Alright guys, It's my turn to bring Disney to the table!
Disney Dialects is a YouTube video that I found that examines the different English dialects Disney has incorporated into their movies throughout the years.
If you take a listen, the video demonstrates how the hero of the story has always had the Standard English dialect, while other characters do not.
The evil mothers of the Disney characters often have British Accents to represent Evil, and strictness.
Even when the character lives in a region that should have a different dialect than standard (such as Jasmine from Aladdin) it is not the case. The hero always speaks perfect standard English.
However characters inferior to the main (Yao- Mulan's friend with a Brooklyn accent) (Mushu-Dragon of Mulan's-Eddie Murphy's-Ebonic voice) and many more are sad examples that the movies are still using stigmatized dialects to represent their inferior characters.
I got goosebumps from listening to this because I never realized how throughout my entire childhood Disney was using this sad technique to teach me that the white standard English speaker is the one I should strive to be.
Thankfully Disney was able to give Tiana from the Princess and the Frog a Southern Black English Dialect so maybe Disney is changing for the better.
Wow, I never thought about this. It is sad that instead of giving the characters the dialect of the actual setting, they give them standard English dialect. Maybe if they would have given us that dialect from those contries, we would have grown up thinking that different dialects weren't funny and silly and very different from our own! Great video btw!
ReplyDeleteI also never thought about this. Hopefully Disney is changing their ways for the better so children can accept others and not think negatively of others.
ReplyDeleteWow, my mind is completely blown. I've never realized this. Apparently Disney is known to do things like this. Disney incorporates things that are way over the heads of children. I'm glad the characters are getting dialects now :)
ReplyDelete