Three professors have raised concerns that Hollywood’s animated films perpetuate white privilege and endorse “racist cultural narratives,” based on a recent academic study.
Nathalie Casale, Ellen Gorsevski, and Tobias Linnaeus co-authored a paper critiquing racism and white privilege in animated movies. This analysis, released on January 6, is titled “Media Analysis of Racism and Speciesism (MARS) Test Finds Oscars are Highly Humanistic in Contemporary Animated Films.” It specifically examines Oscar-nominated films from 2016 to 2024.
The scholars argued that “Hollywood cartoons and animated films have carved out a checkered path in exploiting white privilege and recycling racist cultural narratives.”
They highlighted, for instance, how films like *The Lion King* may inadvertently suggest inferiority of Black characters, while others like *A Goofy Movie* elevate Black figures. Overall, they believe animated films struggle to break away from negative stereotypes associated with racial minorities.
The analysis used the Racism and Speciesism Media Analysis Test, which they describe as a tool for audiences and creators to examine character dynamics and challenge ingrained narratives of racism and speciesism. Even films like *Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse*, which won an Oscar, were scrutinized for having underlying racist themes.
Questions arose such as, “Why was the first Black Spider-Man (Miles Morales) paired with an anthropomorphized pig character?” The professors posed it as a challenge to examine how a Black lead might influence a movie’s chances of winning an Oscar.
Moreover, they have developed a set of inquiries aimed at helping creators and viewers assess whether a film is passing or failing in its portrayal of racial and species themes.
For instance, they ask if racialized characters embody harmful stereotypes or if non-human characters reflect speciesist ideas. They also explore whether films obscure social issues related to racial and species oppression or suggest that the struggles of these groups are at odds with one another.
One film they analyzed was *Luca*, set on the Italian Riviera, focusing on a boy who is a sea monster but can transform into a human. The scholars pointed out how the protagonists see human existence—and by extension, whiteness—as superior, leading to their acceptance in human society.
The analysis notes that as these characters relinquish their marine origins for human approval, they unwittingly contribute to ecological decline, implying a metaphorical consumption of marginalized identities.
The scholars’ findings offer a provocative lens on how much of animated cinema reflects deeper societal issues related to race and privilege.
