# Disney villains wear dark clothes: does that reinforce racism?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 9, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084 "2007-07-09T19:43:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/81 "2007-07-10T17:19:10Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra]
She spends most of her screen time in this dress. In fact, I don’t think she has a line of dialogue after she changes into her princess dress.
[/QUOTE]
Cinderella is much the same. She spends most of the movie in [a plain brown dress](http://www.disney-vacation-time.com/img/cinderella/cinderella-2.jpg) while the bad guys (or rather, bad girls) are dressed in brighter, more colorful clothes.
Does this mean that Disney’s Cinderella is actually a subversive text? Is it (re)claiming Darkness from the implicit colonialism of Eurocentric color symbolism? Is Cinderella actually a positive role-model for children of color because of the darkness of her clothing?
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### Author:  [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/82 "2007-07-10T17:49:22Z")
[QUOTE=fessie]
How many of you men would wear a pink shirt?
[/QUOTE]
I have a pink shirt to accentuate my [special pants](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/ShadiRoxan/05062007364.jpg?t=1184089676).
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/83 "2007-07-10T17:51:10Z")
I have pink shirts as well. I don’t see what the big deal is.
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### Author:  [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/84 "2007-07-10T17:55:35Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra]
I have pink shirts as well. I don’t see what the big deal is.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe **fessie** is trying to indicate we have sub-par laundry skills and thus are unable to continue discussing clothing. 🆒
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### Author:  [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/85 "2007-07-10T18:03:41Z")
[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]
Another interesting point is that there does seem to be this near universal elevation of white as good and dark as bad. I’d be hard pressed to find a culture that places a value on dark skin over light skin. But in West Africa and in Southeast Asia, for instance, there is a cottage industry of skin lightening products.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it would be hard to find a culture that had a cottage industry of skin _[darkening](http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=79561&catid=9715&aid=336060&aparam=neutrogena_instant_bronze)_ products. 😉
---
### Author:  [@FaerieBeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FaerieBeth)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/86 "2007-07-10T18:07:57Z")
[QUOTE=storyteller0910]
[This woman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BreakfastatTiffanys.jpg) has never been viewed as ugly or evil, in spite of wearing a black dress in the single image that defined her career.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, the [LBD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_black_dress). I never knew they were an endorsement of subconscious racism. I like wearing black, though, because it contrasts nicely with my pale, fish belly white complexion and my dark hair…wait a minute, …sorry, my tentacles got tangled on the keyboard. 😉
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### Author:  [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/87 "2007-07-10T18:08:04Z")
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
Yeah, it would be hard to find a culture that had a cottage industry of skin _[darkening](http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=79561&catid=9715&aid=336060&aparam=neutrogena_instant_bronze)_ products. 😉
[/QUOTE]
I _knew_ someone was going to mention this. 😉
Seriously though, it’s not quite the same, is it?
---
### Author:  [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/88 "2007-07-10T18:13:09Z")
At least it _is_ applied to skin, rather than to objects.
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### Author:  [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/89 "2007-07-10T18:19:36Z")
[QUOTE=Nava]
…
… so long as they’re not demeaning, there’s nothing wrong with caricatures.
[/quote]
But the crows _are_ demeaning. I suggest you watch a clip of that segment before you make assumptions about it. And not a re-dubbed clip.
“But I been done seen about everything
When I see a elephant fly”
Ha, ha - those silly Negroes; they can’t even speak English correctly.
Sorry, that shit might have played in the '50s, but not today. It’s a racist stereotype. What it sounded like when dubbed into Spanish is utterly irrelevant. Walt Disney wasn’t Spanish.
> [@](#):
>
> Would you rather have a movie where 90% of the characters are caricatures or one where 100% of them are bleached and nobody is from anywhere other than “neutral city, neutral place”?
How about a third choice, where you have characters from other places, but they aren’t demeaning stereotypes? Hollywood didn’t seem to know how to do that until late in the 20th Century; they’re just now getting around to it.
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/90 "2007-07-10T18:23:33Z")
[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]
Seriously though, it’s not quite the same, is it?
[/QUOTE]
How is it not the same?
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/91 "2007-07-10T18:34:20Z")
> [@](#):
>
> But the crows are demeaning. I suggest you watch a clip of that segment before you make assumptions about it. And not a re-dubbed clip.
>
> “But I been done seen about everything
> When I see a elephant fly”
>
> Ha, ha - those silly Negroes; they can’t even speak English correctly.
