...While Ping/Mulan is training to be fit for war the masculinity stereotype is brought up many times and shows that only the men can be strong or fight for themselves, which is another limitation put on women due to gender. Mulan reinforces the stereotypical ideas of masculinity in the scene where shang sings the song, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”. Masculinity is mostly defined in the movie by power, strength, and activity, which Mulan surely reinforces. The lyrics, “Let's get down to business, to defeat the Huns. Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?” shows the stereotypical representation of men because it upholds the fact that they are the only gender who are worthy to fight. Captain Shang's goal is to, “make a man,” out of the...
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...Stereotypes of Gender against Women Throughout history, women have been discriminated against in our society. At times, they have been considered the weaker sex and also, they have been expected to do work that only demands low responsibility. These responsibilities may include: housework, being a good wife and mother. However, the world’s perspective towards women has had significant changes, and companies like Walt Disney Production are still generating stereotypes of gender against women in their films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Mulan. Media is frequently responsible of encouraging these patterns by the way they show their information and entertainment to the audience. Laura Mulvey, a British feminist film theorist, is best known for her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” which was published in 1975. Here, she describes the role of women in movies “as a tool of attraction for the male gaze” (Mulvey). According to Mulvey’s statement, this work aims to describe the stereotypes of gender that Disney films display throughout their past productions. It also shows how the films can affect everyday lives. Over decades, these cartoons have been criticized for illustrating the traditional American and European values, thus creating stereotypes, which are often not a clear image of the current situation in our society. One of the most discussed topics in the animated features of Walt Disney Productions is the stereotype...
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...As women in real life have changed over time, our counterparts in fantasy film animation have also changed. The classic Walt Disney Princesses have therefore evolved through, and with, the media. After thinking back on what made Disney such a huge hit and major part of all of our lives, one answer came to mind: The Disney Princesses. Walt Disney and the Disney Company started out with young and beautiful Snow White, and then eventually moving onto the long line of famous Disney heroines such as Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, Ariel, Jasmine, Mulan, and many more to recent date. There have been so many princesses (and other strong heroines) added to the Disney list, but has anyone ever thought of how these princesses have changed over time, or how they have evolved due to how women in real life are represented in the media today? Before I go into any more on the Princesses themselves, I first need to explain what events and stereotypes have made the basis for the Disney Princesses of the past, and even the for the women of the past, due to how the media and others have portrayed them. According to girlsinc.com, “women have more opportunities and face different challenges” today than they were able to in the past. Cuiriosity.com also states that, “Throughout history, men have been tasked with providing for the family. In our earliest days as a species with a plan for the day, that meant hunting and bringing home meat for sustenance, while in recent times it's meant...
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...In the story, we catch glimpses of Squeaky’s living conditions, as the are not the best. She lives with her judgemental parents, and is forced to take care of her disabled brother, Raymond. Although Squeaky acts tough and strong, it is shown throughout the story that her mother’s expectations are affecting her self-worth and identity. Everyone is trying to put a mask over her real identity, hoping she will become “a regular girl.” Similarly, Mulan, the protagonist in the song called “Reflection,” expresses her loss in identity due to the pressure put on her from her family. She is supposed to uphold her family’s honor and make them proud; yet when she tries, she fails because that is not who she is. “Raymond’s Run” and the song “Reflection” both share the common theme: to be strong and not let what others think get in the way of being...
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...Disney characters : the reflect of women's place in the society Walt Disney, under his real name Walt Elias Disney was born in 1901 in Chicago. He founded in 1923 the famous Walt Disney Company with his brother Roy as the Disney Brothers Studios. After three years, the studios take the name Walt Disney Company. Their first animated film came out in 1937 "Snow White" inspired by a famous children's story by the Brothers Grimm. Thereafter follow many animated films like Cinderella, Mulan, or Rebel. One of the most important question in recent years is : What image Disney returns with respect to the role of women and the role that women play in society in the twenty-first century? In fact, Disney is primarily a media and integrate media stereotypes and habits of society to which they belong in their history or animated movie. Disney is the reflects of the habit of society to which they belong in their history or their short films. Thus heroines like Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora are submitted to wish than others, especially men, have chosen for her. They are docile women who spend their time dreaming. They are always save by men from a evil spell and are submit to the will of men. Instead, the heroines of the late twentieth century are beginning to take their lives and rebel against the male authority . In the twenty-first century heroines are increasingly rebelling and advocate of feminist principles : women are the equals of men. This analysis allows us to see a marked increase...
