An introductory page on the Disney Plus website is displayed on a computer screen in Walpole, Mass., Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019.Steven Senne/The Associated Press
Disney+ is warning subscribers that some of Walt Disney’s most beloved classics might contain “outdated cultural depictions.”
A number of titles available on the streaming platform, which launched Tuesday, included cautionary notes in the plot descriptions about problematic representations in some of the characters.
Numerous titles from Disney’s extensive library carry the warning, among them “Peter Pan,” a 1953 film long criticized for its stereotypical depiction of Indigenous people, and “The Aristocats,” a 1970 production which features a Siamese cat playing piano with chopsticks.
The company doesn’t outline how each film might be considered insensitive by today’s standards beyond its single-sentence warning.
Before the launch of the service, Disney was faced with how to present nearly a century of family entertainment history.
Early reports suggested the studio would remove a racially insensitive scene of crows from “Dumbo,” which features a bird named Jim Crow, but on Disney+ the scene remains as it was originally released, with the additional warning.
Disney also included warnings about tobacco use in “Pinocchio,” “Aladdin” and other films.