"Birds of a Feather": Pan-Americanism in FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy and Walt Disney’s Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros
Document Type
Panel Presentation
Keywords
Disney, Latin America, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Biography
Emily Brammer is from Proctorville, OH. She is a second-year graduate student pursuing her master's in Communication Studies. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Marshall in 2020 with bachelor's degrees in English and history. Her main area of interest is film history.
Major
Communication Studies
Advisor for this project
Dr. Stephen Underhill
Abstract
During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt’s administration used his Good Neighbor Policy to improve relations with Latin American countries. The policy made use of rhetoric related to the Americas as friends, family, and neighbors to create a sense of Pan-American cooperation against threats outside the Western Hemisphere. To promote the policy, the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs used cultural means, including teaming up with Walt Disney Studios to produce two feature-length and several short films. It was an opportunity for Disney to show his patriotism and to make money for his studio through government contracts. The resulting feature films, Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1943), were Orientalist in their representation of Latin America in order to appeal to American audiences and make Latin America seem like a desirable ally. Both films romanticized and Westernized Latin America to make it seem strange yet familiar and enticing. At the same time, the films provided positive, even if inaccurate or stereotypical, representation to Latino audiences. In the end, the films and the policy were all successful. However, with the end of WWII, Hollywood and the U.S. government quickly abandoned their appeals to Pan-Americanism, leaving many to feel the U.S. never fulfilled its promises of being a good neighbor.
"Birds of a Feather": Pan-Americanism in FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy and Walt Disney’s Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros
During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt’s administration used his Good Neighbor Policy to improve relations with Latin American countries. The policy made use of rhetoric related to the Americas as friends, family, and neighbors to create a sense of Pan-American cooperation against threats outside the Western Hemisphere. To promote the policy, the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs used cultural means, including teaming up with Walt Disney Studios to produce two feature-length and several short films. It was an opportunity for Disney to show his patriotism and to make money for his studio through government contracts. The resulting feature films, Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1943), were Orientalist in their representation of Latin America in order to appeal to American audiences and make Latin America seem like a desirable ally. Both films romanticized and Westernized Latin America to make it seem strange yet familiar and enticing. At the same time, the films provided positive, even if inaccurate or stereotypical, representation to Latino audiences. In the end, the films and the policy were all successful. However, with the end of WWII, Hollywood and the U.S. government quickly abandoned their appeals to Pan-Americanism, leaving many to feel the U.S. never fulfilled its promises of being a good neighbor.