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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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...eventually embedded in our minds. Even child-oriented Disney films such as Mulan and Beauty and the Beast display similar projections of the ideal male and female. The ideal male in such films is handsome, physically fit, and charismatic to attract the female protagonist while the ideal female is beautiful and captivating enough to attract the male protagonist’s attention. Such glorified projections are subtlety made but easily manipulative to prescribe to all the way to fit the role of an ideal male or female. Over the years, the media has been slowly evolving but it has become more pervasive and changed the way people perceive about their image. Many times the influence comes from what we see in innocent films but we do not recognize what the meaning is behind them. For instance, in Disney movies, the male characters come off as if they are more knowledgeable and capable of doing more than a female character can. Mia Adessa Towbin claims that men primarily use physical means to express their emotions or show no emotions, and that men are not in control of their sexuality. Men are naturally strong and heroic, men have non-domestic jobs, and overweight men have negative characteristics (Towbin 29). Disney films depict a lot of these male characteristics in characters such as Li Shang from the movie, Mulan and Beast from the movie, Beauty and the Beast. The male protagonists such as Li Shang in Mulan, the captain of the Chinese Imperial Army and a true leader are always...
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...be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex) are everywhere. For a long time men and women had to do certain things throughout their lives. It was expect that men would be the ones that had to work, while their wives had to stay home to take care of the house, the kids, bills, etc. Over time, these gender roles have changed. Females now take on tasks that only men were supposed to do. Gender roles appear in places that one wouldn’t expect: Disney movies. Disney movies do a great job at showing how gender roles were portrayed at the time the movie came out. Most notably, in these movies, males fulfill a certain appearance stereotype (tall, muscular, handsome, etc.). The same stereotype applies to females as well (makeup, being slim, posture, etc.). In Disney movies, the male protagonist is almost always good-looking, muscular, tall, etc. An example of this is Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid movie. In the movie, he’s tall, light-skinned, muscular, and handsome. He’s almost “perfect”. In the essay ....Happily Ever After (Or What Fairy Tales teach Girls about being Women) Alice Neikirk states “the hero, often a prince, is generally described as brave and handsome.” Over time, the appearance of the male protagonists have changed. For example, Flynn Rider from Tangled is just a slim, not very muscular, semi- handsome guy. He’s average compared to princes from other Disney movies (like Prince Eric, Hercules, It seems only the rich princes are the muscular good-looking...
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...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 girls to keep moving, to do things that matter and reinforces the value of family bonds- not just bonding with a new bloke that you may have met once or twice. Before she escapes the clutches of her royal duties to let her issues thaw, Queen Elsa states to her younger and quite naive sibling, Anna, “you can’t marry a man you just met”. Yes, it sounds like a reasonable...
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...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 role in societies today. The company has many princess films and has portrayed an image of different genders which is very well penetrated in the minds of children (Disney Princess, 2010). According to B. Davies masculinity and femininity are not properties inherent in individuals, although there is inherent or structural property our society that is, arising from social action and at the...
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...Vračević Željka University of Banjaluka Faculty of Philology English Language and Literature REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMININITY IN DISNEY CARTOON PRODUCTION: An Analysis of Selected Examples The purpose of this essay is to explore how media, especially Disney cartoons, affect gender, particularly young girls and how the representations of females within the media affect the viewers through stereotypes or ideals to live up too. THE INTRODUCTION (the explanation of media influences and basic notions of women representations in Disney Production) A good deal of feminist writing in the field of culture has been concerned with the representations of gender and of women in particular, and it is claimed that these representations of females reflected male attitudes and constituted misrepresentations of “real women”. Meehan (1983) analyzed the stereotypes into which women are commonly cast on television and the analysis showed that “good women” are, or are expected to be submissive, domesticated and home-centered while “bad women” are rebellious and independent. She concludes that “American viewers have spent more than three decades watching male heroes and their adventures, muddied visions of boyhood adolescence repete with illusions of women as witches, bitches, mothers and imps “. All researches about the media influence give the same conclusion that the mass media is a powerful resource through which viewers develop their...
