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Cinderella comparison
Fairy tales and gender roles
Cinderella comparison
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Another critical issue Disney has voiced and influence on was the topic of gender roles. Gender roles are known as how a person behaves or what their roles are in society based on what is appropriate for their gender. Before the 1970’s, women were forced to be known as household wives, which meant the men would go to work and the women would take care of things at home. Women were depicted as fragile and feminine, while men were strong and masculine. For a long time, this was the belief everyone abided by. Overtime, women grew weary of these stereotypes and began to fight back against the norm. With Disney’s few movie films, such as Cinderella or the Little Mermaid, women were depicted as naïve and priorities of a lady were to be married to
The Social Gender Expectations that we have formed as a society (which outline the unwritten gender roles) also influence the way that we interpret the story. Although the use of Gender Perspective by Andersen may have been unintentional it does have an impact on our view of certain characters. By following these specific expectations in TLM he draws comparisons between fiction and non-fiction which highlights the imperfections in both worlds.
Mermaids have always been very popular in literature for many years. They're known for being beautiful seductresses with long, flowing hair and skinny torso's attached to a gorgeous tail. Hans Christian Andersen's personal life and interest in mermaids led to his fairytale, "The Little Mermaid," which was published in 1837. "The Little Mermaid" is a disturbing tale about a mermaid who gives up her voice and tail for a Prince she barely has come to know. Two of the main characters in the tale, The Little Mermaid and the Sea Witch display many aspects of sexuality. With the help of an experienced Sea Witch, the mermaid is able to enter her state of sexuality. Andersen uses sexuality through the little mermaid to fit the female standards in the eighteenth century.
Walt Disney productions have created a line of popular film franchises starring a princess heroine, it is a common formula for Disney films to create a perfect role model for young viewers. Disney heroines are often portrayed young, pretty, virginal, sweet-natured, and obedient, viewers can relate to Disney films without knowing the messages it sends to the audience. The portrayal of heroines of Disney films, as Kathy Maio describes, "Disney heroines haven 't changed very much since Snow White: they are all happy housewives." Disney has a sad history of stereotypes (from gender to racial) and placing gender roles under every character . Every Disney film has sent a discreet message of stereotyping and gender role to the audience. For example,
This is because children tend to be the major audience of Disney films. The author’s main claim is that typical stereotyped gender roles of Disney’s princess films has evolved from 1937 of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to the most recent film, The Princess and the Frog released in 2009. Princes and the princesses, the main characters of the films in the past were depicted as they were more fit into the stereotyped gender roles: princes tended to be more masculine whereas princesses were emphasized for their femininity. The author provides support through suggesting other academic theoretical views stating how Disney’s princess line affects children’s development of gender roles. The purpose of the study is to show how characteristics of princes and princesses from Disney’s films have changed over the time. The author then introduces the results of the study saying that it is explicit that princes showed masculine characteristics in older films while princesses emphasized their femininity in the past. However, both characteristics have slightly mixed in current films. The warrant that the author uses is that children can be also stereotyped by Disney films due to their susceptibility and flexibility toward such information. Therefore, the huge market of Disney’s merchandises has significant influences on children’s cognitive development of gender perception. This is due to the fact that they are both the most targeted consumers of its market and watchers of the films
The first thing to pop into one’s mind when they hear The Little Mermaid is most likely the Disney animated movie starring the beautiful red haired mermaid, Ariel. However, as with most Disney films, The Little Mermaid is an adaption of an original story written by Hans Christian Andersen in the 1830s. The creation of this classic fairytale into an animated feature required alterations from the Disney corporation, leading to a final product that is reminiscent of Andersen’s original story with added layers of American culture, sexism, and musical numbers. The initial release of Disney’s The Little Mermaid was highly successful both domestically and overseas, resulting in a total box office revenue of about 180 million. Although the film received rave reviews and substantial profit, I argue that the Disney adaption loses the fundamental elements of Andersen’s original story and presents a new narrative laced with negative values and inferior moral lessons. The changes in the Disney remake are closely connected to cultural and social aspects of America in the late 1980’s, making it arguably more relatable and successful for current audiences of the time. However, Disney’s adaption of The Little Mermaid perpetuates negative American ideals and incorporates classic Disney fairytale elements, ultimately erasing the positive moral overarching theme of Hans Christian Andersen’s original story.
In “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect,” Stephanie Hanes covers the sexualization of young girls and women in every aspect of the media that influences children and teens. She explains that girls see media figures, movies, and sports being sexualized, and how this is causing children to associate looking and acting a certain way to being ‘the perfect women’. Hanes believes the hypersexualized media is causing girls to obtain a negative body image and it’s killing their self-esteem. The author proposes what she believes society should do about overcoming this obstacle, and how people can crush the stereotypes about women; to her everyone is responsible and should aid in fixing these problems. She explains that the media
The majority of Disney films show sexual inequality. This was evident in the three films Little Mermaid, Tangled and Cinderella. Each princess from each movie were portrayed to be pretty and weak, female villains were characterized as ugly and thrive for beauty and lastly, how every princess needs saving.
