Saludos Amigos

I was particularly interested in the U.S. Foreign Policy, Disney & Latina America portion of Isabel's lecture because I was able to connect to the material immediately. The clips we watched in class made me a bit uncomfortable and I was surprised at the fact that this feeling was not unfamiliar to me. When I was in middle school, I would often watch Saludos Amigos with my younger brother. I remember watching the film and feeling like there was something wrong with Disney's depiction of the characters. The character that bothered me most was Goofy as an Argentinean gaucho or cowboy. He had no idea what he was doing with the equipment, was constantly hurting himself and pronounced Spanish words with the thickest American accent that even as a bilingual speaker I sometimes had no clue as to what he was saying. As a kid I couldn't figure out why this bothered me so much. It was after all supposed to be funny. However, watching the clips in class and reanalyzing the images made me realize that I was right in feeling uncomfortable because the depictions are completely inaccurate. The film is full of stereotypes and faulty information. I couldn't believe that these films were made in an attempt to create "positive" images of Latinos, for Latinos. Did Disney really think that Latina/os would not see the inaccuracies in characters like Panchito Pistoles, Jose Carioca, Goofy, etc? Even at a young age I was able to see these errors. I'm interested in learning more about how these films were received in countries like Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Argentina and what their interpretations of the films were.