Diversity in Disney Films

Dr. Kimiko Akita’s essay, “A ‘Vexing Implication’: Siamese Cats and Orientalist Mischief-Making,” was published recently in the scholarly book, “Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality, and Disability.” 

Her essay critiques, scene by scene, the saturation of anti-Asian bias in the depiction of the animated cats Si and Am in the classic 1955 Disney film Lady and the Tramp and its legacy in media representations of the “Oriental” since then.