In this acrylic on canvas painting, I loved how Shimomura stood out among all the Disney characters surrounding him. Oddly though, the painting’s colorful clutter conveyed an image of horror. The sharp, 2-dimensional contrasts of the cartoon characters against Shimomura’s horrified expression and body posture shows that he believes Disney stereotypes are suffocating.

As I looked closer, Shimomura is the only 3-dimensional object in this painting. This shows him in a more realistic light than the cartoons. The cartoons are seemingly innocent when looked at separately, but together, they are closing in on Shimomura. Shimomura is trying to illustrate that each Disney character contains its own stereotypes against a certain race, and they are all haunting and hurtful. The attacks on race and ethnicity are especially relevant to Shimomura because he spent two years in an internment camp for Japanese Americans during WWII.

The paintings include Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, who has a green skin color, and is wearing an Indian headdress. Donald Duck is wearing a Chinese straw hat. It also includes characters like Bugs Bunny, Popeye, and the three little pigs. Shimomura incorporates traditional Japanese Ukiyo theater performers too. A female Ukiyo performer is painted bright yellow, probably as it is portrayed in American shows, which mocks Asian skin tones.

As an Asian-American myself, I have never noticed stereotypes when I watched Disney shows as a child. However, when I started growing up, I did question whether they told children subliminal racist messages or confirmed them to older audiences. Shimomura is aware of the danger of these stereotypes in Disney productions, and transfers these feelings of dismay and dissatisfaction onto canvas.

The painting is quite similar to another one of Shimomura’s paintings called “An American Knockoff.” In the painting, he is punching into the air with a myriad of Disney cartoon characters behind him, all of which are wincing or show a hurt expression. This is Shimomura’s show of empowerment and his fight against American stereotypes in children’s media. As he says himself, the works are his “attempt to ameliorate the outrage of the misconceptions.”