‘ <i>Why do they not want to play with me?</i> ’: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of the construction of colourism in cartoon films

Abstract Multimodal discourse is an influential way of social communication where thoughts, ideology, and cultural perspectives, including superiority and racism, are conveyed. The current study is a critical multimodal discourse analysis of the ‘Ugly Duckling’ video cartoons that were designed to be shown internationally for children’s TV entertainment. While the textual comparison has revealed that the theme of physical ugliness has almost multiplied four times in the English translation of the story than it was first introduced in Danish by Hans Christian Andersen in 1843, the critical multimodal analysis of the ‘Ugly Duckling’ cartoons has shown the intertwined use of verbal and visual elements to construct the meaning of racist social rejection and colourism. The multimodal discourse of racial exclusion and colourism employed several tools including lexical choices, textual narrative, colour, angles, size and the positioning of characters on the cartoon screen. Cartoon filmmakers are recommended to take a critical stance towards the multimodal narratives they (re)produce to help avoid producing material that may bring about social discrimination against people of different races and colours. Children of all races should be able to observe positive reflections of themselves and feel empowered through the multi-ethnic stories they watch and engage with daily.