Dumbo - a Controversial Movie

Dumbo - a Controversial Movie

Dumbo is a controversial movie that many people might think to have racist views and interpretations. The thing is that people look too far into the movie and want to try and pick out every little thing that would seem racist to them. They can overlook some of the key facts of how it is anti-racist in many ways. Aren’t the cruel people in the film such as the ringmaster, the clowns, and the little boys who torment Dumbo all White? The crows, which people can mistake for racism because their English isn’t of our quality even though they probably speak better than President Bush, are actually the ones who help Dumbo to fly and are the ones that give him the confidence to do it. The crows are actually one of the more friendly characters in the movie. The voices behind the crows, which are played by Black people, give the characters more life and uniqueness behind them.

People might think that Dumbo sets examples and leads children in directions that are immoral and not right but as a child no one thinks to relate the crows and the roustabouts to Blacks unless someone like a teacher or parent was spouting it in their ears. Until someone had told me about Dumbo being racist I would have never have even thought about it. It’s our perceptions on things. No one looks at the racist views about Whites in the film but only about the Blacks.

By having the Black crows being voiced by actual Black people, Walt Disney might have actually been trying to show that he realized the role Blacks play in America and that they are not totally incapable of things. The movie was made in the 1940’s during WWII. I don’t think his intentions at this time were purely racial. His themes were more likely to be of the war going on at that