evade responsibility for their actions, they were admitting that those actions were wrong by their own standards. The same can be said of lesser cogs in the wheel -- a tiny few maintained that they did the right thing; the vast majority knew perfectly well that they were doing evil deeds and once exposed tried to conceal, evade, or at least downplay their own role.

Anyone who finds moral relativism appealing would have to reasonably balk at that point, so some degree of impartiality matters--as does taking into consideration political, social, and economic factors (which can be used to justify mercy killings circa 1200 AD). If similar constraints were faced in today's world, then the mercy-killing is justified.

It's not that morality must be seen in the context of its time. Judging moral decisions depends on awareness of the economic, social, political, etc. constraints and opportunities which face the individual. The difference of time from my world and 1200 AD doesn't matter, nor am I applying modern constraints and opportunities on past constraints and opportunities.

Well, of course. There's nothing magical about the date, or the amount of time that has passed. What matters is the circumstances that existed.

[daddy1gringo]

That they're based on older stories is no excuse. The disney versions aren't exactly faithful to originals in the first place, so they could have changed the racist & sexist parts as well if they wanted.

Really? In "Sleeping Beauty" instead of the fainting princess known primarily for her beauty, who is rescued by the prince who has just fought and defeated evil to win the right to take her, Walt could have changed her into a feminist Amazon who takes up the sword and fights beside the prince, or rescues him? Meh. Kind of a different story.

"Feminist amazon"?

I KNEW somebody was going to pick on that unfortunate phrase. No I'm not saying that all feminists are Amazons. I was characterizing what the warrior-woman character would be like in the alternate scenario. Back to my point. Whether you believe they are programmed by society or just part of who we are as men and women, these are archetypes that resonate in our collective and individual consciousness, but more to the point, they are an essential part of these enduring stories. Disney could not just have changed them.

[jimboston]

d1g, Andersen's Little Mermaid does NOT involve Jamaican crabs who're unwilling to work, nor fish in blackface.

How does it portray Sebastain (the Crab) as unwilling to work???

He's the right hand of the King and he's also the Court Conductor!!!

Seems like he has plenty of work to me.