The definition of gender roles is respectfully, the position or behavior learned by a person as suitable to their gender, determined by the existing cultural norms. In other words, they verify how males and females should think, speak, dress, and interrelate within the context of particular society. Some gender roles and perhaps even gender stereotypes in American society comprise most of those in the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. To name a few that float amongst the surface are, “women are not as strong as men” (princes charming dashed to Snow White’s liberation), “are supposed to cook and do housework” (Snow White is seen recurrently sweeping, cooking and tending to the Seven Dwarfs needs), “are supposed to be submissive” (Snow White’s famed “obedient” malicious apple scene), “be beautifully pretty” (Snow White’s irrefutable beauty in which the Wicked Queen must profit), and last but certainly not least in a fairytale definitive, “sing and dance” (Snow White’s faultless voice and supple sways). These stereotypes are still being carried and even debated throughout the years and do still exist within this American society in every which way turned and are still as robust was they were 30, 40 years ago. Undoubtedly enough, gender roles and stereotypes do permit us to respond rapidly to situations because we have had and allocated with comparable occurrences before but it also prohibits us as a society from viewing the “real person” behind the stereotype and disregard differences between individuals therefore reasoning thoughts about others that in fact may not be
Gender roles is a set of societal norms dictating the types of behaviors which are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for people based on their actual or perceived sex or sexuality. Disney films consist of many gender stereotypes and expectations that teach children how to fit the gender roles that society has created. Young men are taught that to be successful, and expected to be good looking and muscular. Young men are sometimes shown in disney movies as the man of the hour, the guy who just sweeps in and save the illustrious damsel in distress.
Pretty Woman is a modern take on the classic Cinderella story where a poor misguided girl meets her prince and her life is dramatically changed. This film has fairy tale elements, but the biggest element in the movie is the use of sex; Vivian, the main character, is a prostitute. She meets her “prince” and is swept off of her feet, but what this really means is that she is bought for an entire week by a handsome, wealthy business man. One would assume that he was buying her for sex, but this is not your average prostitute transaction. This movie has a lot of third wave feminism ideals. Third wave feminism deals with using the female gender and sexuality to further the cause and portray their views. The ultimate goal of this paper is to show that Vivian Ward (portrayed by Julia Roberts), is the poster girl for third wave feminism.
Like most young girls, I grew up watching Disney movies. I remember the desire to be and act like almost anything that I watched. I wanted expensive things and a prince that would sweep me off my feet. But I never thought about the negativity that came from watching these movies until I was old enough to realize how they affected my image, behavior, and expectation of love. Most parents are not getting this either!
Some of the films that bring out the gender roles in our society include; Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, The Princess and the Frog, Aladdin, Hercules,
Each person in the world has heard of Cinderella, no matter what kind of version it may be. Cinderella is the one fairy tale story that has been popular and will always be the one tale that has to be told to children. Words and story lines might be twist and turn, but in the end the knowledge of the story will be learned in similar ways. As we all know when one story is told another is created, when one is at its best then another is at its worse. One version will always be better than another, but no matter what version it might be the story will be told.
Disney is one of the largest corporations in the world, known for entertaining and having a dominant role in children’s media for over 60 years and counting (Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund & Tanner, 2003). The purpose of this study is to analyze Disney animated films according to gender roles and gender role portrayals. Research shows that Disney animated films have highly portrayed traditionally feminine and masculine characteristics (England, Descartes and Meek, 2011). The focus of this paper is to discuss the stereotypical representation of gender role portrayal between the men and women in Disney animated films. Scholars have suggested that in Disney animated films women are portrayed as being domestic, nurturing, wanting to marry, helpless and in need of protection (Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund & Tanner, 2003). However, men are portrayed as having a non- domestic job, use physical anger as a mean to express emotion, are naturally physically strong and are very heroic (Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund & Tanner, 2003). My first hypothesis is whether in Disney animated films, men are playing traditional roles and women are playing traditional roles. My third second is whether stereotypical gender role portrayal in Disney animated films will become less traditionally characterized as society progressed to let go of traditional gender roles.
Have you ever watched the movie “The Little Mermaid”? Well if not you should as it’s a Disney classic that every child enjoyed. Many people don’t know however that it was based on a different story with the same concept. There are a ton of similarities and differences between these two though that I’ll cover in this paper. So now lets get on to some of the similarities.