There’s little doubt in my mind that the crows were meant to be based on black “types” (you’ve got a preacher-type, a pre-Urkel nerd, and others), and Dumbo was made back when such humor was socially acceptable. Black performers were frequently called “crows”, or in groups named the “crows”
But I have to admit, I don’t read it as demeaning in this case – there’s nothing specifically “Black” about the crows. That same “can’t speak English properly” meme applies to Southern whites as well – it’s a Southern stereotype, not specifically a black one. Have a look at cartoons like “Deputy Dawg” and other bits of pop culture supposed to represent southern flavor.
The beauty of using animals, as many people have discovered over the years, is that you can make them spplicable to any color person. That, I think, is why Disney continues to market and show this (while hiding “Sunflower” in “Fantasia”, and keeping “Song of the South” under wraps in the US) – they can say it’s not obviously and clearly stereotyping blacks. It’s hovering on the brink, but it has a veneer of plausibility.
Whattaya think of the cartoon crow performers who back up Jessica Rabbit in **Who framed Roger Rabbit**?
---
### Author:  [@jamus\_se](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jamus_se)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/92 "2007-07-10T18:40:09Z")
Black being associated with evil is a subconscious process… by definition, the thought is beyond our conscious control. However, I’d have to say that racism requires much more active thinking/doing than just making subconscious color choices.
If a group of Disney animators actually sit around a table and nail down some secret proposal that says “we hate black people therefore we’ll dress the villain in black”, then I’d give in to the argument… otherwise, the link is simply too week to keep me convinced.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/93 "2007-07-10T18:44:32Z")
[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]
Seriously though, it’s not quite the same, is it?
[/QUOTE]
Well, I’ll agree that it isn’t QUITE the same, but why?
If skin lightening is racially fraught, why isn’t skin darkening racially fraught? If dark colored good characters aren’t racially fraught, why are dark colored villain characters?
Thing is, if you work outside in the sun at a low-status job and you’ll have darker skin, work all day inside at a high-status job and you’ll have lighter skin. So even in racially homogenous countries like Japan lighter skin is seen as higher status than dark skin, especially for women, and it isn’t because the darker skinned people are percieved as looking more like sub-Saharan Africans, or that there is genetic component to that darker skin.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/94 "2007-07-10T18:49:39Z")
[QUOTE=jamus\_se]
If a group of Disney animators actually sit around a table and nail down some secret proposal that says “we hate black people therefore we’ll dress the villain in black”, then I’d give in to the argument… otherwise, the link is simply too week to keep me convinced.
[/QUOTE]
The thing is, they’re making those evil black villains bone white. That’s the peculiar part to me: if they wanted people to associate evil with black people, why don’t they make the evil people be black? Heck, if they’re subconsciously associating evil with black people, why are the evil people white? It just doesn’t add up.
Far more likely they’re associating evil people with white people who wear black, since their evil people tend to be white people who wear black. In this respect they’re like William Blake:
> [@](#):
>
> And priests in black gowns were making their rounds
> and binding with briars my joys and desires
I don’t think Blake’s poetry demonstrates here conscious or unconscious racism; I don’t think medieval executioners in black outfits were perpetuating racial stereotypes. I don’t think the use of those images in modern times perpetuates any stereotype, either.
Daniel
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### Author:  [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/95 "2007-07-10T18:56:43Z")
I never would have associated the crows with black people if someone hadn’t pointed that out. As a kid, I thought they were crows, just like Dumbo was an elephant. And I still see them as crows, really white birds with black feathers.
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### Author:  [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/96 "2007-07-10T18:58:18Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
There’s little doubt in my mind that the crows were meant to be based on black “types” (you’ve got a preacher-type, a pre-Urkel nerd, and others), and Dumbo was made back when such humor was socially acceptable. Black performers were frequently called “crows”, or in groups named the “crows”
But I have to admit, I don’t read it as demeaning in this case – there’s nothing specifically “Black” about the crows. That same “can’t speak English properly” meme applies to Southern whites as well – it’s a Southern stereotype, not specifically a black one. Have a look at cartoons like “Deputy Dawg” and other bits of pop culture supposed to represent southern flavor.
[/quote]
We’ll have to agree to disagree. You seem to be saying the crows _were_ supposed to be “black” but that they weren’t specifically black. That makes no sense to me. Would Amos 'n Andy fall under your “general southern stereotype” category? Is there _anything_ that you would consider a demeaning stereotype?
The white man who voiced the lead crow was nicknamed “Jim Crow” on the set. The other voices were black men.
> [@](#):
>
> Whattaya think of the cartoon crow performers who back up Jessica Rabbit in **Who framed Roger Rabbit**?
Don’t remember that part.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/97 "2007-07-10T19:06:16Z")
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
But the crows _are_ demeaning. I suggest you watch a clip of that segment before you make assumptions about it. And not a re-dubbed clip.
“But I been done seen about everything
When I see a elephant fly”
Ha, ha - those silly Negroes; they can’t even speak English correctly.
