This submission is an old one, but was never added to the site.
Contributed by Miguel L.
As recently as Tarzan we see Disney’s new target of ridicule. The baboon tribe was seen instantly as vicious, heartless monsters who attack the helpless in overwhelming swarms. Strangely enough the baboons weren’t even the villains of the movie and showed a steep contrast to the anthropomorphic peace-loving gorillas (which was the founding reason for this whole movie- gotta have some animal, vegtable, or mineral that talks). One would suggest they represent the individuals who’ve left society and banded together to punish those that are civilized. In the end they help the good guys because that’s often the cause for the intellectual- to rile the ignorant masses to do their job- it sums up quite a bit of human history.
A very similar example hails from Disney’s current rival, DreamWorks. In Antz you have the terribly de-humanized termite army (fresh from battling with space marines) who are intended to draw fear and nightmares from the kids. Once again, those bugs aren’t the villains- in fact this time you have blatant political symbolism to fascism battling socialism… but only among the human-faced ants. Why place psychotic termites in the story at all? The gimmick is it’s supposed to show life through the ants POV but this isn’t some parody of sci-fi horror/action. As far as we can tell both arthropods are equals- it’s just that the ants got to look REAL good for no real reason. Unrelatively, I’ve seen plenty of nature documentaries to prove otherwise (ants only invade termite mounds to steal their very bodies for food!). It’s fair to say different species of ants have instinctively fought real battles when they crossed paths. Being the animator, would you have intentionally-humanoid ants fighting in the tradition of Braveheart …or… humanoid ants fighting H.R. Giger’s interpretation of ants? It’s sadism versus hypocrisy.
You can catch more of those cartoon demons -all brainlessly thought up and deserving of death- within the Mongols in Mulan, the entire species of housecats in An American Tail, and various predators in Land Before Time (it’s simple nature that carnivores have to have more intelligence than herbivores in order to survive- where would they come from?). The list really goes on forever. What you may not realize, is this trend of de-humanization has existed long before animated cartoons. In fact, political cartoons and caricatures were the birth of all cartoons to begin with and has been a staple for thousands of years. Any artist will draw a new character or symbol that transpires some of their own bias and ideals into it, sometimes without knowing. The result is simply to draw a certain emotional response from the audience- positive or negative (sometimes it’s done for pure initial deception). So just be armed with the plain old truth that you’re just looking at moving propaganda fed to kids all the time
