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gender and disney
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The Disney Corporation is one of the biggest companies that our society has seen develop. Disney products are everywhere; they produce “children’s books, cartoons, computer software, and toys” (Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund and Tanner, 24). In 1937, Disney released its first full-length animated movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Since then, this business, in regards to media, has been on an economic roller coaster that only goes up. In a study published by the Journal of Feminist Family Therapy entitled Images of Gender, Race, Age and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films Professors Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund and Tanner from various universities, looked in depth at Disney movies. In the article, the authors …show more content…
Disney movies are intergenerational, in a sense that families with people of all ages have can find a common past time in them. Based off a study done by Professors Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund and Tanner, Disney movies produced from 1937-2000 have five common themes for the male gender and four common themes for the female gender (24). In regards to this movie, two themes from the male gender themes were looked at when applied to the movie Frozen, which was released in 2013. The Disney feature-length animated film Frozen has very different gender roles presented than that of Disney movies from pre-2003. When it comes to the villain, Hans, critics have realized that he is different from other Disney villains in the sense that he pretends to love Anna, the princess character, and uses that power to manipulate her. This type of blind emotional manipulation is unique to Frozen. Since Frozen was the only modern movie looked at in this paper, it is possible that this manipulation could only be a one-time thing for Disney. However, going off of the study done by Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund and Tanner, the Disney Corporation does not see any problems in using past themes
The reader feels disturbed, anger and enraged at the beginning and all throughout the article on Disney and TV in general. Disney in specifically because of its intended audience, which is children. Hanes says “ The $4 billion Disney Princess empires was the first step down a path scarier challenge , from self objectification “ ( Hanes 2) . Notice how Hanes uses the word objectification and first step , these words set the tone of the article. Some of the audience might of felt betrayed by Disney for making and promoting movies/shows that cause that type of change in a little girls life in such an early stage. The audience could as well be questioning themselves if the Disney company was doing it on purpose. Hanes says ,“ Hannah Montana, then High School Musical. I thought it was so strange that these were the new trajectories of female childhood” ( Hanes
Henke, Jill, Diane Umble, and Nancy Smith. “Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine." Women’s Studies in Communication 19 (Summer 1996): 229-49.
Presently, Disney known for its mass media entertainment and amusement parks technically bring warm feelings to many children and some adults. Personally, Disney elicits magical fantasies that children enjoy and further encourages imagination and creativity. For decades Disney has exist as an unavoidable entity with its famous global sensation and reach. Furthermore, Disney is a multibillion dollar empire with an unlimited grasp on individuals and territories. An empire per se, since they own many media outlets, markets, shops, etc., you name it they got it. However, the film Mickey Mouse Monopoly presents an entirely new perspective on the presumed innocence projected in Disney films. This film exposes certain traits Disney employs and exclusively portrays through its media productions, specifically cartoons for directing and nurturing influence beginning with children. Mickey Mouse Monopoly points out camouflaged messages of class, race, and gender issues in Disney films that occur behind the scenes intended to sway viewers towards adopting Disney values.
For several years now, Disney seems to be determined not to offend anyone in order to keep its audience; indeed we are confronted with animation films full of compromises; they are not as degrading for women as Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves (1937), but they are nonetheless still filled with clichés. Films such as The Princess and The Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Wreck-it Ralph (2012), have in common the sense of being progressive and however we can notice the resurgence of harmful gendered stereotypes on the subjects of the social scale, women’s role in society, or the status quo. Frozen comes in and turns out to be no exception. Though it includes several encouraging and gratifying elements, it contributes insidiously to spread numerous
England, Dawn, Lara Descartes, and Melissa Collier-Meek. "Gender Roll Portrayal and the Disney Princesses." N.p., 10 Feb. 2011. Web.
I found “Someday My Prince Will Come” to be a very interesting and enlightening article, sometimes when watching Disney movies at face value, it is easy to miss just how heterosexually driven these movies are. Many of the Disney movi...
