This Girl Gets Told After Saying Disney Makes All Princesses White On Purpose.. | SF Globe.

Hi. A response to the person who had the gall to tumblr shout and be all righteous. The sensitive issue (hello, minority oppression) requires a lot more than several lines to address, if you really think you’re right about it.

FIRST. Making characters white because “it makes sense with the story” is the most hypocritical and unaware argument I have ever heard. In a created universe where meters-long hair can glow and heal people, where trolls are accepted as real and reliable, where magic exists (!!) , the defense of historical accuracy becomes very dubious. In fact, it becomes preposterous when considering the audience of these Disney movies: malleable children who are at the point of their lives where they wouldn’t know historical accuracy from fiction.

It becomes the social responsibility of big conglomerates to provide some form of narrative and representation. The kind of narratives they spew out is so instrumental to the shaping of a generation. The excuses Disney (and you) make are excuses made for the rich and paying conservative branch. Strictly speaking, children –especially children ‘of color’– won’t and don’t care.

SECOND. Just because white or caucasian was the dominant ethnicity in those times –assuming that this is true to the extent of, say, 90% of the population– it doesn’t discount the fact that diversity still exists. Even then, for some of these settings, people of other ethnicities did exist and were to some extent held in clear regard.

This is a great resource of articles with clear evidence of people of color as part of nobility, high trade, etc. in European history. Please check it out. :) http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/

THIRD. But let’s look at the ethnic and representative examples you spewed out. The reason why you can name them all in one hand is because they’re that few –it only shows the clear disparity in representation. In a world where ethnicity should no longer be the currency, it’s still relevant to know that “white people” don’t make up the actual global majority, at least not to the extent of representation Disney suggests.

But even then. Tiana, outrageous as she is –and think about why she caused such a rage in becoming a princess (hint: it’s because it was revolutionary to have a black Disney princess, several decades after African-American “legal” equality)– spends most of her time as a frog. At that point, her color and her representative value ceased to matter. Unfairly.

FOURTH. Even if Disney has created the same number of racially diverse princesses as there is white, the amount of emphasis placed on the golden age princesses (Snow White, Aurora, Ariel..), and then their white new-animation descendants (Merida, Elsa, Anna…), have always been more than the princesses who came in between.

Disney is smart. If they wanted to market princesses of color, they could have done so successfully. But they didn’t.

xx

Whatevs bye. Sorry. I was carried away. :(

[ugh profit-minded whitewashers]