Representation of «Сultural Otherness» in The Walt Disney Studios’ Contemporary Fairy-tale Narratives

The animation studio “The Walt Disney Studios” in its films is increasingly turning to the representation of foreign cultures that are geographically and mentally distant from the Western world. This trend is justified by the corporate value of cultural diversity, however, the methods of transmitting the declared value are problematized in the context of the cultural appropriation of foreign cultures and americanization in Disney film projects.This work is devoted to the study of the representation of the phenomenon of “cultural otherness” in modern Disney fairy-tale cartoons. This phenomenon is studied from the perspective of Postcolonial Studies and Subaltern Studies. The key concept of the theoretical framework is the concept of the Other, with the help of which the definition of the title term is collected in the context of the study of Disney cartoons. A separate block in the work is the study of the structure of the Disney fairy tale narrative and its differences from the structure of a conventional fairy tale. The objects of the study are four animated films: “Moana” (2016), “Coco” (2017), “Encanto” (2021) and “Raya and the Last Dragon” (2021). Film texts are analyzed by two methods of analysis: discourse analysis by N. Fairclough is used to study the construct of cultural “Otherness” through the verbal content of cartoons, and semiotic analysis of R. Barthes’ version is used to study visual images and signs specific to foreign cultures. As a result of the study, it was revealed that “cultural otherness” is built by narrative and visual-auditory decisions. The characters appear different within their story arcs, and the otherness of their cultural environment is conveyed by stereotypical images of certain cultural symbols that are most familiar to the European viewer, simplified for the perception of the Other.