Saludos Amigos


This is an entertaining anthology film from the early days of the Disney Studios. It shows great scenes of animators doing their work. It is a mix of live action and animation, much like the Reluctant Dragon. The animated sequences are lively and have a few jokes that manage to elicit a chuckle even 80 years later. There are a number of cultural stereotypes depicted. And on the one hand this is bad because there is a level of fetishization of these differences, but on the other hand people really were more different back then at least in terms of their dress and the food that they would eat. It's interesting though that this film was made by Walt Disney as an attempt to foster better relations between the United States and Latin American countries, and apparently it was very successful in doing so - so the intended audience did not react badly to the stereotypes depicted in it. Although one cartoonist was so offended by the depiction of a cartoon plane from Chile that he created an iconic character of his own from Chile called Condorito.  

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