And of course theres the pitfall of veering into hurtful stereotypes. [5] Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, an associate professor who taught courses on Alaska Native philosophy at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, claimed he was never given a script, but was instead given "the dialogue that they had written, which was being told by a Native person". [16] However, Collins explained, "Slowly, the bad news started to trickle down that I wouldn't be singing it all. Irene Bedard, a Native American actress, voiced Pocahontas. Cultural appropriation refers to the use of objects or elements of a non-dominant culture in a way that reinforces stereotypes or contributes to oppression and doesn't respect their original meaning or give credit to their source. But the overuse of the term obscures offenses that might actually deserve more censure . As in The Jungle Book, the animals reflect the local fauna, but not the local culture. [24][25] By January 2005, the film had earned $169 million in home video sales and rentals. The voice cast is entirely American and white, but Disney hired a Sami musician to write the opening song. Koda begins by teaching him humility. Look for much more on American Indian medicine powers to come. [5] Voicing the moose brothers Rutt and Tuke, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis performed simultaneously throughout the recording process. I dont think India will do a Disney-quality animated movie any time soon, so a musical collaboration seems like it could be a great idea. It was not only black musicians who appreciated Elvis. In this form they can wreck havoc with their enemies and have additional skills at hunting as well. Sitka complies, and Kenai is transformed back into a bear. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. The film was the third and final Disney animated feature produced primarily by the Feature Animation studio at Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida; the studio was shut down in March 2004, not long after the release of this film in favor of computer animated features. It's all about what Halloween costume you wear, or who's cooking biryani. In 1994's "The Lion King," Scar's accomplices are three hyenas Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed. But you may have forgotten the story's darker, more disturbing elements, particularly the sheer amount of child trafficking that takes place. The phrase originated in the . Meanwhile, Rutt and Tuke, having had a falling-out, reconcile in front of Koda, prompting him to forgive Kenai. The 2014 film "Maleficent," which is told from the villain's point of view, attempts to resolve the problematic scene by focusing on the untold story of Maleficent's eventual bond with Aurora. The pair of moose is voiced by a pair of Canadian actors. The particular animals they represent symbolize what they must achieve to call themselves men. I'm a leading bear. So Kenai is given a great power. Co-creation, not cultural appropriation, is the way forward. The movie got a tiny bit of criticism for its portrayal of Kristoff as a blond Sami. What a perfect gift! 6 min read. The film revolves around relationships between humans and their spirit helpers, and the beneficial magical powers derived from such relationships. [38][39] The wide release followed on November 1, 2003 expanding to 3,030 theater venues. The main protagonist is half Japanese and is played by an actor who is also half Japanese. Disney added the idea of the sky lanterns released on the princess birthday, which led to some of the most beautiful visuals in the film. Examples of Cultural Appropriation 1. A direct-to-video sequel, Brother Bear 2, was released on August 29, 2006. However, every child who participates in the island's activities is then turned into a donkey and sold to work in nearby salt mines. Amandla Stenberg, an activist and an individual who has considerable reach amongst the masses used her platform as an actress to speak out against cultural appropriation when she responded to a post on the Instagram of a celebrity teen socialite in early July. They received little positive attention, and I don't ever recall seeing an American Indian sit-com on television. Disney transposed the story to Jazz Age New Orleans and added voodoo magic and bayous. A turban (also known as a dastaar) is a religious item worn by people who practise Sikhism. In one scene from the original "Dumbo," the elephant's friend, Timothy Q. Jacky Chan was at the height of his comedic career in the late 90s, and he voiced a part in the Chinese dub of Mulan, so Disney literally had him at their disposition! In our remote-control cultural context, that figure tops out at 15 seconds, max. Tribal. Kenai sacrifices himself for Koda, out of love, prompting Sitka to appear and turn him back into a human, much to Denahi and Koda's surprise. However, since Snow White is unconscious and essentially dead during the scene, this kiss could be viewed as non-consensual and an act of assault. Isn't that the greatest? Ollie Millington / Getty Images. (This is a linguistic score for Disney--the Kenai people belong to the Tanaina tribe, and her name symbolizes that Tahana is the essence of her people.) "From a very early age, we're conflating queerness and gender expression outside of the binary with evil and villainy, especially with no counterpoints due to the total lack of positive and canonical queerness in children's media," argues YouTuber Rowan Ellis in her video essay"Why Are Disney Villains Gay/Queer? "Is this because the animation field, a field that still has work to do in terms of having racial parity in the workplace, doesn't know how to successfully write about