Implicit and Explicit Ideology

On first watch it would easy to assume that Disney bases it's films on happy, easy to follow children's stories. However, after growing up with them and watching them as an adult it is easy to see that they're not just happy little stories of princesses finding prince charming, they contain a deeper meaning, or ideology if you like.

"Because every film is part of the economic system it is also a part of the ideological system, for
'cinema' and 'art' are branches of ideology." (Comolli and Narboni 1971 p. 29-30)

In the case of Disney films, the ideologies tend to be implicit, they are not obvious; and the ideologies are not what the film appears to be at the start.

Implicit Ideology: Aladdin (1992)

Aladdin (1992), at first appearance, appears to be the story of a young street seller who while working discovers a Princess who he, eventually, falls in love with. Although, throughout the film, the use of "race" refers to the villains within the film, to an extant becoming racist. An example of this would be the villain's within the film having a more "Arabic" accent, compared the Americanized accents that Aladdin and Princess Jasmine have. "... Aladdin portrays the “bad” Arabs with thick foreign accents while the Anglicized Jasmine and Aladdin speak in Standard American English." (Giroux, 1996, p.107)

The use of accents is also apparent in The Lion King (1994), in that the good pride of lions, of which Simba is a member is played by American English speaking actors, where as the hyenas for example are played by ethnic actors in the form of Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin who speak with an accent.

The use of coat colour within The Lion King (1994) also reaffirms the racist ideology present within the film. Simba, who is a good lion, has a light coloured coat compared to Scar, who is a bad lion who has a dark coloured coat.

Explicit Ideology: Rampart (2011)

From the start of Oren Moverman's "Rampart" the ideology of the film is clear. Based in Los Angeles in 1999 the film is about a cop, played by Woody Harrelson who is finds himself embroiled in the "Rampart Scandal" of the 1990s when the LAPD were awash with corruption. The film features heavily examples of occurrences which were said to have happened during this period.For example Harrelson's character earns the name "Data-Rape-Dave" after killing a man who was in the cells on suspicion of date-raping young women. Due to the "Rampart Scandal" the situation surround a hold-up at a grocery store, police officer Dave Brown is left wondering who he can trust within the force himself.


 Sources:
Giroux, H.A (1996). Fugitive cultures: Race, violence and youth. New York: Routledge. 106.

Anjali Pandey . (2001). “Scatterbrained Apes” and “Mangy Fools”: Lexicalizations of Ideology in Children's Animated Movies. SIMILE: Studies In Media & Information Literacy Education. 1 (3), p1-14.

Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/

Comolli, J.M and Narboni, P.. (1971). Cinema/Ideology/Criticism. Screen. 12 (1), p. 27-38.