...Gender Roles and Disney The Disney princess has become one of the most iconic symbols of Walt’s ever growing empire. The disney Princess’ franchise first began in 1937 with the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs making Snow White the first princess in the now infamous princess lineup. The franchise continues with the most recent disney princess movie Tangled ( Rapunzel) which came out in 2011. Disney and their filmmakers caused great controversy with their princess’ such as race. Disney broke their european tradition by adding their first African American Princess to the line up. Princess Tiana of The Princess and the Frog in 2009 which still caused controversy. Another one of Disney’s biggest controversial topics was gender roles and how women and men are portrayed in these disney films. Gender roles are separate patterns of personality traits, mannerisms, interests, attitudes, and behaviors that are regarded as either "male" or "female" by one's culture. They are what is considered the “ Norm” for the male and female sex. There are stereotypical behaviors normally associated with either gender such as Women are suppose to be more passive aggressive, overly emotional, and illogical, just to name a few characteristics. While men tend to be more tough or in control, leaders, Not crying or wimpy and a womanizer As suggested in Kimmel’s “ Bros before Hos”: The Guy Code in Language Awareness (469). These same messages are often presented to children through the media they...
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...Stereotypes are sometimes inescapable. Everyday activities, such as doctor visits, shopping, as well as others, may be interrupted by people placing stereotypes on young children. The origin of these gender stereotypes is thought to stem from the portrayal of princesses and the images they project to children. The author of “Cinderella and Princess Culture”, Peggy Orenstein, shares her frustration and claims the only way to get rid of female stereotyping is to get rid of princesses. Typically, the princess archetype goes hand in hand with ball gown dresses, a prince charming, etc.; however, princesses’ womanly figures, outfits, as well as their storylines, have begun to change. The author of “The Evolution of Disney Princesses”, Jo Bradley,...
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...People have been captivated by the “Disney magic” since 1937 when the first franchise movie, Snow White, was released. Over time Disney has continued to grow its audience as well as influence the lives of all ages. Often people ignore the negative effects that these movies can have on the self esteem of those who grew up watching them, especially females. The movies can mold the perceptions females have toward how they should look, act, and the people with whom they are interact. My group researched: To what extent do female high school social norms portrayed by Disney Channel movies from 2006-2010 impact their self esteem? Throughout our research, high school social norms were defined as the average daily experiences that high school students are believed...
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...College Writing 4 December 2014 Disney Princess Films’ Influence Disney princess films often influence young girls into thinking they must conform to princess-like attributes. The films are teaching girls that they should live their lives like the fairy tales. Disney noticed the opinions that some viewers had on their past films and tried to change their old habits with their new films. Jennifer Hartstein, a child psychologist, wrote a book for parents in hopes to rid their daughters of the anxieties they develop when exposed to the consumer goods that are Disney princesses (Teitel online). Disney films are known to teach the younger female generation “everything from ‘only appearances matter’ to ‘don’t expect to rely on yourself; you'll need a prince to rescue you’” (Teitel online). Hartstein brought up the great point about what Disney films are perceived to be teaching. Hartstein believes that the typical princess is not only unreasonably airy, destitute, and vacant, but a threat to the development of girls who worship at their pink, sugary altar (Teitel online). If a young girl becomes obsessed with princess movies like Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, she may become determined with maintaining her princess-like beauty and become indifferent in her own freedom; so kind of like a princess, herself (Teitel online). Frozen is often seen as the revolutionary movie that broke the stereotype that some viewers have on Disney princess movies. However, the males in the...
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...An Analysis of Gender Roles in Disney Princess Films Jasmit Singh 213749361 Traditional and Popular Culture – 1900 9.0 Susan Niazi – Tutorial 6 Whether it’s the colours they wear, the activities they engage in or how they behave, men and women are known to play different roles in society. These established gender roles “are not innate or natural but a product of society”. Children, adolescents and adults all learn gender roles through the environment they’re surrendered by. One of the many huge influencers that help shape gender roles is media. Although “there has been a lot of change over the years in terms of what is considered appropriate societal roles for men and women, this change is not reflected in contemporary film”. The ideology of mainstream media continues to focus on the males being the heads of society, which in result, shows an unequal representation of the females. From an early age, media puts an image into young minds, informing them how males and females should think, act, behave and appear. In many television shows and films, one can easily see the distinct difference between the role of a male and a female. Often films are enforcing stereotypical gender roles where the male is seen to holds more importance in society than the female. Amongst many film producing companies, Walt Disney Pictures for decades have been enforcing stereotypical gender roles in their princess films. Though it may not be outright obvious, Disney productions play a huge role in...
