Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

"I Wanna Be Like You"

274 replies

SpottyOrange · 13/05/2021 16:33

Not sure if this is an AIBU but is that song from the jungle book racist?!
Yes: it's dated and awful
No: don't be daft

OP posts:
andivfmakes3 · 13/05/2021 19:14

God why do people have to ruin everything 🤷‍♀️

ThatIsMyPotato · 13/05/2021 19:16

@andivfmakes3

God why do people have to ruin everything 🤷‍♀️
Because we have hopefully moved on as a society from the time when those films were made and can see the problems with them.
BrumBoo · 13/05/2021 19:16

@andivfmakes3

God why do people have to ruin everything 🤷‍♀️
You can carry in pretending racism didn't happen in old media to your hearts content. Evidently it luckily doesn't affect you.
AccidentallyOnPurpose · 13/05/2021 19:16

@MESSING2

Thanks for clarifying, *@Accidentally*. I'd forgotten the full lyrics, and you're right, in the context of segregation it isn't great having a character who 'sounds' Black singing those lines.

I honestly hadn't thought of it prior to now, and I say that as a degree-educated BAME person 😬
(Still one of my favourite Disney films.)

Mine too.Grin

People liking Disney,or particular movies or not looking at the characters in depth isn't an issue at all.

Insisting that a character can't possibly be racist because cartoons.. it's just an ape... they're portrayed in a nice way ... it makes no sense etc. is.

I'm white, from a deeply racist country (that coincidentally use crow as a slur) and I hadn't seen a person from a different race in real life until I was well in my 20's. I probably talk out of my ass most of the time.Grin

AccidentallyOnPurpose · 13/05/2021 19:17

@andivfmakes3

God why do people have to ruin everything 🤷‍♀️
Why is it ruined though?
SimonJT · 13/05/2021 19:17

@andivfmakes3

God why do people have to ruin everything 🤷‍♀️
Yes, it is a shame disney decided to ruin their films with racism and sexism.
Shipsandgiggls · 13/05/2021 19:18

I’ve never thought about it like that

Triphazards · 13/05/2021 19:19

What was an orangutan doing in India then?

It's an inaccuracy.

MindtheBelleek · 13/05/2021 19:21

@BoyTree

The song itself is not as overtly racist as some 'classic' Disney songs, but the character of King Louie incorporates a number of negative stereotypes as a PP quoted.
Yes, exactly. Which obviously doesn’t stop some posters getting bizarrely exercised about ‘PC gone mad’ because someone has required them to think about something in a way they hadn’t before.
vodkaredbullgirl · 13/05/2021 19:21

I've got that dam song in my head now.

Original poster
SpottyOrange · 13/05/2021 19:25

Wow! Create the thread, get called into work, open thread to 6 pages!
I know the books are originally set in India and Louis is an orangutan.
I was just idly thinking about his wanting to 'be like you' ie a white man.

OP posts:
BrumBoo · 13/05/2021 19:26

@Triphazards

What was an orangutan doing in India then?

It's an inaccuracy.

No it's not. As much as Baloo being a North American bear isn't an 'inaccuracy' either. They made choices to add characters that they could mould in their own 'Disney' way.
PRsecrets · 13/05/2021 19:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

languising · 13/05/2021 19:28

@PRsecrets

It’s the hyenas that are problematic in the lion king. Italian and African Americans accents and of course, stupid. And the dark skin lion = bad, light skin lion = good.

So much so that my mum didn’t allow us to watch it when we were little she found it racist even back then and hated anything that played into stereotypes that would lower our self esteem (also Enid blyton and many other classics were racist).

We don't see the lion's skin though..
SallySycamore · 13/05/2021 19:34

@Zilla1

Not to disagree with the general comments, but regarding a PP's comment about Song of the South, I've not seen this for many years but think this was set during the reconstruction era post USA civil war and after slavery. Could be wrong but for the time 1946?, the male lead James Baskett? playing Uncle Remus seemed to portray a Black character viewed generally positively compared with other Black characters in mainstream media at the time? I know there is much wrong with it and deficiencies in it as with most films made 75-odd years ago. I did see a review in The Guardian that also mistakenly seemed to think this was set during slavery and was scathing about the film too.
You're right Zilla. There's quite a balanced piece about it here.

It's been a very long time since I read it, but I think in The Jungle Book it's just a troop of monkeys, with no particular leader. I'm not sure there was much reason for adding an orang utan other than to give a 'main' character to sing a song in a jazz style, just like the vultures were added to give a Beatles style song.

