Like some crap about the actor voicing King Louie being black and the actor voicing mowgli being white made people think it was about a black person wanting to be white, when it's clearly and obviously an ape wanting to be human?
I thought I read something like that somewhere.
Louis Prima was black? Nobody told me. He looks white, to me.
- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?
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According to the trivia section, Walt Disney originally wanted Louis Armsrong for the role, but cast Louis Prima instead so as not to be seen as racist
shareThe actor who voiced King Loius was white.
shareSome people just want to see racism and sexism even where there is none, I'm afraid. Not only was Louie Prima a white man (more specifically, he was Italian-American), but Mowgli was also the first dark-skinned protagonist in the entire Disney canon. So I have no idea how people even came up with this idea.
Intelligence and purity.
Not sure if the subtext is intentional, but it is there even though the actor is white. The monkeys act like a racial stereotype, and use a new Orleans style of music. Bagheera's dismissive attitude toward them doesn't help. (And Baloo joining them in a mask could be black face if the analogy holds?)
But it could just be reading too much into it - monkeys are biologically very close to human, so it's not ridiculous to think the concept is literal and nothing more. But I see where the idea comes from.
Traditionally, when a white person wants to put a black person down, the comparison will be to a monkey or ape. There was a recent case of that used against Michelle Obama. The idea is that black people are closer to animals, less evolved, uncultured, irresponsible, lazy, childish, less intelligent, and such as that. The racists got the message because they think that way. People who have been around racists got the message and cringed.
shareExcept that is not what was going on here.
These were monkeys and an ape in a cartoon and weren't supposed to be humans in any way.
And again, King Louie was based on the stage persona of a white actor.
Racists see racism everywhere.
shareWhy is everything racist these days?
share