non-stereotypical characters of color?". After Sitka's funeral, an enraged Kenai blames the bear for Sitka's death. Cultural appropriation involves pillaging, especially for profit or cool cred, without respect or reverence, like non-Black kids who talk and dress in the hip-hop style because it's trendy but . Some of these movies have a vague setting while others are more specific. When it comes to cultural portrayal, Disney has to walk the line between representation and appropriation. In this film, she kisses an unconscious Aurora on the cheek, and her maternal love for the girl is what causes her to wake up from the curse. Kenai accepts his new surroundings and is comfortable living with the other bears. "In an effort neither to offend audiences in the North or South, the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery ['Song of the South'] unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship, which is a distortion of the facts," the NAACP said in a 1946 statement. In this iteration of the story, a king rapes and impregnates the sleeping princess, then marries her after she wakes up. I am content! 1. For the parade, the song had slightly changed lyrics and was performed by an ensemble. Brother Bear follows an Alaska native boy named Kenai as he pursues a bear and kills it, but the Spirits, incensed by this unnecessary death, change Kenai into a bear himself as punishment. In that sense, every person in the tribe is a shaman in his or her own right. at the start of 2020, nearly two years after teaching herself to sew a pair . That person turns out to be Belle, the bookish protagonist who teaches the cruel, abrasive Beast to be considerate and kind enough to transform back into a prince at the 1991 movie's end. He has been criticized for cultural appropriation, stirring up controversy to drum up publicity, and, perhaps most frequently, for his former rap moniker, "Rich Chigga," "chigga" being a . When it comes to cultural portrayal, Disney has to walk the line between representation and appropriation. Every other character speaks in British English, implying that the "Jungle Book" apes embody historically dehumanizing, racist comparisons between black people and apes. aerobic vs anaerobic threshold; small ottoman with storage; my phone hotspot is not connecting to any device; gears 5 system requirements; iraq football team ranking; Tahana reveals that his spirit helper is the bear. He later wrote: "This opulent movie, with gorgeous rainbow animation, is heavy on message but light on humor."[37]. brother bear cultural appropriation. [9] A year later, the production team took additional research trips through the Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and the Sequoia National Park. Disney doesnt have anything new on its horizon as of now. The website's consensus reads, "Brother Bear is gentle and pleasant if unremarkable Disney fare, with so-so animation and generic plotting. The movie has left me with a lifelong interest and appreciation for real life Inuit culture so it would make me sad to find out it was offensive, but if it was I guess I'll just have to accept that. "[11] After the filmmakers heard his audition tapes for Finding Nemo, Jeremy Suarez was cast as Koda. I don't disagree with the objections that many raise about the harm of perpetuating cultural stereotypes, using sacred or revered symbols and objects in a trivial way, or even having fun pretending to be a member of a repressed culture for a day. Tahana reveals that his spirit helper is the bear. No. The first disc contained the widescreen version (1.66:1 aspect ratio) and the second disc featured the original theatrical widescreen version (1.66:1 and 2.35:1 aspect ratio). In 1953's "Peter Pan," Peter's friend Tiger Lily belongs to a Native American tribe that he and the Darling siblings visit at one point in the film. Following the showing of the film, Collins performed "No Way Out" before introducing Tina Turner to the stage where she performed the opening song, "Great Spirits". In a famous . ! *coughs* Hey there, wanna become part of . It seems unlikely that Disney would show children drinking in one of their new releases today, but older animated films depict exactly that. "Dumbo" also includes a song called "Song of the Roustabouts," in which faceless black circus "workers" sing offensive lyrics like "We slave until we're almost dead / We're happy-hearted roustabouts" and "Keep on working / Stop that shirking / Pull that rope, you hairy ape.". He objects to his totem, stating that bears are thieves, and believes his point is made a fact when a brown bear steals their basket of salmon. Last century they dubbed themselves the "forgotten minority." The tone of these film also varies, from the comedic anachronisms of Hercules to the darker approach of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Next fall their doors will open to the public, and since the Air and Space Museum is the Smithsonian's most-visited museum, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what will instantly become the second most visited site on the mall. I loved the live-action Disney film Queen of Katwe, which was set in Uganda. Disney has gotten off us to a good start. Cultural appropriation is the "adoption or taking of specific elements of one culture by another without substantive reciprocity, permission, compensation, understanding, or appreciation" (Chepp, 2012). Disney is increasingly recognizing its flaws and now seems to have understood its responsibility in the representation of other cultures. . Was Elvis the 'king of cultural appropriation' or a tireless . Most people had at least one small power. Think black people being called thugs, assumed to be gang members and