Academics Argue Animated Films Like ‘The Lion King’ Promote White Privilege, and Racist Narratives

Three university professors are claiming that major Hollywood animated films, including Disney’s The Lion King, promote White privilege and what they describe as “racist cultural narratives,” according to a newly published academic analysis examining Oscar-nominated animated films from 2016 through 2024, as reported by Fox News.

The paper was co-authored by Natalie Khazaal, director of the Middle Eastern and North African studies programs and associate professor of Arabic at Georgia Institute of Technology, Ellen Gorsevski, an associate professor at Bowling Green State University, and Tobias Linné, head of the communication department at Lund University.

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Professors claim Disney’s ‘Lion King’ and other animated films promote White privilege in new analysis https://t.co/ieIbTCDU0B #FoxNews

— Tom Spencer (@trsmiami) January 11, 2026

Published Jan. 6, the analysis is titled “Media Analysis of Racism and Speciesism (MARS) test finds Oscars so AnthropoScenic in contemporary animated films.”

The paper evaluates racism and what the authors describe as “speciesism” in Oscar-nominated animated films released between 2016 and 2024.

In the analysis, the professors argue that animation continues to reinforce racial hierarchies despite efforts to increase representation.

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“Hollywood’s cartoons and animated films have forged a checkered path in harnessing white privilege and recycling racist cultural narratives,” the authors wrote.

They specifically cited The Lion King as an example, arguing that the film conveys racial messaging they view as problematic.

“For example, while Lion King invites audiences to perceive Black people as inferior to Whites, A Goofy Movie elevates Blackness to a cultural icon. Overall, though, animation has struggled to eliminate negative stereotypes and the unfair treatment of racial minorities,” the paper states.

The academics said they used their self-developed Media Analysis of Racism and Speciesism Test, or MARS test, to evaluate character portrayals and narratives.

They described the tool as “a practical tool accessible to scholars, creators, and general viewers for analyzing character portrayals and interactions, helping identify and challenge normalized racist and speciesist storylines.”

The paper also examined Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

While acknowledging the film’s success, the professors questioned aspects of its storytelling involving the character Miles Morales.

“But why was the first Black Spider-Man (Miles Morales, voiced by Shameik Moore) introduced together with the character of Spider-Ham, who is ridiculed for being a pig,” the authors asked.

“To what extent did having a Black main character nudge the movie over the edge to win the Oscar?”

The same question appears twice in the paper, emphasizing the authors’ concern about the film’s character dynamics and awards recognition.

Another film analyzed was Disney’s Luca. The professors argued that the film promotes assimilation into what they describe as whiteness and humanness as superior states of being.

“Luca’s protagonists’ integration is rather simple—they take humanness and whiteness to be the superior, desirable forms of being and are thus finally accepted by the human society,” the scholars wrote.

They further argued that the film portrays environmental consequences tied to those themes.

“As they let go of the primacy of their fish-like form and embrace human society, the boys’ newfound loyalty helps accelerate the depletion of sea life as they guide human fishermen away from overfished dead zones to new, abundant spots,” the analysis reads.

“The cost, however, is steep — White cannibalizes racialized, human eats nonhuman species.”

The paper does not call for changes to specific films but presents its conclusions as part of a broader academic critique of animated storytelling and cultural representation in modern Hollywood.

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