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...Disney Heroines and America: Yesterday and Today Haley Hayes English 311c Section 02 Movies reflect current American values. Symbols and signs of these shifting values creep into every aspect of the American people’s lives. The entertainment industry provides an example by depicting the powerful influence animated heroines have on cultural trends. In animation, the heroine archetype has come to mean the “ideal person”: a symbol of the qualities, attitudes, popular trends, and those socially acceptable norms which are the most desirable. Has the public brought this upon themselves by buying into the movie-madness scheme, which dictates how one should think, feel, and, in part, be? This introduces another interesting question: Does the shift in societal values affect the nature and content of animation, or do the values portrayed in animation and public’s willingness to be overpowered create these changes in American beliefs? Regardless of which comes first, analyzing a character is synonymous with analyzing the culture from which the character is spawned. These symbols in animation, unfortunately, don’t always depict America’s best values and more often than not are targeted at children. Truly, the influential impact of animation on children is most perfectly depicted in the famed Walt Disney Heroines. These Disney girls have come to reflect America’s ever-changing values and the evolution of its popular culture. Despite the public’s initial skepticism...
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...Many parents feel that Disney animated films are pure and wholesome, and they are perfectly suitable for children to watch starting at very young ages. On the surface of Disney movies, they are quite wholesome and they try to teach life lessons, but do these movies really portray positive images of men and women that will help a child become an individual, or do Disney movies place ideas in children’s heads, at early ages, telling them how they should act, feel, and live. In an article printed on December third 1966 in Time magazine, the author proposed that Disney films were just as much for adults as they were for children. “Disney always maintained that he made films not for children but for "honest adults."”(time.com). Anyone who has seen a Disney animated film can see that most of these movies are based on adult situations that involve the union of man and women in one way or another. For as long as Walt Disney animated films have been around, spanning eight decades, they have made a great impact on the way children view themselves and others, and they help shape how children view the opposite sex in a negative way. Most people were exposed to the wonderful world of Disney animated films when they were still toddlers. And since people are exposed to this material at such young ages, these films tend to give children an early idea of how men and women, according to Walt Disney studios, interact with each other. They also show children at an early age how people of their...
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...“Behind the Fair Façade” Representations of Femininity in Three Walt Disney Animated Features Bachelor Thesis Bethany Schouten, 3278972 Media en Cultuurwetenschappen Genderstudies Supervisor: Domitilla Olivieri May 31st, 2011 “Behind the Fair Façade” Representations of Femininity in Three Walt Disney Animated Features Bachelor thesis by Bethany Schouten, 3278972 Index Introduction 3 Methodological and theoretical Framework 4 Corpus 9 The Research: SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS 11 The Research: THE LITTLE MERMAID 18 The Research: THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG 24 Findings and Interpretation 31 Identity Formation 35 Conclusion 38 Literature 41 Media 43 Introduction The Walt Disney Company’s cultural products have been a great influence on popular culture since the 1930s and an inspiration for generations all over the world ever since. For many, including myself, the Princes, Princesses and fantastical creatures of Disney’s animated fairy tales have become symbols of their youth. Seeing the films gives rise to a feeling of nostalgia, they become a memento of one’s childhood world. But what kind of world is this? What kind of realities do Disney’s fantastical representations construct? In my thesis, I will analyze a specific element of Disney films: gender roles constructed through the representation of femininity in their animated...
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...Disney and the American Princess: The Americanization of European Fairy Tales [pic] Marina Alexandrova Student number 3021874 MA Thesis, American Studies Program Utrecht University Course code 200401064 23943 words 12 August 2009 Contents Title page………………………………………………………………1 Contents……………………………………………………………….2 Introduction……………………………………………………………3 Chapter 1: European Fairy Tales and Values about Gender and Class………………………………………10 Chapter 2: Disney Animation and American Culture…………………24 Chapter 3: Disney Animation and (Gender) Commodification…………………………………………..55 Conclusion…………………………………………………………...73 Bibliography…………………………………………………………78 Introduction Among the various aspects which define contemporary life, popular culture – and in particular, American popular culture – is undoubtedly one of the most ubiquitous and long-lasting. Throughout the twentieth century, people around the world have enjoyed film, music, animation, and written works by various authors and artists. One of the most famous and significant American entertainers of the lot has been Walt Disney, introducing millions of children and adults to his world of limitless (or so is widely believed) imagination and magic, from the earliest short cartoons produced in the 1920s, to full-length feature animations such as Snow White and the Seven...
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