refused job opportunities when we wear cornrows, or even our own natural hair. There's a big difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation. In 1941's "Dumbo," the elephant encounters a pack of crows who are some of the only characters who are friendly towards him in the movie. Peter and the Darlings also appropriate the tribe's culture, wearing headdresses, brandishing tomahawks, and making stereotypical "whooping" noises. Mulan takes a famous Chinese legend and turns it into the most awesome Disney movie ever. In nearly every American Indian culture, the bear is right up there with the eagle, the buffalo and other creatures as the most powerful of animal spirit helpers. [36] Stephen Holden of The New York Times felt the film was too similar to The Lion King. The Spirits, represented by Sitka's spirit in the form of a bald eagle, arrive and transform Kenai into a bear after the dead bear's body evaporates and joins them. [22], On October 20, 2003, Brother Bear premiered at the New Amsterdam Theatre where fellow attendees included New York Governor George Pataki and cast members Michael Clarke Duncan and Estelle Harris. If you show love and appreciation for parts of a culture, such as clothing, hairstyles, or accessories, but remain prejudiced against its people, that's appropriation. Calling "cultural appropriation" is an easy way to call attention to an infraction, real or imagined. Denahi arrives and, falsely believing that Kenai was killed by the bear from earlier, vows to avenge Kenai by hunting it down. Cultural appropriation is a seriously hot-button topic. [21] On July 15, 2003, Disney announced that the release date would be moved up by one weekend from its previously scheduled slot of November 7, 2003. Cultural Appropriation, by some it's seen as an adoption culture being stolen away from a dominant group. One major criticism Keziah received was that she profaned the dress by wearing it to a party. Brother Bear has Inuit protagonists. The film opened second behind Scary Movie 3 grossing $18.5 million at the box office. Appreciation is when someone seeks to understand and learn about another culture in an effort to broaden their perspective and connect with others cross-culturally. CULTURAL APPROPIATION IN ROYALE HIGH!! ", A few examples of Disney villains people believe are queer-coded include Scar from "The Lion King," Jafar from "Aladdin," Hades from "Hercules," King Candy from "Wreck-It Ralph," and Ursula from "The Little Mermaid.". The Sami officials were pleased with Kristoff though. Aurora founded Brother Vellies in January 2013 with the purpose of preserving the craft of design throughout the African continent by creating a sustainable business model. Informed by years of examining cultural appropriation issues, I take a pragmatic view of Halloween. . Rafiki might be meant to be some sort of African shaman (?). kiss kiss kiss! Many critics and audiences also noted the use of the film's aspect ratio as a storytelling device. These errors are not only imprecise, but they are counter-productive, divisive, and downright dangerous. Some of the English characters are voiced by English actors, like Alice and Robin Hood. "Noticeably marked by their ethnically coded 'street' accents, the hyenas blatantly symbolize racist and anti-Semitic stereotypes of 'verminous' groups that form a threat to society.". I don't care about that. A version of this trope seems to appear in the upcoming Pixar film, "Soul," in which Joe Gardner (the black main character) is separated from his body and appears as a teal mass (meant to be his "soul") for what seems like most of the story. When a young Inuit hunter needlessly kills a bear, he is magically changed into a bear himself as punishment with a talkative cub being his only guide to changing back. I don't know if this is the right place to ask about Inuit culture as I am from Australia and have no clue about anything lol, but Brother Bear affected me deeply for whatever when I was a kid and although it isn't the best Disney movie ever made it is one of my favourites. "[17] While Collins composed six songs for the film, he shared vocal performance duties with Tina Turner, who sang the opening song;[18] the Blind Boys Of Alabama and the Bulgarian Women's Choir, who performed the song, "Transformation". Can you paint with all the colors of the wind? Its exactly the kind of folktale that Disney likes to adapt, but with Arabic motifs. Its just too bad they got Eddie Murphy to voice Mushu instead of say Jackie Chan. Mulan was played by a Chinese-American actress. [15] Art Director Robh Ruppel stated that the ending of the film originally showed how Kenai and Denahi get together once a year to play when the northern lights are in the sky. It inspired me to take a look at the history of cultural representation in Disney movies. Queer-coding is when writers consciously or unconsciously include stereotypes about LGBT people as characteristics of a character without their sexuality being part of a broader story. Shauna White Bear is on a mission to take moccasins back from the cultural appropriators who stole the hand-crafted footwear from Indigenous people and continue to profit from it. [3] In order to be human again, Kenai must travel to a mountain where the Northern lights touch the earth. Mehgan Gallagher. The Lion King is a story inspired by Hamlet, but with animals from the Serengeti national park in northern Tanzania. Mulan and Aladdin are to date my favorite classic Disney films. One of the great American myths about native shamans is that they were rare. ", In the original theatrical version of "Aladdin," a line from the opening song, "Arabian Nights," goes, "Where they cut off your ear, if they don't like your face / It's barbaric, but hey, it's home. It has an American narrator and Latin American actors. My first memory of Chuck Berry came from the movie "Back to the Future.". What is cultural appropriation? By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It is set approximately 2000 years ago. The trend continued well into the latter half of the 20th century with all-European classics like Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Hercules. 