Disney+ warns viewers of "outdated cultural depictions" in its classic movies

[LuisDantas]

Of course people and movies made decades ago will have outdated, sometimes disturbing sensitivities.

We should be thankful for managing to learn better, you know. It is a valuable conquest and ought not to be devalued.

And really... if children can watch the likes of Sean Hannity or a certain non-Disney Donald on TV, I am sure that Song of the South and Dumbo deserve better than being hidden under the carpet.

 

[ecco]

Another excellent example of where nanny and outrage PC culture has led us, warnings and censorship.

What censorship are you referring to?

 

[columbus]

Of course people and movies made decades ago will have outdated, sometimes disturbing sensitivities.

Yeah, no kidding.
Try to find me an English language movie in which the Japanese were religious, had families, and were staunch patriots.
Tom

 

[ADigitalArtist]

"I guess the question might be asked: Should these movies even be shown at all? Or more specifically, should people even want to watch them? I can't imagine myself watching them, even for nostalgic reasons."

From my first response:
"I'm as left as they come while still being a mixed economist and I have no problem with showing problematic media. I think content warnings are a good idea in general, that's why we have ratings systems.
Most of the hard left film and media studies that I've run into feels the same way."

Disney isn't burning the books. Disney is streaming them.

Except Song of the South, which nobody forced them to exclude, but they decided to burn.

Seriously, you don't understand that it's the SJWs, like your video heroine, that think that redoing movies up to her standards of wokeness is necessary? Or better, by scrubbing history?

Feel free to quote her, I lost interest halfway through.
She reminds me of the people who think that the Bible should be banned, due to ugly morals and questionable history.
Tom

Feel free to quote her where she said anything about banning, removing or remaking anything.
Again, the revising, history scrubbing one here is Disney. She even says this Disney 'we are going to make it again, but better and more modern' is ridiculous and not even succeeding at that. Because it's missing the point of what their target audience wants.

 

[ecco]

It's kind of a winning strategy. Let people know your 'sensitivity', but still continue on with the corporate agenda all through the use of a simple disclaimer.

It's really not much different than assigning a PG or R rating to a movie.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

While such movies are certainly outdated and offensive by today's standards, they're also too historically and culturally significant to be banned. I think "warnings" that explain the controversy and context are a fair compromise.

Did anyone honestly watch Jungle Book as a kid and think racially sticking to your own kind? Or that humans, bears, tigers, wolves-wild animals-don't belong together?

 

[Estro Felino]

Did anyone honestly watch Jungle Book as a kid and think racially sticking to your own kind? Or that humans, bears, tigers, wolves-wild animals-don't belong together?

As a kid the only thing that impressed in that movie was how long the snake Ka was...

Yes...I was fascinated by snakes even back then

 

[Revoltingest]

I agree there is talibanish behaviors, but don't forget many on the left are opposed to this nonsense. Really, theseiberals of today are acting no different than the conservative concerned parents of yesterday who created music warning labels.

I know that many lefties (real liberals) are on my our side.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Did anyone honestly watch Jungle Book as a kid and think racially sticking to your own kind? Or that humans, bears, tigers, wolves-wild animals-don't belong together?

Kipling was no doubt a racist imperialist who believed India was savage without British men working to sophisticate it and wrote as much in (kid you not) 'The White Man's Burden.' The original Jungle Book was very different and ended with Mowgli rejecting the Indian village as more savage than the jungle. The 'Jungle law' described in the book was the same 'natural law' he believed the superior British race should provide to non-Anglo India. Ultimately to avoid 'white men with guns on elephants' from having to come down on 'brown men with sticks and torches.' Which is ultimately what mowgli and the 'morally good' animals had to do with the lawless tiger and monkeys.

Basically, racist imperialism is completely baked into Jungle Book. Did I catch it reading it as a kid? Of course not, I was a kid and didn't have the historical and social contexts, including Kipling's own words.
Disney executives sure did though. And two of their clauses about the movie were 'make it light' and 'don't make it like the book.'

Today, remaking problematic media with the problematic parts taken out is what people are complaining about with things like Dumbo. But it's exactly what Disney did adapting Jungle Book.
Was that necessarily a bad decision? I don't think so, no. Only if we pretended the problematic parts never existed in the original source material and swept it under the rug, never to be discussed again.

 

[Estro Felino]

I think kids love Disney because of the songs...they couldn't care less about hidden non-PC meanings

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I think kids love Disney because of the songs...they couldn't care less about hidden non-PC meanings

Just like as a kid I loved (and still do love) the jungle book (the book) because of the animals. Did you know Ka was a good guy in the books? He was dangerous and powerful but he was one of the animals who rescued Mowgli from the monkeys. I love that!

But I'm am adult now and I can confidently say that while I have fond memories of reading the book, it is racist as hell and we should acknowledge that, because Kipling's values exemplified in the book were values that hurt a lot of people.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I'm not a big fan of censoring media. Outdated cultural views are just that: outdated. Misogyny, racism, etc. should be called out when appropriate, but I worry that censoring media by calling for outright bans is problematic in that it sets a bad precedent and removes a potential resource for education.

