Let’s Get Down to Business: Asian Representation in Disney

Seven figures dressed in colorful cloaks march in a line, pickaxes slung over their shoulders. With chubby cheeks, bright eyes and their plodding steps, they make their way about a mine. The scene shifts to show each character chipping away at rock in unison. Most importantly, these merry protagonists are whistling a familiar chorus: “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s home from work we go.”

One can thank the success of the 1937 release of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” for this earworm. It was the first full-length production by Walt Disney Pictures and helped to set the precedent for the studio’s movie-making formula: multimillion-dollar budgets to fund the reproduction of Eurocentric tales. After all, though Disney may be a familiar name in white and Asian households alike, it is ultimately a company – a massive entertainment conglomerate, to be more exact. As a result, the depiction of diverse characters has historically come second to profit.

Even though Disney has been putting Asians on the screen since the 1960s, these productions are few and far between. Not only is the scope of Disney-sanctioned media featuring Asians painfully limited, but the films are rife with stereotypes and genericism.

Disney’s first endeavor into Asian storytelling came in the form of 1967’s “The Jungle Book,” which was adapted from British-Indian author Rudyard Kipling’s book of the same name. Criticisms of Kipling and this particular work have proliferated in recent years because of its racist themes. The film not only preserves these motifs but doubly fails to represent the Indian setting that Kipling intended for the book to take place in.

The story is set in India, yet any attempts to reference this in the film are either generalized or inaccurate. For example, the orangutan antagonist, King Louie, was not even a part of the original book’s material, which may have been permissible if orangutans were even native to the region. Disney’s lack of other cultural references undermines the importance of India to Kipling’s work, leaving only the Anglicized pronunciation of the characters’ names to be an indicator of the film’s Asian influence.

Disney continues to mishandle the depiction of diverse cultures as recently as this year. Massive budgets and exquisite storytelling make for a larger-than-life viewing experience, and “Raya and the Last Dragon” is no exception. The studio’s latest animated picture features cutting-edge computer-generated graphics, breathtaking environments and realistic simulated physics.

Though “Raya and the Last Dragon” is a step forward for Disney, featuring an original story and Southeast Asian setting, the pioneering stops there. The studio missed a major opportunity to showcase specific cultural details, instead choosing to amalgamate all of Southeast Asia together.

As Beatrice Loayza wrote in a 2021 film review for The New York Times, “Raya” received the “Disney treatment” by once again “[neutralizing] the distinctive elements of non-Western culture.” The result is a Pinterest board of Southeast Asia: all images, no substance. The magical viewing experience cannot distract from the fact that Disney put an Asian girl on the screen, pat themselves on the back, and called it a day.

Disney’s habitual butchering of meaningful Asian customs and traditions means that even in stories where Asian characters are the central focus, Disney’s so-called representation fails to do its job. Perhaps the most obvious explanation for this is the employment of white voices to present an authentic Asian story. This issue remains present even in Disney’s attempt to rectify the heavy-handedness of the original 1992 “Aladdin.”

“Aladdin” was Disney’s first adaptation of a non-European folktale, and faced controversy for its mismanagement of Middle Eastern culture. This includes numerous lyrical gaffes, the most controversial found in “Arabian Nights.” The changes made were addressed by the movie’s white composer Alan Menken in a 2019 interview with Digital Spy, where he stated that he thought the original lyric portraying Arabs as violent and barbaric was “funny,” and that it had to be adjusted for the remake because “values go upside-down in a blink” – a rather insensitive wash over Disney’s own shortcomings.

If Disney had employed actual Middle Eastern creators for the 1992 production, an offensive lyric wouldn’t have made the cut in the first place, nor would the villains have been pigeonholed into racial stereotypes. Aladdin and Jasmine’s Anglicized designs purposefully contrast with the darker skin and exaggerated features of Jafar and the royal guards, which perpetuates harmful racial caricatures.

