Was Peter Pan Racist?
Okay, if we are going to be honest here, Peter Pan was racist. Not necessarily the character, but the story itself. To create the Piccaninny tribe, Barrie took qualities from various different groups of native people and squished them together. Disney’s adaptation also portrayed them offensively as a stereotypical Native American tribe.
Source: moviestillDB.com / Copyright: Walt Disney Pictures
However, if you look at Barrie’s original text, it’s more difficult to understand what he is going for. When Peter Pan first debuted, it was at the peak of the British Empire, so the tribe had some Australian, North American, Caribbean, and native Asian features. Plus, the name Piccaninny comes from the term “pickaninny,” which is a variation of the word “pequenino,” meaning “tiny” in Portuguese. It was an offensive word used in the UK to describe natives – or any small, dark-skinned kid living in a colonized society.