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...The inspiring Disney movie Mulan has both men and women stereotypes that are part of our society. In the beginning of the movie the main character Mulan is being prepped to see the towns matchmaker because she is now old enough to be married into another family. This could be showing little girls once they reach a certain age it is crucial to get married to please and honor your family just like it does in Mulan. The women characters in Mulan are the subordinates compared to the men; expecting one man from each family to fight against the invaders of China regardless of age or disabilities. When Mulans father gets called even though he already fought before and was injured Mulan tries to plead with the courtier. Being told she dishonors her father for speaking out of turn shows the typical stereotype that women should not voice their opinions and speak without permission. She ends up running away and impersonating a male soldier to protect her father; which if discovered she would be killed by the Army. While training for war with General Shang male stereotypes are then shown teaching little boys what a man is. The song “I’ll make a man out of you,” describes what a man must do or be to be a real man. General Shang first asks the question if he was sent daughters and not sons further implying that the women should be...
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...When talking about Disney fairytales, what is the one thing that most people in America assume will happen in the movie? It would be that a “Prince Charming” will come and save the Princesses in whatever predicament that they are in. For instance, in the Disney Fairytale Snow White. She dies by an evil witch’s spell and the her “Prince Charming” comes and saves her with true love’s kiss. The trend of these movies has continued throughout the years, until a recent changed in one of their recent movies. In the Disney fairytale Tangled, it utilizes the same stereotypes where the main character, Rapunzel, has beauty, she can sing, she has an evil mother, she cleans up around the house, has an animal friend, and the list goes on. Yet the movie itself also pushes against the fairytale expectation. They say that most fairytales focus on the woman of the movie, and that the male figure is barely present. In Tangled, however, there is a focus on men who are much more developed then the typical Prince Charming character. While the roles of women have significantly changed in fairy tales since becoming popular, the roles of men have stayed the same. The heroes of these fairy tales appear to be rich and powerful but what they do lack is personality. For example, in the movie Snow White, the Prince comes out of thin air but he’s handsome, and rich, and his character hadn’t even been developed. The males tend to be royalty, handsome, and they are everything that a Princess ever dreams of. But...
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...researching racism in Disney films did I understand this was even an issue. As a little kid you most likely don’t pick up on these things but as an adult being aware of it, do we allow our children to continue watching such films? My dice identity role was in perspective of an African American person. Disney does a great job of stereotyping against this race in several movies, the Jungle Book being just one. In this particular movie, they have portrayed gorillas and orangutans to sound like black people. In their slightly ever more popular film, The Lion King, they made the hyenas speak in a clear street manner such as an inner African American dialect. (“Stereotypes”) Another issue came into light once the film The Princess and the Frog was released. Why had it taken Disney so long to come out with its first African American princess film? This film’s original story line had the princess character named Maddy who was a chambermaid. This caused uproar about the character starting the movie as a slave and having the name Maddy that sounded too much like Mammy and changes were made. Mammy is defined as a black woman engaged as a nurse to white children or as a servant to a white family. (Evans) When it comes to gender, Disney does another awesome job of drawing a distinct line between female and male characters. The female characters were typically shown in a position of queen, homemaker or princess such as Cinderella who goes from a maid to a princess. Male characters play...
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...When talking about Disney fairytales, what is the one thing that most people in America assume will happen in the movie? It would be that a “Prince Charming” will come and save the Princesses in whatever predicament that they are in. For instance, in the Disney Fairytale Snow White. She dies by an evil witch’s spell and the her “Prince Charming” comes and saves her with true love’s kiss. The trend of these movies has continued throughout the years, until a recent changed in one of their recent movies. In the Disney fairytale Tangled, it utilizes the same stereotypes where the main character, Rapunzel, has beauty, she can sing, she has an evil mother, she cleans up around the house, has an animal friend, and the list goes on. Yet the movie itself also pushes against the fairytale expectation. They say that most fairytales focus on the woman of the movie, and that the male figure is barely present. In Tangled, however, there is a focus on men who are much more developed then the typical Prince Charming character. While the roles of women have significantly changed in fairy tales since becoming popular, the roles of men have stayed the same. The heroes of these fairy tales appear to be rich and powerful but what they do lack is personality. For example, in the movie Snow White, the Prince comes out of thin air but he’s handsome, and rich, and his character hadn’t even been developed. The males tend to be royalty, handsome, and they are everything that a Princess ever dreams of. But...
