If you really want Soul to be racist, fine, it’s racist: This is why we can’t have nice things

Brandee Blocker Anderson, is an Ivy-League-educated lawyer, teacher, and activist preaching anti-black bias in Disney and posted a video that made me pull my hair out on first viewing.

Her video concluding that “Soul” — a well-meaning effort by a film studio to show inclusion by hiring a black writer, promoting him to co-director and consulting with several black musicians — is racist goes a long way to diluting the concept of racism.

I too was exposed to critical race theory in my film courses in college but it’s not supposed to be a tool to damn anyone that doesn’t make films along a narrow definition of wokeness. Before anyone criticizes a film like “Soul” without recognizing the context in which the film was made, they should try to re-write a basic plot outline of the film and forecast how others would see those choices without giving the benefit of the doubt to your intentions.

At the same time, there’s nothing particularly wrong with presenting possible readings to a film and presenting a personal take. I also want to be mindful that the author of the video has dealt with negative experiences of representation as a black person. My problem in this case is preaching that a film is something it isn’t and not being aware of their own biases.

So here’s the film and I will address each contention by point:

Soul Review: Racism & Disney — *SPOILERS* — This movie is RACIST. — YouTube

For starters:

Each of these points assumes that Disney has an actual malicious agenda. To suggest even a subconscious subtext to the efforts of Pixar’s first black co-director and head writer of a script should be backed with evidence. Furthermore, it’s not hard to find examples of Disney being guilty of perpetuating those stereotypes in the past, but nearly the entire media landscape in 1950 was racist by today’s standards. Sure you can praise today’s film makers like Steve McQueen or Lee Daniels for avoiding those tropes but they’re not burdened by the original sin of being century-old brands.

Now let’s go point-by-point:

Contention: “Disney doesn’t believe that audiences will connect with a black character in non-human form”

Case in point: Tiana spends much of the screen time as a frog and Jamie Foxx spends much of his time as a ghost here.