Disney+ debuted with all the classic Disney animated movies you know and love likeDumbo,Lady and the Tramp,Fantasia, and more. Still, many of these films and others come with a disclaimer about its racist content.
Of course, it’s no surprise that films from decades ago contained racist content in them, but many users took to Twitter to voice their opinions on Disney’s approach to it, comparing how Disney handled the content to how Warner Bros. handled its older cartoons.
https://twitter.com/TBSkyen/status/1194597870860718080?s=20
How much time do you think Disney spent in the past year screening its old movies for racist and sexist jokes before putting them on Disney+?
— David Gardner (@byDavidGardner)Aug 08, 2025
There was speculation that Disney would change up some of its more outdated content in some of its films, or omit it from the movie altogether. One particular scene was the crow scene fromDumboin which one of the crows is named Jim Crow — a derogatory term that was used toward black people and a reference to the laws that established segregation.
One scene that Disney did decide to omit was the Sunflower character inFantasia. Sunflower is a black centaurette whose role is to assist the other centaurettes in getting ready, and it’s pretty clear that it is a racist caricature.
Other Disney movies that viewers are now realizing were racist this whole time arePeter Pan,for its depiction of Native Americans, andThe Jungle Book,for the orangutans as being racist caricatures. Still, it’s important to remember that a majority of these original animated movies were made between the 1940s and 1960s.
Turns out Disney DIDN’T censor the crows from Dumbo, and they’ve included a disclaimer about outdated sensibilities. Good. Yes, they’re racist, but it would have messed with the flow of the movie, and it’s better to learn from history instead of pretend it didn’t happen.
— Lexi the Lorekeeper (READ PINNED) 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 (@LorekeeperLexi)August 14, 2025
The service launched on Tuesday in the U.S., Canada, and the Netherlandswith more than 600 TV shows and movies.
Digital Trends reached out to Disney to comment on the “cultural depictions” disclaimer and how many movies on the streaming service have it, but we haven’t received a response.