Media is a powerful agent in entertaining children. It also influences and teaches the youth of society the suitable and appropriate gender roles that they inevitably try to make sense of. The power of media is very influential especially in the minds of the youth. Disney movies target the youth and plant certain ideas and concepts about social culture into the vulnerable minds of children. Media uses gender to its advantage, just like Disney productions. Humorous caricatures reveal some harsh realities about the portrayal of Disney Princesses in many movies made by the Walt Disney Company. Disney mixes innocence with the ultimate form of fantasy to capture an audience. Predominantly, Disney helps highlight the gender roles by showing the audience simply what they want to see. In the attempt to stick to the norm and portray stereotypical female characters, Disney created Princesses. Presented as damsels in distress and inferior beings to men, Disney Princesses give children an inaccurate portrayal of gender roles at a young age. Through Disney’s social success and intriguing films, such as The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast, Disney Princess movies portray stereotypical representation of gender roles through the denigration of the female image, targeting and ruining the perception of youth today.
Society cements certain roles for children based on gender, and these roles, recognized during infancy with the assistance of consumerism, rarely allow for openness of definition. A study conducted by Witt (1997) observed that parents often expect certain behaviors based on gender as soon as twenty-four hours after the birth of a child. The gender socialization of infants appears most noticeably by the age of eighteen months, when children display sex-stereotyped toy preferences (Caldera, Huston, & O’Brian 1989). This socialization proves extremely influential on later notions and conceptions of gender. Children understand gender in very simple ways, one way being the notion of gender permanence—if one is born a girl or a boy, they will stay that way for life (Kohlberg 1966). “According to theories of gender constancy, until they’re about 6 or 7, children don’t realize that the sex they were born with is immutable” (Orenstein 2006). The Walt Disney Corporation creates childhood for children worldwide. “Because Disney are such a large media corporation and their products are so ubiquitous and wide spread globally, Disney’s stories, the stories that Disney tell, will be the stories that will form and help form a child’s imaginary world, all over the world, and that’s an incredible amount of power, enormous amount of power” (Sun). Because of the portrayal of women in Disney films, specifically the Disney Princess films, associations of homemaker, innocence, and dependence are emphasized as feminine qualities for young children. Thus, children begin to consider such qualities normal and proceed to form conceptions of gender identity based off of the movies that portray the very specific and limiting views of women (...
Disney has portrayed women in movies by the use of animation characters for over a century since the 1900s. There has been a very big change since the early 1900’s to modern day in Disney’s depiction of the personalities of the women, their attitudes and ideologies towards men, and the way they are portrayed in the movies. This progression has had a distinct development, from passive damsels in distress in need of the help of men, to being superheroes. Therefore, the evolution of women in Disney movies will be analyzed through the use of university level feminist essays, as well as a research paper written about gender roles in Disney animation. The evolution will also be analyzed through examination of the clips of the movies themselves.
Wiserma, B. A., (2001). The gendered world of Disney: A content analysis of gendered themes in full length animated Disney featured films.
Given the existence of modern technology, individuals are immersed in the mass media now more than ever before. Media, especially television, is a source of entertain for adults, adolescents, and also young children. According to research, children reportedly spend approximately 2.5 hours a day watching television (Larson, 2001). However, there has been increasing awareness of the potentially problematic implicit messages that may be communicating to children through media consumption (Smolak & Murnen, 2001; Freeman, 2007; Levine & Murnen, 2009). Disney, one of the most successful establishments in the film industry with a target audience consisting mainly of children, should not exception to this scrutiny. Though a majority of its movies are
of influence in both the characters and gender roles of people in our society. The films have brought about the shaping of morals, behaviors and characters of not only children, but also adults in todays society, through engaging them in a constant series of unthinking consumption. In addition, most of the films in Disney bring out many different gender roles and people who grew up watching them have been influenced greatly by the content in the films (Blum 13). This paper will involve the various roles played by the characters in the films and how their roles have influenced the society at large.
I can understand how many parents are blinded to the negative effects of Disney movies, and their princesses. When they get a movie for their kid they probably say to themselves, “They’re made for children, so they must be okay, right?” Wrong. Just as Henry Giroux, the writer of the book, “The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence” believes that Disney movies have a negative impact on the children that watch them, I believe that as well. Disney movies can teach young girls stereotypes of the ideal body image, how they should act, and unrealistic expectations of love.
Critics have warned the public audience about Disney programming’s affect on the “invasion and control of children’s imagination” (Ross 5). These movies express the typical gender roles “such as males being physically strong, assertive, and athletic, and females being prone to overt emotion, inc...
Towbin. M. A. et al. (2008). Images of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation in Disney