Dear Disney Executive,
Throughout its existence, Disney has influenced the minds and upbringings of children all over the world. While it may appear that your corporation simply produces material for a young audience, the scope of Disney's influence spans much farther than just entertainment. At their young ages, the children who are exposed to Disney's content are developing their opinions about and outlook on the world. The executives and employees at Disney who produce this content subconsciously allow their personal and sociolinguistic biases to be conveyed through the material, normalizing raciolinguistic stereotypes in the minds of today's youth. This affects the development of sociolinguistic perspectives for children from all different backgrounds and, in turn, perpetuates socially constructed language ideologies. Common raciolinguistic stereotypes held by the general public are often conveyed in the entertainment industry through the creative decisions of content producers. The way certain characters are portrayed or voiced can provide viewers with significant detail as to their raciolinguistic and sociolinguistic representation. Disney often demonstrates this by manipulating the accents of certain characters to convey their intended race or ethnicity. Disney's use of marked language in this case could be seen in both a positive and negative light. For example, in Disney's recent film, Coco, the use of Spanglish and prosodic elements of the typical Mexican-American or Latino accent allowed the film to build its credibility and authenticity in celebrating the Mexican culture. While still appealing to an English-speaking audience, Disney was able to teach American children about Mexican culture and still refer to relevant Spanish terms in order to preserve the traditional meaning of such key concepts. In comparison, Disney's movie, Dumbo, demonstrated the use of marked language that was negatively received by the public. In the film, the crow characters' voices were meant to represent a racial stereotype of African Americans, as they used traditional morphosyntactic and phonological elements of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). The character, Jim Crow, was especially criticized, because of both his name and the fact that he was portrayed by white actor, Cliff Edwards. This diminished the authenticity of the accent, perpetuated raciolinguistic stereotypes associated with AAVE, and further normalized the appropriation of this dialect. Additionally, the fact that the only marked or racially representative characters in the film were the characters providing comic relief conveys a negative connotation of the racial group to the children watching. While this situation was an extreme demonstration of Disney's negative portrayal of language ideologies in their content for children, there are other depictions of characters that more subtly allude to linguistic stereotypes. In most of Disney's films, Standard English is used by the main characters, heroes, and princesses, who are often of light skin and higher socioeconomic class. The characters that generally have accents are the villains or comedic sidekicks. In English with an Accent, Rosina Lippi-Green defines standard language ideology as "a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogeneous spoken language which is imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions". Disney has a strong presence in the early lives of children, which provides them with the authority of a dominant bloc institution to perpetuate this ideology. Disney's use of the Standard Language Ideology demonstrates their role in the sociolinguistic phenomenon of language subordination. Green describes the steps related to this process (Appendix A), all of which can be seen in Disney's films. Disney's trivialization and vilification of marked languages can be avoided by creating main characters that use marked language in an authentic and non-ironic way. Additionally, Disney can create villains that use Standard English to dispel the stereotype that this "non-accent" is the superior manner of speech. This will help teach children that marked language is a normal occurrence that should be celebrated for its unique and genuine qualities. Due to the dissonance between the portrayal of Standard English and marked language, children come away with the idea that marked language is stigmatized. They may try to change the way they speak or treat those with accents differently as a result of being taught such an ideology. It is imperative that Disney becomes more aware of its role in shaping the perceptions of the young mind and takes these steps to limit its propagation of sociolinguistic stereotypes. It is my hope that this letter provides you with insight as to how Disney's actions have affected today's youth, and instigates conversations with the leadership of your company to change this issue going forward. While my suggestions may help you alter the perception of Disney's raciolinguistic profile for the better, it is ultimately in the hands of Disney's creative directors and executives to limit the influence of their own biases in their work. Disney has a significant role in forming and maintaining language ideologies, and it is your social responsibility to ensure that race and ethnicity are fairly, frequently, and authentically celebrated in all that you do. Sincerely, A USC Student
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