 

[Shad]

Disney+ content warning: Disney Plus streaming service puts warnings for "outdated cultural depictions" in some of its classic movies - CBS News



The Song of the South was completely absent from the channel's selection.

Some have argued that the content warnings are not enough: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts...ions-some-films-thats-not-enough-experts-say/






I guess the question might be asked: Should these movies even be shown at all? Or more specifically, should people even want to watch them? I can't imagine myself watching them, even for nostalgic reasons.

On the other hand, the Disney name itself is being called into question. If he was a racist, an anti-Semite, and misogynist, then should the company live on and immortalize his name? Should they change the name of "Disneyland" to something else?

I'm not sure either way. Some of my fondest childhood memories were when we visited Disneyland, and at the time, I thought Walt Disney was a great man. They didn't mention his unsavory side in "The Walt Disney Story."

Orwellian. How any kid becomes racist from Dumbo at like 5 years old is just mental gymnastics by mislabeled professionals. I remember a circus and an elephant with a feather, huge ears, a hat with a mouse and some flying.

Disney can do what it wants. I just find it hilarious at the offense people can conjure up over cartoons for 3-5 years olds. Slap a warning on it just like everything else. The kids are not paying attention to this stuff the adults are worrying about. The articles is merely just some twitter babble. Some guy on twitter is offend turns into an news articles. Garbage

 

[Shad]

What does the word "experts" mean in this sentence?

People on twitter. Professors you never heard of in diversity departments. Student 100 level English papers. People you never heard of with no obvious expertise. Journalist op-eds. Links that go to one news paper op-ed citing another news paper's op-ed. Articles that have no links to critics after following 3 links back. Walt's Grandniece's FB post. Some artist's blogs Seriously it all in the article. Half the article is probably sources from the author's twitter feed.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I posted the video because it's about performative wokeness to score points with progressives. Disney does this without addressing actual reasons things in Disney are considered progressive or regressive. A corporate marketing strategy that has no actual roots in 'left dialogue.'

Why should they? At should be left without limits, without restrictions, and without censorship. Those who make it shouldn't have to explain themselves. People either like their work or they don't. The audience also changes, and even Looney Toons has acknowledged that some of their older content is totally lost on today's audience. If people can't discern between what people used to believe and what is acceptable today, they probably have some issues that trigger warnings won't help or fix. Such as, if you don't know what stereotypes are in the older Disney films, children especially are not going to be able to read those things into them.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I'm not a big fan of censoring media. Outdated cultural views are just that: outdated. Misogyny, racism, etc. should be called out when appropriate, but I worry that censoring media by calling for outright bans is problematic in that it sets a bad precedent and removes a potential resource for education.

Ideally, I think a proper education would teach people how evaluate media and to identify things that arent good, and handle them maturely without there being calls for restrictions and censorship. This evaluation process should also ideally include considering if something in it is lost on the audience. That happens a lot, actually, and not just with older stuff. I'm very hesitant to think kids, especially today, are going to pick up on any racist messages in something like Dumbo.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Only if we pretended the problematic parts never existed in the original source material and swept it under the rug, never to be discussed again.

It's inevitable, as we are now even further removed from the source material with a Netflix Jungle Book and an updated Disney version. Most people will probably never know, much how the original versions of the Grimm fairy tales are largely a thing of hobbyists and researchers than those teaching the newer versions to children today.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

As a kid the only thing that impressed in that movie was how long the snake Ka was...

It was my favorite Disney movie, because it had more animals than people (which is I liked it more than Aristocats, Lady and the Tramp, and 101 Dalmatians) which don't have as many animals.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I dislike the talibanesque behavior of the left.
Clearly....
Left =/= Liberal

As do I. But I am Liberal, not Left.

Recently, I went to see Puccini's opera Turandot. It is set in China, but the production I saw tried to remove all the dated "chinoiserie," including renaming three characters (Ping, Pang and Pong), to Jim, Bob and Bill. Same problem if you go to the ballet at Christmas to see "The Nutcracker." There are obvious cultural stereotypes written in (Chinese Dance, for example), that directors are now struggling to neutralize.

I think we are much smarter to realize that, though the stereotypes we're seeing in our arts from the past reflect the thinking of when they were written, we do not need to share them. But we don't have to pretend they didn't exist, either.

 

[columbus]

But I'm am adult now and I can confidently say that while I have fond memories of reading the book, it is racist as hell and we should acknowledge that, because Kipling's values exemplified in the book were values that hurt a lot of people.

Lots of excellent old stuff is laced with "old fashioned values".

I love Tolkien. But LotR is laced with racism, classism, mysogny and violence. My sister and I disagreed about it's literary value until a few years ago. She said something that made me realize how attractive Middle Earth is to someone like me. A tall, healthy, privileged, white male with little interest in religion or women.
Of course I liked Middle Earth. Tolkien invented it for readers like me.
Tom