Another Racist Look at Disney

As my final semester of classes at West Chester (I still have student teaching) gets closer to ending, I find myself making time for more distractions. I am currently doing so by raiding the Ursinus College Library for DVDs. The library is pretty well stocked. I have a list of films and TV shows to check out. By far the most elusive film I have been searching for is #700 - Cinderella Man. I had had Cinderella Man on DVD, but I lent it to a coworker who passed away while borrowing it and I didn't want to ask his widow for my movie - perhaps borderline tacky? Anyway, with this library I have watched a collection of things such as the 1927 silent film College, the final seasons of Arrested Development, The Bucket List, and Sorority Boys. For this week of Passover, I (Karen) checked out Mission: Impossible III, College, Entourage Season 1, Dumbo and (500) Days of Summer.

I don't always watch movies for entertainment anyway, thanks to some of my college classes. In this case, the classes that are the most influential are American Popular Culture of the 20th Century, and American History at the Movies. In the second class, the professor described the events in Pocahontas , including the details that the title character is a Lolita, and John Smith is a pedophile.

My complaint tonight stems from what I saw in Dumbo. There is already one discussion of a potential racist scene involving crows, but I noticed something else that got my attention and inspired me enough to write. At the end of the opening sequence, as the animals disembark from the train, a carload of black people is emptied. They begin working quickly and singing a song. As they sing, the elephants take part of the physical labor, perhaps a reference to the cruelties of some circuses. The song that they sing is called

Song of the Roustabouts

. The first verse of the song:

"Hike! Ugh! Hike! Ugh! Hike! Ugh! Hike!
We work all day, we work all night
We never learned to read or write
We're happy-hearted roustabouts"

I thought it was interesting that the black workers could not read or write. Blacks were prevented in voting in some elections because they could not pass literacy tests, and slaves were not allowed to learn reading or writing skills. Other lyrics that caught my attention, the phrases "When other folks have gone to bed / We slave until we're almost dead" and

"Keep on working!
Stop that shirking!
Grab that rope, you hairy ape!"

So am I reading too far into this? Is the movie accurate to the times of production (1941)? Or is the movie enforcing the culture that cultivated racism in the early days of the United States. Can the movie do both at once, and romanticizing both attitudes. For the record, a Roustabout is a worker that preforms unskilled and/or temporary labor.

In addition, Karen pointed out that in the parade that occurs when the circus arrives in town, the people riding the camels are dressed as stereotypical Arabs. And while I'm discussing the film I think that the elephant in the green hat sounds like a Jewish old lady/Bubby.

My only beef with the movies in the library: the length of the film written on the box is not accurate. I checked out College thinking it was a different movie of the same name, and kept it because it was listed as being only 66 minutes. However, 30 minutes in I checked the amount of time remaining and saw it listed as 2 hours. And Wikipedia says it is 66 minutes. Maybe I should look again before it is returned. The other movie was Matewan (on VHS!), and as such I could not see how much time was left, but just had to keep watching....and watching, until it ended 40 minutes later than expected. I also know that Cinderella Man was removed from the collection and is in the process of being replaced.

I missed most of this movie because I was busy writing...good thing the movie is so short that I can re-watch it over the weekend - 64 minutes! I also still really enjoy the film for its art design and music.