[/QUOTE]
Except, except, except … the crows in \*Dumbo \* \*\*aren’t \*\* just Stepin Fetchit charicatures. On first glance they seem to be, because they speak using exaggeraged “Negro” slang, but they’re actually the sharpest and kindest characters in the film. They do what Dumbo’s fellow elephants aren’t capable of doing – they accept him for who he is instead of judging him by his appearance. And they’re the one’s who teach him to fly.
How many other movies in 1941 had likable and confident black characters teaching things to the hero? Compare the crows in \*Dumbo \* to Prissy in _Gone With the Wind_ two years earlier.
The relationship between Disney and racism is a complicated one. On the one hand the older Disney movies are a product of their time – often they do regrettably fall into common negative stereotypes. But balancing that is the inherent \*humaneness \* of the Disney productions. The whole ethos of the studio in the early years revolved around creating characters with emotional depth. So the crows may have started out as cheap stereotypes, but in the hands of Ward Kimball (their principle animator) they transcended their origins and became fully-fledged (no pun intended) characters.
You see this same process at work in the Disney Latin American features of the early 40’s: _Saludos Amigos_ and _The Three Caballeros_. The Disney animators meticulously researched the different cultures, and tried very hard to create cartoons that could be enjoyed in Latin America as much as in the United States. They succeeded so well with [Ze Carioca](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Carioca) that he went on to become a national institution in his home country of Brazil. No simple charicature could have accomplished that.
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### Author:  [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/98 "2007-07-10T19:06:52Z")
[QUOTE=kidchameleon]
I never would have associated the crows with black people if someone hadn’t pointed that out. As a kid, I thought they were crows, just like Dumbo was an elephant. And I still see them as crows, really white birds with black feathers.
[/QUOTE]
I didn’t notice as a kid either. It only became obvious to me when I saw the segment again as an adult. It’s really quite obvious that they’re supposed to be acting the stereotypical way that white people thought black men acted in the 1940s.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/99 "2007-07-10T19:13:01Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Would Amos 'n Andy fall under your “general southern stereotype” category? Is there anything that you would consider a demeaning stereotype?
Curiously enough, yes – the same guys responsible for Amos 'n’Andy kept at it up until the 1960s (coming up with a movie and an ill-received cartoon and a TV show of the characters along the way). They shrewdly realized that the racial stereotypes of Amos ‘n’ Andy were becoming offensive.
So they turned them into a “Funny Animal” cartoon, with no racial overtones, but with the same characteristics and southern accents. Enmter **Calvin and the Colonel**
> **[Calvin and the Colonel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_the_Colonel)**
>
> Calvin and the Colonel is an American animated sitcom about Colonel Montgomery J. Klaxon, a shrewd fox, and Calvin T. Burnside, a dumb bear. Their lawyer was Oliver Wendell Clutch, who was a (literal) weasel. The colonel lived with his wife Maggie Belle and her sister Susan Culpepper, who did not trust the Colonel at all. Colonel Klaxon was in the real estate business, but always tried get-rich-quick schemes with Calvin's unwitting help. The series was an animated remake of Amos 'n' Andy \[or, mo...
As for the crows in Dumbo — I’m saying that they were probably created as being based on “black” characters, but they’re “readable” as non-black. There’s nothing particularly demeaning about them, except their ungrammatical talk, but that’s attributable to a regional dialect, rather than a racial one. Watch Deputy Dawg sometime.
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### Author:  [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disney-villains-wear-dark-clothes-does-that-reinforce-racism/411084/100 "2007-07-10T19:18:02Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco]
Except, except, except … the crows in \*Dumbo \* \*\*aren’t \*\* just Stepin Fetchit charicatures. On first glance they seem to be, because they speak using exaggeraged “Negro” slang, but they’re actually the sharpest and kindest characters in the film. They do what Dumbo’s fellow elephants aren’t capable of doing – they accept him for who he is instead of judging him by his appearance. And they’re the one’s who teach him to fly.
How many other movies in 1941 had likable and confident black characters teaching things to the hero? Compare the crows in \*Dumbo \* to Mammy or Prissy in _Gone With the Wind_ two years earlier.
[/QUOTE]
This is getting off-topic, but the fact that the crows redeem their earlier poor behavior doesn’t really mitigate the problem with how the characters are presented. A racial stereotype isn’t o.k. just because the character did a good thing. You could show a black man grinning and tapdancing and eating a slice of watermelon, and he could be the nicest guy in the world - it’s still a stereotype.
Having said that, I’m not blaming Disney for anything, because it was par for the course then, and they were far from the worst offender in that regard. There’s some stuff in some of the Marx Brothers films that’s really racist, for example. But by today’s standards, that stuff doesn’t fly.
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