Disney's 8 Biggest Mistakes In Company's History

[TTL News 308]

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In October 1923, a bankrupt cartoonist from Kansas City would move to California, and with the help of his brother, found an animation giant that would change the entertainment world forever.

Although The Walt Disney Company gave us many industry firsts and revolutionized animated storytelling, the House of Mouse has also made its fair share of mistakes over the years. As the entertainment behemoth celebrates its 100th anniversary, Newsweek looks back chronologically at the moments Disney would like us to forget.

1) Song Of The South 

Disney's past approach to race has been called out a number of times in recent years—with the company adding an "Outdated Cultural Depictions" warning ahead of some of its older programming on Disney+—but there's one movie that Disney has actively tried to bury.

A passion project for Walt Disney, 1946's Song of the South was one of the first films to blend live-action and animation. Set in the late 19th just after the civil war, the film used the Uncle Remus storybook by Joel Chandler as inspiration. As Chandler was a white journalist chronicling Black folklore and profiting as a result, the source material was already controversial, even by 1940s standards.

Although Song of the South definitely hasn't aged well, even upon release, the film and its happy-go-lucky depiction of slavery were divisive. In his review, The New Yorker's John McCarten said he "felt like Disney wished the 13th Amendment had never passed," while The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) protested outside theaters.

Unlike the majority of Disney's back catalog, Song of the South was not released on home video and is not available on Disney+. The company has also since tried to eradicate any evidence of the film from its theme parks, changing the name and theme of Splash Mountain to Tiana's Bayou Adventure, in honor of Disney's first black princess from the 2009 movie, The Princess and the Frog.

 

See the rest of the list here.

Tell us what you think? Were these mistakes? Or were there other mistakes the company made over the past century?

[Hal 341]

Phtt , Disney … screw them , they jumped on the wrong train years ago and got what they deserve ! 
 

[Adam 373]

i think to bemoan historical inaccuracies in CARTOONS is ludicrous at best. then to complain about speaking times in yet more cartoons as a measurement of importance of characters; i for one know many people who speak an enormous amount, yet know dick....

[MsKreed 1,185]

23 minutes ago, Adam said:

then to complain about speaking times in yet more cartoons as a measurement of importance of characters;

I know, right??

The main plot point of The Little Mermaid was literally....that the title character was unable to speak. 

 

Also.....they seem to overlook (or perhaps never bothered to learn) the fact that to avoid paying authors for screenplays...... much of Disney's cartoon movie content was sourced from works that are public domain from centuries old stories. 

News flash: in fairy tales of past centuries, "damsels in distress" was a common theme. 🙄

[Chris 2,168]

I think what Disney has gotten right, is that instead of butchering ,  uh, editing they cartoons like Warner Bro. did with Looney Tunes, they simply add on a disclaimer which basically says, "Hey, it's what it was for the time."

13 hours ago, MsKreed said:

News flash: in fairy tales of past centuries, "damsels in distress" was a common theme. 🙄

Can you imagine the "enlightened" fairy tales kids will hear in a couple hundred years? 

Although looking at what passes for a man in this society, maybe they won't be too far off. 

[Chris 2,168]

Somewhere in the conversation last night, I thought about the statement I made and how it applies to this topic. 

Despite what a lot of people believe, not everything is about race, sexuality, misogyny, wealth disparity, etc. Sometimes a cigar is just a f--ing cigar. 

I can't imagine going through life constantly looking for, and finding, things to be offended by, either real or imagined.