I’m reposting this ask and answer for our archives, because this is exactly why this blog was created in the first place.

I apologize for my ignorance, but I do not see why someone would take offense of racebending a Disney character of color into a white character. The term ‘white’ delves into so many cultures, and I feel as though if the artist has a story behind it that it should be okay. Plus, in your introduction post you stated that people of color are uncommon in Disney films; however, since The Princess and the Frog, I’m pretty sure that Disney has touched on every (basic) race in one of their movies.’

-Anonymous

Because “racebending a Disney character of color into a white character” is exactly the same thing as whitewashing. If you have reasons and backgrounds and stories behind it, well, good for you, it’s still whitewashing. 

As for Disney’s inclusion of varied races, I performed a very simple experiment. This is the list I used to generate the movie for our Weekly Challenge; not counting movies starring animals or objects (ie the Cars movies) or unreleased films, I counted about 32 movies that starred characters of color. “Starred”, as in a character of color was clearly a main character, yes, I did include Disney Channel Original Movies.

32 movies from a studio that has sponsored over 300 films.

The issue isn’t that Disney doesn’t feature characters of color, it’s that Disney doesn’t feature them as often or as prominently as white characters. I know a girl of Indian (Desi) heritage who has told me that as a kid, her favorite Disney Princess was Pocahontas, because that was the darkest-skinned character Disney had at the time, and therefore the one that looked the most like her. I’m hard-pressed to find a film other than Aladdin that does the same for Arabic races, and Aladdin does a very, very poor job of it. What about Latino characters? Pacific Islander? Why should “every basic race” be a stopping point? Why should Disney think it’s okay to cover the “basic races” and then say, “Well now that you have your representation, we’re going back to movies about white characters!”

So now imagine taking the few characters of color that exist, and changing them. Imagine just ignoring the progress they represent to the people they “look like.” Can you see why that is offensive?

If you are still in the dark, this article that can offer more insight into this specific issue than I can fit in this text box.

Sorry my response to this ask was so late, as well. I’m not very good at writing dissertations of these kind, and I wanted to make my response as clear as possible.