Gender Stereotypes In Walt Disney's Movies

Walt Disney is a man who creates his stories from his imagination, but many of his films are based on historic events. Disney has a unique approach on depicting history; he only includes the events that portrayed the type of history that he wishes to show to his audience. Disney’s goal is not to accurately depict history, but to use it as a tool to create entertainment and present his own message. In the films Song of the South, Pocahontas, and Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier, Johnny Shiloh, Johnny Tremain, and The Moon’s Pilot, these matters are either ignored or represented incorrectly. Although all of these films depict relationships either between different races or genders, these relationships are shallow and glossed over or are

They both have power and are assertive figures. Johnny’s grandmother is the head of the house and Sally, Johnny’s mother, left her husband, which during the time was not very common. Uncle Remus becomes Johnny’s father figure and Johnny learns all of his lessons from Uncle Remus’ stories. The relationship that Uncle Remus has with the plantation owners is pleasant, but this is not a realistic portrait of the relationship between plantation owners and former slaves during the Reconstruction period. Right after the end of the Civil War and with the creation of the Emancipation Proclamation in which slavery was abolished, many slave owners did not inform their slaves that they were free. Of those who knew, only few had the means to travel north and find a new life. The rest were forced to stay at the plantation and find work from their previous owners. This resulted in sharecropping, where a plantation owner allowed the former slaves to rent land, and materials to work the fields. These agreements were often unfair and resulted in the tenants going into extreme debt, and they were unable to leave the plantation unless they had paid that debt back. In a sense, this was a new type of slavery. Song of the South has a very different portrayal of this relationship, and it is due to “Disneyfication”, an idea in which Walt Disney’s films all have unrealistic happy endings. It is also due to the attitude of the people at

In the film, there is a scene where members of the Powhatan tribe surround a fire while a shaman performs what looks like magic to show the danger of the Europeans. This is quite offensive and also unnecessary. It makes light of Native American culture and depicts it in an incorrect manner. Even the portrayal of Pocahontas herself is very inaccurate. When John Smith came to Virginia, Pocahontas was only 10 years old and was kidnapped to stay in Jamestown for a year. The only account of Pocahontas that we know of is from John Smith, but he does not even write about her in A True Relation By John Smith. There was no evidence that Pocahontas was in love with John Smith, only that she saved him from being killed. It is irresponsible of Disney to use a real person who existed and turn her into something she was not. Disney could have very easily done this story with a fictional character and since Disney has such a great impact on children all around the world; it is obligated to portray history the way it happened, or at least tell the full story. Another movie that talks about relations with Native Americans, although at a different time period, is Davy Crockett: King of the Wild