'Big Brother 24' houseguest Matt 'Turner' has faced backlash regarding his use of words including 'bussin' as many viewers believe it's cultural appropriation. Downhearted, Kenai confesses the truth to Koda, who runs away, grief-stricken that Kenai was responsible for his mother's death out of avenging Sitka. To understand why there is such a huge divergence on the perception of Keziah wearing a qipao to prom, and why Keziah's behavior is indeed cultural appreciation rather than cultural appropriation, we first need to examine qipao itself. The clothes, jewelry and architecture look inspired by ancient Middle-Eastern cultures, with a bit of India mixed in. At the end of the movie though, an Indian girl appears wearing a bindi and she sings a strange song that seems to imply that things never really change in the jungle. See more. As a result, it effectively erases their historical actions and paints a whitewashed picture of some of the darkest moments in American history. Cultural Appropriation: "Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. They tried. Disney films have been a mainstay in many people's childhoods for generations, but some elements of them don't hold up today. It is important to understand, however, that there is a difference between appreciation and appropriation . Sami people traditionally raise reindeer to pull sleds but they dont typically ride them. As for the talent involved, one of the music producers was South African. [14] Byron Howard, supervising animator for Kenai in bear form, said that earlier in production a bear named Grizz (who resembles Tug in the film and is voiced by the same actor) was supposed to have the role of Kenai's mentor. In a post-ice age Alaska, the local tribes believe all creatures are created through the Great Spirits, who are said to appear in the form of an aurora. You might be familiar with the Disney theme park ride "Splash Mountain" or the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." Required fields are marked *. It is the 44th film in the Disney Animated Canon, and the last film in the canon to be released by the studio under the Walt Disney Pictures banner. The killing of George Floyd also forced many sport teams that utilize Native American heritage to review that . I will go over the movies that either take place outside the United-States or focus on minorities of the United-States (but I will skip Songs of the South!). She does not speak the bear language, but advises him to return to the mountain to find Sitka and be turned back to a human, but only when he atones for his actions; she vanishes without an explanation. A trio of brothers, Kenai, the youngest; Denahi, the middle; and Sitka, the eldest, return to their tribe in order for Kenai to receive his totem, necklaces in the shapes of different animals. [23], Brother Bear was released on VHS and DVD on March 30, 2004. The voice cast isnt Peruvian, nor Latino, nor indigenous. Brother Vellies . For instance, there are racist caricatures in "Dumbo" and "Lady and the Tramp," and non-consensual kisses in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Sleeping Beauty.". On the other hand, if you learn, explore, and understand a . "Because of the photo-real nature of the film, having too broad of a comedic take on the hyenas felt inconsistent with what we were doing.". I must go to fetch the water / Till the day that I am grown / Then I will have a handsome husband / And a daughter of my own / And Ill send her to fetch the water / Ill be cooking in the home. The lead crow is even named Jim Crow in an obvious reference to the racist Southern segregation laws that lasted until the mid-1960s. Answer (1 of 23): I once sat at a dinner party and this ridiculous subject came up, usually this sort of thing is seen for the agenda pushing nonsense it is. It ranges from the aggressively entitled stance of, "I can do whatever I want!" to the perpetually angry approach of "everything is cultural appropriation!". This one-note, demeaning depiction of Native Americans, as well as the cultural appropriation at play, would likely be cut by today's standards. The voice actors were American and African-American. As we meet Kenai, his two elder brothers have already received their totem spirit helpers from Tahana. "To characterize an entire region with this sort of tongue-in-cheek bigotry, especially in a movie aimed at children, borders on barbaric," The New York Times said of the song in 1993. A Beautiful Girl I Knew Became a High-Class Escort And Paid a Terrible Price. Big Hero 6 is based on an American comic book set in Tokyo, but the movie is set in a fictional city called San Fransokyo. But if festivals are a space for freedom of expression, where is the line betw. [19], Brother Bear was originally slated for a spring 2004 release, while Home on the Range was scheduled for a 2003 release. The voice actors, however, were still white on this film. The spirits call upon Tahana to reveal to each member of her tribe their totem spirit power. Too often, however, this film's lack of a fresh dramatic approach and not its technique makes it difficult to embrace as much as we'd like to". Many parents (including celebrities) have voiced their concerns over sharing the scene with their children.