In the opening chapters of Mumbo Jumbo, we've been introduced to Papa DaBas, a voodoo priest. In class we talked a bit about the largely negatively perception of voodoo in America. This immediately made me think of the Disney princess film, The Princess and the Frog. This movie is set in New Orleans, and follows a princess who falls in love, blah blah blah...but the villain is a voodoo-practicing witch doctor, Dr. Facilier.
I found it really interesting to look back at Dr. Facilier's character after discussing the American perception of voodoo, because Dr. Facilier is portrayed as a man of pure evil (here's a picture if you haven't seen the movie to show how creepy he is).
His soul belongs to evil loas (his "friends on the other side", as he calls them), and he uses their power to achieve his greedy goals, convincing the loas to continue working with him by feeding them the souls of innocent victims. He's manipulative and extremely powerful.
Now, The Princess and the Frog grossed $104.4 million in America in theaters (not a ton, but respectable), so a lot of people, probably mostly little kids, saw Dr. Facilier and started associating voodoo with evil (if they didn't already do so). After watching this movie, most viewers would think voodoo was a strange and dangerous worship practice centered around hurting others and allying with the dead, which is obviously not true. This is especially dangerous when the main audience is young children, who will internalize this misinformation and spread it. By actively perpetuating these American stereotypes about voodoo, Disney is pushing voodoo further out of the mainstream of widely accepted religions in the US.
I have the feeling that Ishmael Reed wouldn't be a huge The Princess and the Frog fan.
I love this post!! this gets at such an important idea we tend to overlook in the ways these ideas in the media impact kids. Often we notice that stereotypes are frequently re-perpetuated in Disney movies and classic Cartoons, but we forget that these things are being absorbed by the spongy brains of little kids. Moreover, the trend with Voodoo is especially damaging since it involves the factor of race. Regardless of the population that truly has the spiritual connections from which these images are created, the idea of "black magic" and these "evil" connections to the spiritual world in Black culture is detrimental. It throws a stereotype onto an entire group of people, wrongly preposing an idea about them that affects the way they are viewed in every aspect of life. I love the way you chose Disney as well because its such a loved franchise, almost every kid can say they watched growing up, regardless of the presence of racist characters :)
ReplyDeleteI vaugely remember watching this movie as a kid, but I completely forgot about the problematic depicitions of voodoo and "black magic" practiced by Dr. Facilier. This just goes to show how kids can absorb media without considering its implications, which is why it's so gross for a film company to be producing work that is explicitly racist. I'd be interested to see if the movie garnered any criticism because of Dr. Facilier's depiction.
ReplyDeleteOk here's an update from Wikipedia
DeleteApparently most of the backlash against the depiction of voodoo was actually from conservative Christian people who thought that the voodoo plot elements were overly sexual (?) or frightening for kids, though some actual Louisiana Voodoo people were offended that voodoo was shown as a form of creepy magic rather than a complex relgious and cultural tradition.
I think that unfortunately Disney does a good job of the perpetuation stereotypes throughout many cultures and movies. Even the prince saving the princess storyline is problematic, even if it sells well. The idea of voodoo as a religion instead of as "mumbo jumbo" or something is a whole new perspective for many people. It really makes you think about the generalizations against various cultures and how the media supports those ideas.
ReplyDeleteI really weird to look back at personally. "Voodoo" is a whole religion and way of life of many different peoples who were forced to America through slavery. For example, Nigeria, where I'm from, has many different tribes, one being Yoruba. (We don't really practice Yoruba religion and such but my family still speaks the language). Yoruba religion was considered voodoo when they came to the US however so it kinda feels like a slap in the face when they talk about it the way Disney has even though we don't practice it. Is it wrong that I still kinda like the movie though..
ReplyDeleteIt’s really depressing to realize how many stereotypes Disney has helped grow over the years. Especially looking at their older animated movies, much of the content they’ve spread could be considered damaging to people’s interpretation of others. And while I read that The Princess and The Frog grossed $267 million, we also have to take into account that this movie, and many of the other Disney movies similar to it, have become ingrained in popular culture. The majority of people have seen many of these Disney movies and consider them to be a core part of their childhood, all of them instilling values and ideals from a very young age. It’s no wonder that voodoo is considered evil in American society, especially when most people’s first memories of that word are associated with something that is completely and utterly evil.
ReplyDeleteBefore this class I had no idea that voodoo was an actual religion and part of African culture. It got me thinking about where this negative stereotype of voodoo actually came from and this post helped clear that up. If we take in negative information about things like voodoo while growing up as kids, we'll just hold onto that information without knowing any better. "The Princess and the Frog" is probably one of many instances of using voodoo as a negative stereotype and Ishmael Reed probably didn't appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I definitely think that media has played a role in demonizing and characterizing voodoo culture in a very unrepresentative manner and The Princess and the Frog is a great example of it. If I think about it, most of the knowledge I have about voodoo culture is from movies and the media, which are not particularly accurate or reliable sources.
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