Stereotypes In Fairy Tales

Parents continue to cloud their children’s minds with the antiquated gender roles and structured landmarks of coming of age without comprehending the consequences of such lessons that are evident in modern representations of fairy tales. While fairy tales once taught valuable lessons to societies about overcoming adversity and adopting strong morality, they now blind children to the reality of the world and in fact take away from the morals they once sought to enrich. Starting at fundamentals of family structure and gender roles, kids are subconsciously convinced of these extreme normalities. The drastic effect of fairy tales (like those of Disney), have led children to go back to the gender roles up to the 1970s and imagine a twisted functioning

The antiquated stereotypes that men are strong and women are weak and submissive has continued to be evident in Disney movies. Submissive princesses such as Cinderella have become more famous than those like Mulan who has exhibited strong-willed traits and independence (Green par. 6). The idolized male leads in Disney movies, and fairy tales men have been shown to provide financial stability rather than the female doing such. For example, Prince Charming provide a so-called “golden ticket” to financial security that Cinderella did not have before (Green par. 1). These “strong” male figures have also proven to give safety to princesses such as a “one true love” being the only one can save Sleeping Beauty from her curse (Green par. 2). Housework and other stereotypical feminine qualities are only given to women such as Snow White cleaning up after and cooking for the men. Males depicted as lowly as dwarfs are above the woman. Even pop culture iconic movies such as Twilight show the female lead as weak and a larger than life male lead (Green par. 1). Even female villains are shown as evil for petty reasons, such as the Evil Queen who attacks Snow White for being more beautiful. This kind of demoralizing depiction of women is what leads society to often blame a woman for dressing too provocatively possibly leading to their assault. Even some women who have been sexually assaulted blame themselves on some level, believing they have brought it some way onto themselves (Green par. 4). This goes along also with men seen as stronger for sleeping with more women, and women have the opposite standard and are looked down on for the same. This may not seem to correlate with one another, but at a young age, children are shown that men are different