hey so… I know I’m probably talking into an echo chamber but…
the movie The Emperor’s New Groove pisses me off.
NOW BEFORE YOU ALL GO THROWING TOMATOES AT ME, cause I KNOW this movie is basically holy material online at this point-
I have my reasons. please hear me out.
okay, so I’m of Indigenous Quechua descent right? for those who don’t know, that’s an Indigenous group/tribe in the Andean area of South America. i specifically have Bolivian heritage.
now, you probably haven’t heard of that group or maybe even that country. I’ve seen it time and time again. when i tell people my dad’s side of the family came here from Bolivia, they ask me what/where that even is.
that’s because the predominant representation of Latinos in U.S. American media is of Mexican culture or of Central American countries (and VERY occasionally Caribbean countries). which, yeah, makes sense since those countries are closer to the U.S.
but that also means that pretty much the further down on the map you go in Latin America, the less represented we are.
Peru? most people have heard of it, but they probably couldn’t point to it on a map. Brazil? sooo many people STILL think their language is Spanish. Bolivia??? lmao. forget it.
all this being said, yknow what is effectively the BIGGEST and ONLY representation of Andean and Ancient Inca cultures in U.S. media?
that movie.
now. why would that be a problem, you ask? I mean, truth be told, the movie’s not EGREGIOUS. I’m well aware it could have been much, much worse. and i also know it is an incredibly far cry from the most offensive movie Disney has ever made about a non-white culture.
HOWEVER.
that freaking movie is some of the most WHITEWASHED BS I HAVE EVER LAID MY EYES UPON.
the vast majority of the voice actors? yeah they’re white. what about Eartha Kitt, my absolute queen? love that she’s in this, but the character she voices— Yzma— does NOT look Incan like, AT ALL?? it’s kinda funny honestly, like genuinely what is she supposed to be?? dead serious, why is she purple?? what is the point??
that old guy who Kuzco kicks off of the castle? why is he wearing some European ass hat?? i KNOW we did not have hats like that back then. the girls Kuzco insults look Egyptian for some reason, the costumes of the some of the characters are lacking accuracy to say the least, and the music they play in the background is ALL WRONG. why are we dancing to salsa music in the ANDES??? wrong instruments, buddy. I am being so serious, it took me SO MANY YEARS to even realize this movie is supposed to be about my culture. it’s that bad.
now I know in their defense, back then it would’ve been difficult as a primarily white-man run studio to find information on this culture that is already extremely obscure to the U.S.; in fact, it’s STILL hard to find more than cursory information on Inca culture and Bolivia specifically on Google and such. God knows the search engine can’t even tell the difference between our countries— it thinks every time I type Bolivia, I mean Peru. -_-
however, what I won’t offer the people who worked on this movie an excuse for is the fact that it’s a COMEDY.
ohhhh yes. cause it HAS to be a comedy, right?? cause those Latinos are just so funny!! they talk funny, their weird foreign stuff is funny, the fact that we can’t UNDERSTAND them is hilarious, and they’re doing weird Spanish dances and the guy turns into a LLAMA?? LOLLL!! 🤣🤪(okay joke’s over)
yeah alright buddy we get it. U.S. Americans, especially white ones, tend to see other cultures as a joke. they tend to see LATINOS as a joke. why do you think they laugh at their own broken-Spanish jokes? why do you think they delight in purposefully mispronouncing the word “tortilla” for the millionth unfunny time or in showing off their supreme intellect of being able to count to ten in Spanish??
sure, some people might find that stuff objectively funny on the surface. but the second you dig BELOW that surface, you see the root of all of it: that to them, we are a joke. our culture is a joke. that’s why in their media, the Latin guy is always the flailing Casanova who can never get the girl. that’s why the Latina girl is always hot and spicy and ~exotic~ and is only there to titillate white male viewers. it’s because they don’t respect us. they don’t find our actions funny, they find the IDEA of us funny. and that’s the truth.
obviously, this is not true for everyone. I know damn well that the vast majority of people who make these kinds of jokes and hold these kinds of biases grew up with families and households who already had internalized them, and I ALSO know damn well that U.S. schools don’t teach their children other countries or other cultures aside from tip-of-the-iceberg stuff.
I am also, disclaimer alert, NOT calling you racist if you like this movie. you can like this movie. I get it. it’s funny at some parts. I know a lot of (albeit, not of any Andean or Inca descent) Latinos who love this movie and think it’s hilarious. the memes are gold, it’s well animated (like all old Disney movies), and KRONK… he’s my boy. I can’t lie on that. again, YOU CAN LIKE THIS MOVIE. I am not asking you to stop enjoying it!
what i AM asking you to do is to consider the biases in it. to see it from my perspective. to consider, even just for a minute or so, how frustrating it would be that the only mainstream representation of your culture, your heritage, your PRIDE, is some goofy whitewashed llama movie. it’s not the end of the world, yes, but it’s just extremely frustrating. I’ve seen many Arab/SWANA people on this site and in general take similar issue with Disney’s Aladdin (the original one), wherein that’s pretty much the biggest mainstream representation for THEM and it’s chock full of extremely offensive stereotypes and inaccuracies. heck, most people think Agrabah is supposed to be India.
just ask yourself for a moment, why does this movie HAVE to be a comedy? why does every other line have to be a one-liner? why does the main character have to be stripped of his agency as a haha funny LLAMA for most of the movie, and why did the makers of it half-ass so much of it?? in my dad’s own words when he first introduced me to this movie, the creators of it really went, “Yeah, this is VAGUELY Hispanic” and called it a day.
thanks for listening, and if you have any similar experiences with representations of your own culture— doesn’t have to be Disney, doesn’t even have to be a movie!!- then PLEASE share in the comments! I’d love to hear your story. I just wanted to get this off my chest since it’s annoyed me for so long, and I was (somewhat) shocked that I could not find barely any critiques of this nature of The Emperor’s New Groove on this website.
love y’all, and have a great day!!
(P.S. I FULLY intend to make a Bolivian inspired cartoon someday. we deserve better.)
