Tarzan
June 18, 1999 (USA)
Tarzan, Release date
Summary. The movie is about the Tarzan's life. That is the orphan who lost his parents and who was raised by ape mother named Kala. Even though Tarzan saw a difference between himself and the gorillas, he still believing that was his family. Everything has changed when he met a young girl named Jane Porter because he discovered he is a human. Since that time he has to make a decision to which family he is really belong to. Finally, he chose to stay with gorillas because after Kerchak's death the leadership was passing along to Tarzan. Surprisingly, Jane and her father also make a decision to stay with Tarzan and his family.According to the article, "Walt Disney's "Tarzan" target of many minority complains that was published in "The Spokesman Review" on June 30,1999, " There is an instance that has to be considered racist, says John Taliaferro, the author. A big problem is that the absence of blacks goes by almost without notice. Perhaps Disney thought the best way to get around the ooga-booga stereotype was to eliminate blacks altogether. It's a neutron bomb version of political correctness. Earlier Tarzan outings -- both film and print -- at least shows blacks, even if they were stereotypes. "Although Disney did not respond to requests for comments, "Tarzan" co-director Kevin Lima and Chris Buck have said that the absence of minority characters in "Tarzan" was a consequences of their desire to keep the story simple. The pair wanted to concentrate on Tarzan's choice between being animal or human."My first time when I saw the film "Tarzan" was in Ukraine where had lived monocultural population. I haven't even noticed the racist problem in the film. I've always liked this film and enjoyed every time watching it. It teach children how to stay for the family how to love and respect members of family even they look different in this case those were gorillas. Also, it shows children how to forgive and be forgiven which is an example with Kerchak. Even though I still loving this film, my thought about the racist problem in it has changed. Because the film was created in the multicultural country, the directors of this film should count this fact and include some characters who represent another cultures or races. Their concept is that a white blond boy solves Africa's problem. This concept is good model for children, but it also cause some bias problems. Children of color can consider that just white guys can solve problems that cause a negative effect on their self-esteem, for example.Walt Disney's Tarzan Target Of Many Minority Complaints .
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Hello Nataliya!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved Tarzan as a kid, and still do! It’s funny that I also never noticed that there were no people of color in this movie. And it makes some sense that they would want to keep the story simple, but they didn't even have any background characters of color. But I do think this would be a great movie to talk to children about family types. That sometimes children are adopted by a family that may not look like them, but loves them just the same.
.Hi Nataliya,
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed reading your post about Tarzan. I didn't watch that film, and I am happy that you shared some facts about this film. I see from your analysis that it is considered racist and that only white people are included in the story. It is very sad that author chose to exclude black characters from the movie to avoid stereotypes in it. Like you said at the end of this film children of color will get image that only white people can handle conflicts.