WoMandalorian · 13/05/2021 19:36

The orangutan sings of wanting to harness the power of fire (probably because predators like Shere Khan fear fire) which only man can do. He asked Mowgli to tell him how to make fire and got mad when Mowgli said he didn't know how to.

NeverDropYourMoonCup · 13/05/2021 19:37

[quote ThatIsMyPotato]"Jungle Book (1968): The character of King Louie, an ape with poor linguistic skills, sings in a Dixieland jazz style and is shown as lazy. The character has been criticised for being a racist caricature of African-Americans" www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54566087[/quote]
Which is bollocks because it's a cartoon of Louis Prima, an Italian American bandleader and composer whose stage show was pretty much replicated for it.

DrSbaitso · 13/05/2021 19:38

@PumpkinWitch

There are so many Disney films that are very troubling. I did not realise the crow in Dumbo is called Jim Crow. That is awful. I broke down sobbing as a child when Dumbo was taken off his mum and never saw the end of the film.

Belle from Beauty and the Beast has a bad case of Stockholm syndrome. What are harmful idea that a terrifying monster who kidnaps you really loves you and will turn in to a prince.

Have the completely deleted Song of the South now?

I do love the Jungle Book though.

Belle doesn't have Stockholm syndrome. She leaves the castle the night she enters it, via the unlocked door. She's never actually held as a prisoner, except possibly for a few minutes in the tower at the very beginning and even then it's not clear. She chooses to return and stay after the Beast saves her from the wolves, and she still stands up to him after that when she's dressing his wounds. The Beast spends the entire time trying to please her and he's the one whose personality changes, not her.

It's the Beast who's got Lima syndrome.

SkedaddIe · 13/05/2021 19:39

@wildeverose

Oh for Christ sakes this new era of every breathing thing being offensive to somebody is absolutely INFURIATING. No it's not offensive it's about an ape who wants to be a man. Just sod off with all this shit.
Well this is ironic.

I think you getting irrationally offended about a Mumsnet post is far more silly and unreasonable than being offended by already proven to be racist media.

1Morewineplease · 13/05/2021 19:40

I'm wondering if some folk are choosing to see racism where it might not be.
I don't know

Many of British nursery rhymes can be described as un PC.

However Dumbo, The Lady and the Tramp, The Aristocats, Dumbo, Jungle Book, Peter Pan and The Song of the South have all been known, for a very long time , to be racist.
But these films are quite endearing and we have all chosen to let our children watch them.
Maybe they should be banned.

CirqueDeMorgue · 13/05/2021 19:41

I'd have thought MNers would be clever enough to understand why it could be seen as racist...

Honeycombskl · 13/05/2021 19:43

I can get it with King Louie, although it had never clicked before but I can see where people might be coming from, can also see it with the crow in Dumbo but the Lion King, seriously? Because to differentiate between the lions one was a slightly different shade? And because Scar has a scar?! I was literally wracking my brains to think of what could be up with the hyenas with the first poster mentioned them as being an issue without explaining why.
I mean come on, there is definitely racism and sexism in certain older films and books, and it's right to acknowledge that and not pretend that it's all normal attitudes, but there's folk who seem to need to go beyond that and are just looking for absolutely anything they can be offended by. Life must be tiring for those people.

BrumBoo · 13/05/2021 19:45

@DrSbaitso, not Stockholm Syndrome but Belle definitely has the old sexist trope of giving up her dreams to fix a bloke. Because a woman's love and understand definitely means the anti social, angry manchild will suddenly become an acceptable memeber of society. There is a hell of a lot to unbox with that film as well, but I think it may be another thread.

The Netflix series Once Upon A Time did Beauty and the Beast perfectly as far as I'm concerned - where Belle realises she can't fix his bad ways and she shouldn't have to put up with them or stop her own life despite falling in love with him. His eventual kindness towards her doesn't balance out the fact he's a dick.

Triphazards · 13/05/2021 19:51

Brum boo: No it's not. As much as Baloo being a North American bear isn't an 'inaccuracy' either. They made choices to add characters that they could mould in their own 'Disney' way.

You're somewhat argumentative. What you're doing there is giving plausible reasons for the inaccuracies.

How can you tell it's not an Indian bear though?

SquishySquirmy · 13/05/2021 19:52

He isn't singing "I wanna be be like you" to a white man....
He is singing it to an Indian boy!

Swipe left for the next trending thread