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...Gender Roles in Disney Movies It is undeniable that the company that is leading to many generations in their child age is Disney. Who does not remember Mickey and Minnie Mouse?, Who has not thrown a tear when Snow White was poisoned by the evil witch?, Who did not want to ever be in the place of handsome John Smith or Pocahontas herself to revive their love story?, that tender these films, is not it, for example the Little Mermaid and Sebastian the crab song, who does not remember that song from "under the sea”? Has anybody ever wondered why the dwarves themselves did not do the housework when they came home once Snow White "moved in" with them? Or why an Indian as Pocahontas, falls for a murderer of thousands of his countrymen as was John Smith? Or why witches are always bad? Or why women are always in the background in these films (Hubka, Hovdestad & Tonmyr, 2009)? The world of Disney Princess began in 1937 when Snow White entered the world with the Seven Dwarfs (McRobbie, 2008). Since then it continued to add princesses in this world and the most recent movie was Tangled (Rapunzel) in 2011. In the past years, due to the lack of portraying ethnicity, Disney movie makers were highly criticized by their audience. Therefore, Pocahontas appeared in 1995 and after three years in 1998 came Mulan, which created a racially diverse collection of Disney princesses. After a decade The Princess and the Frog was released in 2009. It is important to understand that Disney plays an important...
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...From glistening ball gowns, to fairy godmothers and singing animals- Walt Disney has little girls everywhere growing up, with aspirations of being the next “Anna”. What the mirror on the wall did not teach us, is that the gender portrayals in these movies are not the fairest of them all. Since the first moment that Snow White bit into that succulent red apple, it was obvious that Disney was entrenched in misogyny that dates back to the mythology of Adam and Eve. Don’t get me wrong: I too was a doe-eyed Disney devotee and it took me a while to realise that it was better to depend upon charming chocolate than a Prince Charming. However it is now the 21st century and times have changed; Disney is no longer ‘Frozen’ in antiquated gender stereotypes. Notice the pun? Quite literally, “Frozen” (2013) has shattered princess stereotypes with a beautiful and funny adventure that’s a sure-fire Disney classic. “For the First Time in Forever” says the main song of the movie, and I kind of felt like singing the words too because for the first time in forever, the main characters of a Disney picture are independent females that don’t appear to rely on a guy, or a prince, that solves everything with a smooch. It’s true that Frozen is the rectification of a more modern woman role because there have been- in the past- some Disney movies with strong female protagonists such as Mulan (1998) and Pocahontas (1995). They didn’t need a man to be the saviour of the picture! This movie empowers...
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...For this discussion, I selected the debating issues on gender stereotypes as my opinion on this matter is unprejudiced. To come upon Disney Princesses as the topic of these debating articles somewhat made me ponder. Is this topic really worth debating? To start with, both articles seems to indicate the strong emotions imbued on them by their respective authors. Monika Bartyzel claim and argues that Disney has set standard in typecasting children into stereotyped gender roles by means of their toy franchise. What drew the final straw for Bartyzel was the reshaping of the physiques of Merida—main character of the movie Brave—into a customary figure that Disney Princess usually characterize. As an evidence of the problem of gender stereotyping...
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...Every little girl wants to feel beautiful. She dresses up in sparkly costumes and stumbles around in her mother’s high heels because this is what has been ingrained in her mind as beautiful from her favorite Disney movies. From infancy to adulthood, we cherish the princess movies that we feel connected to. We all wanted to be part of Ariel’s world or be rescued from Maleficent’s evil grasp. However, we never question the value of these Disney Princesses influence on young girls. Are these princesses setting a good example for the aspirations of today’s children? The grasp of Disney Princesses reaches incredible lengths. They’re international symbols that are recognizable all over the world, but perhaps they are not the best role models to idolize. Disney Princesses do not represent positive icons for young girls because they glamorize unrealistic concepts of beauty and promote naïve life choices. Disney released its first Disney princess film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, in 1937. Since its release, Disney has created twenty-three other animated Disney films that could be considered princesses. These princesses bring in billions of dollars of revenue through Disneyworld merchandise, attractions, characters, and movies (Disney...
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...how many perfectly good movies we’re getting out of Hollywood’s current obsession with adaptations, sequels, and reboots, too much of it is bad for the soul of a movie culture. New things, new experiences,...
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...Women, Girls and the Media 18 August 2014 The Disney Princess Effect on Young Girls and Their Gender Role Perception The Disney Corporation has been around since 1937 when it released the first Disney Princess movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Since then, millions of young girls have fallen in love with these characters and often see them as role models. From the dresses to the tiaras, the beauty to the fairy tale, Disney Princesses have a direct effect on young girls and their behavior. The media has been a powerful resource through which many young girls develop their identity and come to understand gender roles in society. Research indicates that watching televised gender portrayals has an effect on individuals’ gender based attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (Mastro & Morawitz 131). These are the attitudes and beliefs that young girls who watch Disney princess films would inherit. Girls enjoy watching these films and see the beautiful characters overcome difficult trials, as well as fall in love with a handsome prince in the end. The overall message is not a realistic one, leaving many girls feeling self conscious and unhappy. The idea that beauty equals good and ugly equals evil can negatively impact the way a girl looks at herself or others. Girls will ultimately learn that what is beautiful is good. Snow White and Cinderella were attractive and charismatic while the witch and two stepsisters were unattractive and vile. And in the end, the princesses...
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