Ever since reading the article about the Disney linguistic profiling study, I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. So much of my childhood centered around the Disney princesses, and I watched each movie over and over again for at least the first ten years of my life.
It’s interesting to think about those movies now in the context of the modern day and the study on linguistic profiling and to consider which elements of the study I was aware of as a child and which I am now. I was always very conscious of gender roles in Disney movies, specifically the ways in which female characters are strong (or not). Belle from Beauty and the Beast has always been my favorite because of her strong backbone and the way she not only rescues herself but also rescues the Beast and her father. Mulan, another favorite, rescues all of China. I detested Snow White for the way she waits for her prince to come and Cinderella for letting her step-family treat her like dirt and still serving them with a smile.
I did not, however, consider the role of accents in the Disney world. As a child, I did not know that I was being conditioned to view people who speak with accents as different or evil. Disney also teaches us to subconsciously see non-native English speakers as lesser, demonstrated through the quantity of animal characters who speak in accented English.
I also never considered that most of the characters were white, and those who were not were seldom portrayed in a positive light. The Princess and the Frog was the first Disney movie I watched where the majority of the cast was not white. After our in-class activity today, I feel heartened that Disney movies are improving their representation and portrayal of both non-white people and non-native English speakers. But now that I have been made aware of the inherent problems present in Disney, I want to pay attention to all the media I consume — Disney and otherwise — and the ways in which I may be conditioned to hold prejudices or stereotypes as a result.
