In the latest Disney film, a live action rendition of Beauty and the Beast, there will be a character who is gay. I personally am excited for this, I think that starting to include a diverse range of characters to show to younger children and create new ways of teaching open-mindedness to children when they are young is very important. However, I am just curious and wondering if, given Disney’s track-record, a statement like this is actually true: “And in a very Disney way, we are including everybody. I think this is for everybody, and on the screen we’ll see everybody. And that was important to me” (Petit). This quote is from the director of the movie, Bill Condon, who thinks that diversity is a definitively “Disney” quality. In recent years, I would agree, that there are beginning to have more …show more content…
The past films of Disney’s have a great sense of orientalism that pervades, that I actually didn’t start thinking about until one of the first days of our Postcolonial Literature class. One example of this is in Aladdin, where the Middle-Eastern and Arabic culture is very romanticized and the film uses very stereotypical portrayals of the Arabian society to forward the plot and to characterize the people. Because it is a film created by a Western company about a “faraway land,” as the movie describes it, the exocticizing of the Arabian culture and the lack of nuance does not make the portrayal of it “including everyone” or “for everyone.” It’s primarily for how a Western audience wants to look at the exocticized Middle Eastern culture in the movie (Olsen). Similarly, in Mulan, the lines between the descriptions of the differences between Chinese and Japanese culture are not clear, as the depiction of Mulan from the beginning as a geisha because of her dress and white face makeup is not consistent with the allusions to the Chinese folklore story that is being told through the fighting in the battles and for the Chinese
Disney Princess movies target children and are none other than a transfigured fairytale story in which innocence and moral virtue are questioned. In pursuit of romance and having the mindset of doing whatever it takes for love, Disney creates this magical world and targets the youth, especially young girls. Walt Disney was a creative and “radical filmmaker who changed [one’s] ...
Part of this commonality is the commodification of these other cultures. In Pocahontas, Mulan, and even The (Bell-Ringer) of Notre Dame the commodification is done through the previously mentioned animation of the women that Kilpatrick aptly describes as, “the improbable physics of (Pocahontas’) body” (153) that also can be applied to just about all of Disney’s multicultural female characters, most notably Jasmine, Tiana, and Esmerelda. In the case of Lilo and Stitch it is way the animators have constructed the islands in Hawaii. Cheng states this example as, “packaging the ‘aloha spirit’ as a multicultural self-image of Hawaii designed to ensure an authentic Pacific experience” (126). Although Disney commodifies these aspects of their films differently, they are both equally problematic.
An archetype is a term that can represent universal patterns of human nature and are always the building blocks of movies and stories. These terms include many archetypes with their own properties such as characteristic, symbolic, and situational. In the 1997 film Hercules produced and animated by Disney it depicts the story of Hercules, the son of Zeus and Hera. The God of the underworld Hades poisons Hercules when he is a baby with his two incompetent sidekicks Pain and Panic turning him mortal, and leaving him on Earth. When he is sent to the temple of Zeus by his orphan parents he is greeted by his real father Zeus who tells him in order to go back to Mount Olympus and live with him he is tasked with becoming a God or by fulfilling heroic
Tangled was an entertaining eye opening illustration that included action, romance, comedy, that would be enough to keep the whole family entertained. Time and time again, Disney films are being criticized by the public because of the lack of ethnic diversity; this lack of ethnic diversity can be illustrated through the film titled Tangled. In 1995, Disney gave us Pocahontas and in the year of 1998 Disney had released Mulan. This showed the public that, Disney was in fact capable of creating films in which the lead protagonist was not white, however it wasn’t till more recently that racial diversity truly had taken stand when The Princess and the Frog (2009) was released. While, I applaud the efforts of Disney in attempting
Lippi-Green maintains her argument by concentrating on "three aspects of language use in Disney films" (87) that she had found through watching the different animated films made by Disney. She had viewed twenty-four films multiple times and analyzed characters from such movies for their use of different language in automatically creating a character. On page eighty- seven of her article she gives us her main points: the portrayal of African-Americans in the Disney films; "the way certain groups are represented---particularly lovers and mothers" (87) and the manipulation of French accents that can be considered as a positive stereotype but can result as to being "negative and limiting" (87) for that particular culture.
...aves Princess Jasmine multiple times and falling in love at first sight. They also live happily ever-after together, just as every other Disney prince and princess in every other Disney movie. Parents should be aware of the subliminal messages that their children view in the Disney movies they are watching, and grow up to believe that is how life goes. The children that are growing up watching Disney movies with such strong gender stereotypes are learning things they may factor into their own futures, and think that acting the way of the Disney roles is the only way for them to live their life in a happy manner. The way Disney animated films assign gender roles to their characters effect young children’s views of right and wrong in society. It is wrong, and they should not be exposed to such material growing up because it is harmful to their future expectations.
