King Louie is Louis Prima. That’s how the man sounded and sang. He was a famous jazz singer from New Orleans who if anything was once considered “too ethnic.” The entire portrayal is built around him. The character is named after him. in this instance there is no separating the two.
Perhaps, though putting King Louie alongside images like the crows in Dumbo and 'natives' in old Mickey Mouse cartoons reflected in the eyes of a young African American girl as the last image before such representations are 'switched off' and more positive ones like Raya are 'switched on' seemed a pretty clear and damning commentary on Disney's contemporary view of the character. At least that's how it read to me.
Louis Prima was also understood as sounding a lot like his semi-namesake, Louis Armstrong. A modern production would almost certainly avoid portraying an ape character in ways that evoked, even second-hand, a Black celebrity. Again, that doesn’t make King Louie racist, but it does mean he’s a product of a different time who would be handled differently today.
I don’t think the suggestion is that everything included in that montage is equally “bad”. The Dumbo crows, for example, are certainly on the “better” end of the spectrum. I understood the video to be saying that Disney’s past portrayals and evocations of racial otherness tended to be limited and caricatural—which they were—and that current and future stories will do better.
I don't think anything's wrong with him either, but it's fair to say that being a white guy I'm not going to always get what's offensive to others.
Do you not agree, however, that such a portrayal would in all likelihood be avoided today given that Prima was frequently compared to Armstrong?
I think we’re getting caught up in the “backlash” narrative again. That’s not what the video, or really any of these debates, is about.
Indeed. In general, I think what Disney is trying to do around representation is positive and I take the 'backlash' point, but King Louie seems the most debatable characterisation they've deemed as racially insensitive and outdated. On some level, it almost seems a little racist to presume the character is supposed to represent an African American in a racist way. To see the character so prominently branded as such in this clip does jump out for that reason, I think.
Probably at first but not long-term.
Dang, taking a picture with him was one of the few things I had on my list for my trip this weekend. Guess I’ll have to cross that one off the list.
There are pictures of him missing and I was just there a few days ago and he was still there I’m guessing cause the fountain statues are getting gold ones too maybe to replace them we know Brer Rabbit wasn’t one of them
