Disney Plus restricts children from viewing ‘racist’ film classics including Peter Pan and Dumbo

Originally, the films were prefaced with a warning that they included "negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together."

The children’s movies have long been criticized for their "outdated" and "stereotypical" depictions of other cultures. Disney posted thier rationale for restricting the films to viewers under 7 on their Stories Matter site, which stated "We can't change the past, but we can acknowledge it, learn from it and move forward together to create a tomorrow that today can only dream of."

Disney flagged The Aristocats because one of the cats "is depicted as a racist caricature of East Asian peoples with exaggerated stereotypical traits such as slanted eyes and buck teeth." According to the site, Dumbo not only contains crows who "pay homage to racist minstrel shows, where white performers with blackened faces and tattered clothing imitated and ridiculed enslaved Africans on Southern plantations" but also stereotyped black workers in the Song of the Roustabouts.

Disney stated that Peter Pan "portrays Native people in a stereotypical manner that reflects neither the diversity of Native peoples nor their authentic cultural traditions." Stories Matter added that the pirates in Swiss Family Robinson are "portrayed as a stereotypical foreign menace," with their clothing "reinforcing their barbarism and 'otherness.'"

While Disney claimed they are "in the process of reviewing our library and adding advisories to content that includes negative depictions or mistreatment of people or cultures," they defended filming the 2020 remake of Mulan in the region of China where genocide of the Uygyur Muslims is said to be taking place in the name of "authenticity."