In accordance with Henry Jenkins argument in “Get a Life!”: Fans, Poachers, Nomads, Jenkins argues that there is another angle to which media fans can be viewed and attempt to be understood with regards to a culture that is not considered widely and often portrayed within negative terms. Jenkins reading emphasises to the readers that fans of media texts are being depicted as a culture which possesses negative characteristics, that which could be considered as taboo as well as another side to fan culture that’s does not receive as much recognition. These media fans are recognised as active readers of the text. The two films selected: Avatar and WALL-E, are films that are both within the genre of science fiction. The films having
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
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 (...
Although we have taken monumental strides in the past fifty years towards racial equality and diversity, it is still commonly argued that popular culture lacks some sort of racial representation. In the United States, the people who live here are vastly diverse when it comes to race and culture, yet in the media people of color get marginalized and stereotyped everyday in film, music, and etc.
Hollywood’s diversity problem is well-known; however, the extent might be surprising to most Americans. According to a 2014 report by the Center for the Study of Women in Television, Film & New Media, found that females comprised only 30% of all speaking characters among the top grossing films of 2013. (Lauzen, 2014) However, minority women faired far worse than their Caucasian counterparts. As a matter of fact, if one looks at the numbers even female characters from other world’s were as better represented in film than some minority women; the numbers are as follow for women: Caucasian (73%), African American (14%), Latina (5%), Asian and other world tied (3%). (Lauzen, 2014) If the lack of representation were not enough consider a 2009 study which found that when minority groups are portrayed on television the portrayal tends to be negative. (Alexandrin, 2009) A study by Busselle and Crandall (2009) found that the manner in which African-Americans are portrayed, often as unemployed criminals, tends to have an influence on the way the public perceives African-American’s lack of economic success. Furthermore, the news media does an equally poor job in the ways that African-American’s are presented; according to the same study while 27% of Americans were considered “poor” in 1996 the images of America’s “poor” being presented by news media was heavily Black (63%). (Busselle & Crandall, 2002) Today, this can be seen in the way that African-American victims of police brutality are depicted in the media. Even when African-Americans are murdered at the hands of police for minor and non-violent offenses (e.g. Mike Brown, Eric Gardner, and Tamir Rice) they are often portrayed as thugs, criminals, and vandals. What’s more, seve...
Racial and ethnic diversity on television is not something that I have ever really noticed as a problem, but sitting down, and paying very close attention to the people, their roles in the show, I was able to see that there was a lack of diversity on TV. I chose a random TV channel, one that I probably would not watch, and studied the characters in the show and in the commercials for over two hours, I realized that I had never paid that much attention to the people in the show. I noticed after I was done that the largest group of people in the show and on the commercials, were white people, although there was some diversity, maybe one or two people of a different nationality, gender, or race, that overall the lack of diversity was minimal compared
Someone has said, “Be that strong girl that everyone knew would make it through the worst, be that fearless girl who would dare to do anything, be that independent girl who didn’t need to rely on anyone but herself to make it, be that girl who never backed down.” In Bruno’s songs the role seemed to be reversed that what would be considered normal. His songs depict the girls being the heartbreakers and the guys being the emotional ones, “Take, take, take it all, but you never give/Should have known you was trouble from the first kiss/Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash.” It is thought in today’s society that the women are the emotional ones and the guys are the heartbreakers. In USA Today’s article An American role-reversal: Women
...ed by its culture just as it affects its culture, but its underlying worldview contains patriarchal and racist dimensions. In addition, the portrayal of Scar and the hyenas as having a dark mane and dark coats in the Lion King seems to be a symbolic coding. Our society has associated it darkness and evil and it has become an issue that is very offensive to AfricanAmericans. In addition to sending conflict messages about valuing all races, Disney implies that in Pocahontas, certain personality types are not considered and valued. Similarly in Hercules, the one and only Muse who is not beautiful stereotypically is the one muse who is the comic. What this means is that only the extremely beautiful and fun loving people are valued in our society (Booker 38). The mixed message brought out is that all people are valued, but really only fun and lively people are valued.
Disney’s 1998 film, Mulan, attempts to tell the heroic tale of a Chinese woman fighting for her family and country while defying gender roles, but looking into details such as song lyrics enforcing both male and female gender stereotypes, and bland visualization of characters, one can see that this film in fact enforces gender role inequality.