Despite the producer of the 2019 “Aladdin” remake, Dan Lin, claiming it addresses the original film’s “ethnicity issues,” the improvements are marginal. While on the surface, the remake may have appeared more authentic, the shallow, aesthetic insertions of Arabian culture fail to capture anything truly specific about Middle Eastern culture. Samir Abrady, a columnist for the business magazine Fast Company, dubbed the Aladdin remake as depicting “pseudo-Arabia,” accusing Disney of opting for “bland safety over vivid characterization.” Abrady suggests that Disney’s fear of facing criticism for including cultural and racial tropes has hindered their ability to properly represent Asian cultures on the screen.

Furthermore, Disney reportedly struggled for months to find a Middle Eastern actor capable of filling the part of Aladdin. This speaks to the limited presence of POC creatives in Hollywood; however, the company undeniably has the resources to bring new talent in yet actively chooses not to. During the production of the “Aladdin” remake in 2018, Disney even resorted to putting white extras in brownface. Appallingly, Disney attempted to qualify their actions by claiming it was necessary for the actors to “blend in.”

In a 2017 article for BBC News. Lexi Galer quotes half-Palestinian Oscar-nominated director, Lexi Alexander, who argues that in Hollywood exists a system that “insists actors-of-color need to be household names to be cast.” That means when any major Hollywood studio does manage to put an Asian on the screen, they recycle the same faces as part of an exchange of representation for name recognition.

Why does this occur? To attract audiences, of course.

As one of the five biggest film studios of the modern era, Walt Disney Pictures commands a majority share over the box office. In fact, according to Nash Information Services, the studio has already amassed over 25 percent of this year’s ticket sales, through just seven films alone. Its status as an industry major means that the studio has near unparalleled access to the international market.

1998’s “Mulan” flopped with Chinese audiences, so it was especially important for the remake to succeed given China’s status as the number-two movie market in the world. In fact, Disney publicly acknowledged that it was made for the Chinese box office, with its director calling it a “love letter to China.”

Even with all of Disney’s efforts to cater to a Chinese audience, including casting Chinese starlet Liu Yifei in the titular role and numerous months of research abroad, it was poorly received.

The remake averages about five out of ten stars on Douban, China’s leading website for film ratings. After its release, Chinese audiences were quick to assert that it was too American, citing numerous white crew members, including the director, writers, and costume designers responsible for reinterpreting the tale. Other reviews criticized its inauthentic portrayal of the traditional values key to understanding the original ballad.

Sales in the West were also disappointing, with the hashtag “#BoycottMulan” arising due to the film being steeped in political controversy. A 2020 New York Times feature by Brooke Barnes and Amy Qin points out that not only did filming take place in Chinese cities sanctioning the internment of millions of Uighur Muslims, but the film’s lead actress publicly opposed the 2019 Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. This put Disney under heavy fire as numerous public figures in the West demanded Disney to respond to the notion that they were profiting off of human rights violations.

Disney’s lack of an apology is indicative of their attitude towards representation: check boxes, make money and move on. Beyond misrepresentation, it is important to recognize the studio's willingness to compromise ethical standards for the sake of profit.

Disney’s repertoire of Asian-centric films expands next year in collaboration with Pixar Animation Studios. “Turning Red” will feature 13-year-old protagonist, Mei Lee, and her navigation of adolescence and filial responsibility. Much like Disney’s other endeavors into Asian representation, “Turning Red” has drummed up much positive press as Disney is lauded for furthering diversity in the industry.

The fact that the director and lead actors are all Asian reflects favorably on Turning Red’s authenticity, but Disney’s extensive track record of offensive and superficial representation makes it difficult to have confidence in the film. In 2020, however, Disney launched their Stories Matter initiative, which placed unskippable content warnings before certain Disney+ streams, including the original “Aladdin.” The warning assumes responsibility for the offensive depictions to follow and asserts a commitment to change.

While much of its meaningfulness is compromised because of Disney’s numerous blunders in proximity to the warning, the amount of progress that has been made, particularly in the last decade, cannot be discounted. Disney continues to create opportunities for Asians to be heard and it is necessary to keep the company accountable for the accuracy and meaningfulness of these stories.

Movies can be magical for the visual experience, but there is something even more indescribable in the genuine connection audiences make with characters that they relate to. That is why Disney and the filmmaking industry as a whole must truly commit to representing diverse stories on the screen.

Because at the end of the day, humming along to seven whistling dwarfs will never mean quite as much as seeing someone like you on the screen.