theguardian: by Steve Rose —

Perhaps it’s a matter for the film classification boards. They could put a warning on the certificate: “Contains mild fantasy violence, very mild language, a white-supremacist subtext, and grotesquely derogatory portrayals of ethnic minorities.” Or: “Probably won’t make your child into a racist, but sure as hell ain’t gonna help.” It’s not as if children have demanded any of this, but they are the ones soaking it all in. It goes without saying that racism is learned, and how diversity is portrayed on screen is a big part of that learning process. One day, our children could look back on these movies in the same way that we see Song of the South, and wonder why their parents did so little about an iniquity that was staring them in the face.

These are supposed to be progressive times for movies and people of colour. Django Unchained was a hit action movie about slavery. A black director just won the best picture Oscar for another one (Steve McQueen for 12 Years A Slave), and a Mexican won best director (Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity). Hollywood is finally starting to reflect the ethnic makeup and sensitivities of its national and global audiences.

But all those dodgy racial politics that have been swept out of live-action movies seem to have quietly found a home. Modern animation is the success story of our movie era. It pushes at the technical frontiers of film-making and gives us visual spectacles previously unimaginable, along with substantial, accessible themes. So why are its racial politics stuck in the 1970s? Maybe parents have been too busy dozing at the multiplex, or doing the washing-up while their kids are anaesthetised in front of the TV. Maybe we’ve dropped our guards because talking animals are the lingua franca of innocuous cuteness, but we seem to have got to a point where these movies are teaching children the finer points of racial prejudice before they’ve even learned to read.

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More: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/06/repressed-brits-evil-mexicans-arab-villains-hollywood-animated-movies-stereotypes