Disney finally launched its much-ballyhooed streaming service Disney Plus on Tuesday, getting 10 million people to sign up for a free trial in its first 24 hours. The film library is, of course, deep and full of cinematic history. It features an impressive offering of Disney movies old and new. Disney apparently feels that some of the older ones are problematic, and has decided to air them with warning labels:
#DisneyPlus warns users that older movies have "outdated cultural depictions" https://t.co/Hv5ToYUzpr
— Variety (@Variety) November 13, 2019
Films like “Dumbo,” “The Aristocats,” “Lady and the Tramp” and “Jungle Book,” some of which were made nearly 80 years ago, offer a disclaimer saying,” “This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.” Since its initial release in 1941, “Dumbo” has been criticized for including a version of vocal blackface, while “The Aristocats” and “Peter Pan” have been the subject of scrutiny for racist depictions of characters.
Before such movies plays [sic], another message appears that reads, “The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in American society. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. While these cartoons do not represent today’s society, they are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”
Disclaimers are generally issued because lawyers long ago realized that there was a living to be made off of stupid people doing stupid things. Disney, sadly, is merely bowing and scraping for the politically correct crowd.
It would be tempting to blame this on the youth of America, saying that they are all too stupid and fragile to understand context. Were that true, it would be the fault of the adults who raised and educated them, of course.
It’s more than likely, however, that even the kids graduating lower in their classes can figure out that old cartoons are, well, old.
One of the most annoying things about liberals is that they cannot help but be condescending scolds in all they do. They are at their absolute worst when they’re trying to “help.”
If I want to watch Dumbo, I want to watch it without a lecture before the movie. People who have younger kids can explain context to them. If they aren’t good enough parents to do that, some heavy-handed nanny nonsense from Disney isn’t going to save us from how stupid those children are going to end up being.
Kudos to Disney for leaving the films as they were originally made and not completely whitewashing any scenes deemed offensive.
That’s probably on the progressive agenda though.
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