The Disney Grooming Syndicate has watered down its fascist trigger warnings that told people how to think about its older movies.
Starting in 2020, after the death of George Floyd fueled and emboldened the Woke Gestapo, classic Disney titles such as The Jungle Book, Peter Pan, The Aristocrats, Dumbo, and The Swiss Family Robinson were vandalized with labels looking to shame viewers who dared enjoy them.
File/Peter Pan, poster, from left: Wendy Darling, John Darling, Michael Darling, Captain Hook, 1953. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
“The updated content warnings for other classic Disney animated and live action titles like Swiss Family Robinson and Dumbo follow the studio consulting with a third-party advisory council that includes groups like the African American Film Critics Association, Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment and GLAAD,” the far-left Hollywood Reporter reported at the time.
This meant that viewers were told some variation of this pandering:
This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together. Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe.
All I can say about that is … this.
Specific movies inspired specific attacks.
Peter Pan (1953) fans were told the movie “neither reflects the diversity of Native peoples nor their authentic cultural traditions.” Jungle Book (1968) fans were warned “that King Louie, the jazz-singing orangutan, was intended as a racist caricature of African Americans.” Fans of Dumbo (1941) were told the movie’s crows “ridiculed enslaved Africans on Southern plantations” and that the Siamese cat in The Aristocats (1970) “depicted as a racist caricature of East Asian peoples.”
File/The Aristocats, poster from left: Berlioz, Toulouse, Marie, Duchess, O’Malley, Roquefort, 1970. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
It’s all so stupid and condescending, not to mention dishonest. We all know the difference between ridiculing and demeaning a culture and not. Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is difficult to watch. His comedic take on Asians is not good-natured. The black crows in Dumbo might be stereotypical but they are also smart, likable, and even given character arcs as their sympathy with Dumbo grows. Nuance matters. Common sense matters. Let’s not be dumb.
Anyway, with their brand in the shitter and Disney+ losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers, the groomers at the Louse House have been forced to back off their lies and lunacy. There will now be an across-the-board trigger warning that merely says this:
This program is presented as originally created and may contain stereotypes or negative depictions.
Sure, it’s a step in the right direction, but it’s still an act of artistic vandalism. The moment you remove our right to interpret a piece of art, you’ve damaged it, undermined it, and devalued it. If we’d been told why the Mona Lisa smiles, the painting would lose its value and status as a masterpiece. Oh, she’s smiling at a piece of pastry. She’s smiling at a dog getting whipped. She’s smiling because she’s a smug feminist ahead of her time.
Disney sucks.
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