To the Boards of Directors and top executives of Warner Bros., Walt Disney and the other major film studios:

Your public statements last year

Among the public statements you issued following the May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd were these:

“We stand with our Black colleagues, talent, storytellers and fans — and all affected by senseless violence. Your voices matter, your messages matter. #BlackLivesMatter ?????????” Warner Bros. May 31, 2020

“We stand for inclusion. We stand with our fellow Black employees, storytellers, creators and the entire Black community. We must unite and speak out.”?Walt Disney Company June 15, 2020

These were attention-grabbing words from powerful leaders of a globally influential industry.

Actions contradicting your words — Tom & Jerry: The Movie

On June 26, 2021, just over a year after George Floyd’s murder and your public statements, we took our two young granddaughters to a children’s matinee screening of Tom & Jerry: The Movie, the latest Warner Bros. animated film.?

Shame on me for taking our granddaughters to a film for children without doing my usual advance research. (It’s Tom and Jerry, right? Cartoon slapstick.)?

Shame on you, Warner Bros. — and on the rest of you — for making films like this: films unsuitable for any audience…especially impressionable children.

Read this carefully, because I’m addressing all of you, not just Warner Bros.

The plot for Tom & Jerry is bad enough, comprising the run-up to a vacuous celebrity couple’s high-profile Manhattan wedding celebration and the hotel management’s efforts to ensure that Tom and Jerry don’t wreak havoc on the day.

Much worse, though, is your shameful reliance on racist and sexist stereotypes in telling the story.

For any of you who haven’t seen Tom & Jerry: The Movie, here’s a summary of the lead characters and contributors and the messages conveyed to the children who watch it:

1. Mr. Dubros, a white man, is the GM of the hotel. Ben, a white man with inherited wealth, is the groom-to-be. Both men are hapless and hopeless. The former has more authority -- the latter more money -- than sense.?Message to children: White men have power and money, and can rely on others to cover up and compensate for their incompetence. ?

2. Kayla is a young white woman with limited work experience. She uses manipulation and charm to get an influential job at the hotel: a job for which she's not qualified. Message to children: White women should be prepared to manipulate men to get ahead.?

3. Terence is a Mexican American man and the hotel events manager. When he’s marginalised as Kayla’s influence rises, he uses dirty tricks to regain his authority.?Message to children: Brown men can be marginalised without warning and will use?deception to get what they believe they deserve.

4. Preeta is an Asian Indian woman and the bride-to-be. She nearly runs out of patience with her immature fiancée, but ultimately gives him one last chance to change his ways. Message to children: Brown women should expect to settle for less than what they?want.

5. Cameron is a Black man and the bartender at the hotel. He's the only Black character in the film with a speaking part. Other Black male characters are Gavin, the doorman, an anonymous bellhop, and a few nameless background figures, none of whom speak in the film. Message to children: Black men belong in the background, keeping quiet and looking after?the important people.

6. There are no Black women in the film.?Message to children: Black woman are invisible. There’s no place for them.?

7. The film includes clips from 47 songs. Thirty songs are scene-enhancing instrumentals, all by Christopher Lennertz, a white composer. Of the 17 songs with lyrics, 14 are written and performed by Black songwriters and rap, hip hop and R&B artists (T-Pain; A Tribe Called Quest, featuring Busta Rhymes; Pell; Bizkit & Butta; Eric B. & Rakim; Jodeci; Flo Rida; Tiggs Da Author; Jagged Edge; Jacob Banks; Earl St. Clair; and Anderson .Paak). Message to children: Black music and lyrics can be used to add entertainment value to?white dominated Hollywood films, apparently with no consideration to the irony and shamefulness of doing so.

8. Tom the Cat’s “inner angel” and “inner devil”, and a gang of alley cats from behind the hotel, speak in a version of African American Vernacular English. Message to children: African American Vernacular English can mean mischief or trouble.?

Your use of racial hierarchy

So, the film’s characters and music contributors are set within a racial hierarchy: with white people at the top, brown people in the middle, and Black people at the bottom or in the background.?Are any of you familiar with Black, Brown and White, the circa 1945 blues song by Big Bill Broonzy? It starts like this:

“This little song that I'm singin' about...People, you know it's true...If you black and gotta work for a livin' ...Now, this is what they will say to you…They says, "if you's white, be all right" ..."If you was brown, stick around" ..."But as you black, oh brother, get back, get back, get back"

Someone at Warner Bros. knows the song, because they used it as the template for Tom & Jerry: The Movie.

Actions contradicting your words — Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2

During the Covid lockdown, we watched the first of the six episodes of the Disney series Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2. The series is an elaboration and celebration of the behind-the-scenes work that went into making “the highest-grossing animated movie in history”. In episode one, many, many dozens of people are shown working on their own, in meetings and in screenings to review work-in-progress. With possibly two exceptions, every single person shown working on the film — production directors, technical directors, production and studio technicians, actors doing character voices, singers, orchestra musicians, music technicians, scriptwriters, illustrators, animation experts, songwriters, screening reviewers, whatever — is white, white, white…or certainly able to pass for white. Having seen Frozen 2 with our granddaughters, I’m aware that one Black character appears: Lieutenant Mattias, who is voiced by African American actor Sterling K. Brown.?

The non-stop parading on camera of white people — more accurately, the flaunting of white people — involved in the making of the film, must be conveying messages to children about who can and can't aspire to work in filmmaking. More profoundly, it must be conveying — at the very least, subliminally — messages about who controls filmmaking that propels social construction about white dominance, white privilege, white entitlement, and white supremacy...thereby reinforcing structural and systemic racism.

What are you doing to children? What are you going to do?

My oldest granddaughter goes to a very diverse school. Through her daily lessons and playtimes, she’s learning that diversity, equity and belonging are normal…they’re assumed and expected. Tom & Jerry: The Movie and Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2, undermine these important life lessons for children. It’s 2021, a year after you issued your apparently meaningless statements about how much you value “Black colleagues, talent, storytellers, creators and fans”.?What are you doing??

It’s time for all of you who make commercial films to start working with parents, teachers and children, not against them…and to end systemic racism in the film industry.