I watched a Youtube video about Don Rosa (to any Americans reading: he's a famous Donald Duck artist) today, and learned that in 2023, Disney banned two of his stories from ever being published again, effectively preventing The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck from ever being reprinted.
The two banned stories both feature the character of Bombie the Zombie, who is an African voodoo zombie created by a white guy in the 1940s and you can probably infer the rest
Apparently the modern Don Rosa collections that were published already had a content warning much like the ones Disney puts in front of their old animated features and shorts that contain ~~racist~~ outdated elements but I guess that wasn't enough. Then again, the parent Walt Disney company has never given a single fuck about their comics side and treated the artists like absolute shit so this is completely on brand
The email from the publisher to Don Rosa quotes Disney's commitment to diversity and inclusion as the reason why they're no longer going to allow the publication of two of his stories
Totally. Not calling out the title of the post.
I’m questioning Disney’s “reasoning.” As far as I can tell, racial sensitivity ≠ DEI.
Btw: thank you (earnestly) for this post. I’ve perused The Life and Times… before, but now I’m on a mission to find as much Barks and Rosa stuff as I can. Watched a lot if related YouTube videos on them this afternoon.
I don't think publishing stories with a gross racist caricature is particularly compatible with DEI? Have I missed something? From Wikipedia:
"diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination based on identity or disability."Publishing stories featuring a lumbering racist caricature with rings through his nose and ears does seem like it would conflict with DEI. Even if you trimmed it down to just employment... Publishing racist caricatures probably isn't going to make you very welcoming to members of the group being caricatured.
I’m not saying they conflict, I’m saying they are separate things, both laudable.
How to treat content with racist undertones (or overtones) is certainly worthy of debate; I tend to agree that not hiding them, but rather to used them to educate, as they’ve done heretofore, is probably the best. But even if the decision is to hide them, I don’t think it falls under the DEI bucket, at least not directly.
And I'm saying they're not separate, because if you publish "the turner diaries" for a broad public audience (I could see an exception for very hyper specialised academic presses and orgs of that nature), you aren't providing a welcoming environment to potential black colleagues, even if you put a disclaimer at the front. No form of bigotry is compatible with DEI for that reason. I just don't think that we need to keep publishing racist Donald duck comics to teach about racism any more than America needs to keep statues of Columbus to teach the evils of colonialism, so the continued publication of those comics is unjustified and therefore hostile to PoC. Which is in direct conflict with DEI.