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Women portrayal in movies
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Media and the Antifeminist Agenda
The cinema conveys representations of race, gender, and class that indicate the development and cultural ideologies of society. Motion pictures illustrate and are depicted from real life settings, and it is for this reason that the cinema plays a vital role in shaping and sustaining cultural normalcies. Socialization of gender and identity are mirrored through sexist media depictions that convey the relative positions of women and men in modern western democracies. There are substantial quantities of motion pictures that ascribe traditional gender roles to both men and women that continue to perpetuate social constructs of inequality. Contemporary media places men and women in defined categories, and to further explore this, we must consider a retrospective look into one of the cinemas most notorious patrons of sexist archetypes, Pixar and Walt Disney Productions.
Brave is Pixar’s 13th movie. It is centered on a red haired princess named Merida who doesn’t want to get married. Interestingly enough, though she is cast as the leading role (traditionally the lead has always been male in most Pixar productions), this movie is a failure to female empowerment. Merida’s qualities of resiliency and courageousness are only over shadowed by the traditional roles imposed onto her, where her only concerns are marriage. Merida’s coming of age brings forth the inevitable adult duties that she must assume as a woman. Through the context of the film, marriage is a tradition, intended to keep the peace among clans with a history of warfare, and therefore its Merida’s duty to maintain amity among these groups; a theme that is not at all to different from modern day society, were marriage is used as means to ...
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...r a more privileged elite group (e.g. the slave trade). Much likes previous Disney princess films, Tiana eventually does ascend from poverty, and is given a new social status, but this is only done when she marries the prince (another common theme across all genres, marriage to a man will provide a better life).
Though these three animations are centered on different plots, the recurring gender stereotyped themes are evident and prevalent across a wide set of genres.
Girls choose the Disney Princesses as role models because they enjoy watching the films and see the beautiful characters overcome difficult trials. These associations are impractical and denote the wrong message to girls. Women do not need to marry to overcome obstacles, no should they need to. However as long as these stereotypes continue to exist, it will continue to influence newer generations.
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and many other Disney movies all have one thing in common, they feature a female lead who needs a male figure to save them. However, things started to change after the release of Mulan in 1988. Movies that were only representing female leads as weak and always needed to rely on someone, started to feature females who showed off their more masculine side. Mulan was one of the first animated films that had started to dive into that, not to mention it was based on a true story, making it even more powerful. In the article “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Pixar/Disney”, authors Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden explore Pixar movies show male characters who were not afraid to show their emotions
In the article “Are All Princesses Really Waiting for Princes to Come?” Jack Heckel discusses some of the most common Disney princesses and the stereotypes that come along with them, as well as some of the stereotypes that are seen in the Disney princes. He supports his article by providing a variety of sources not only from Disney movies, but also from various authors and blogs. The analysis of Disney princess stereotypes has been a very common topic for years, and this overall analysis has revealed that a lot of Disney princesses are not good role models. Heckel uses many techniques including using credible, non-Disney sources, discussing other fairytales besides Disney, displaying a timeline of Disney
Despite the tremendous steps that have been taken towards reaching gender equality, mainstream media contradicts these accomplishments with stereotypes of women present in Walt Disney movies. These unrealistic stereotypes may be detrimental to children because they grow up with a distorted view of how men and women interact. Disney animated films assign gender roles to characters, and young children should not be exposed to inequality between genders because its effect on their view of what is right and wrong in society is harmful to their future. According to Disney films, it is important for women to achieve the stereotypical characteristics of a woman, such as maintaining their beauty to capture a man, and being weak and less educated than male characters. The women in Disney movies are always beautiful, which helps them to find a man.
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
The Princess Bride is an example of how typical gender roles were defied by people even back then. Then even everyone wasn’t the same, everyone didn’t act they same way or even conform to a stereotype. It is a modern fairy tale set in a typical fairy tale setting: a kingdom before a lot of
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.
Mainstream movies are about men’s lives, and the few movies about women’s lives, at their core, still also revolve around men (Newsom, 2011). These female leads often have male love interests, looking to get married or get pregnant. Strong independent female leads are still exist for the male view, as they are hypersexualized, or the “fighting fuck toy,” (Newsom, 2011). This depiction has created a culture where women are insecure and waiting for a knight on a horse to come rescue and provide for her as well as the acceptance of women
In “Escape from Wonderland” by Deborah Ross, the writer explains how the fictional characters are admired. Although they seem to be sending a bigger message to young girls. The writer talks about drawing a line between fantasy and reality. In the end Ross’s objective is to show how some Disney characters break the femininity and imagination tradition. Which can have an effect in children and how they value their own ability to have unique visions. By comparing Alice in Wonderland (1951), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991) to heroines like Arabella from The female Quixote. “Charlotte Lennox’s (The Female Quixote illustrates both these conservative and progressive plot patterns, for it both draws upon and criticizes earlier romances, which themselves often both celebrate and punished female imagination and expressiveness. Therefore, like Disney’s movies today, which also use material from romance and fairy-tale tradition”, (pg. 473, Escape from Wonderland). Young women may not only begin to fantasize about a grandeur life more exciting than reality but to be disappointed with society in the workplace and relationships. For example, Meredith from Brave she is a princess that wishes to have a different life than what her mother has planned for her. She refuses to get married and have the duties of a princess. She wants to have adventures and be
...in the film who took up more time than Tianna herself proving Disney’s “blatant racism and white [centralism]”. White centralism in these films can encourage it in the children who watch it as well, leading to further racial discrimination in society.
In today's world, what we see in the media dictates our world. Media, by definition, is a form of mass communication, such as television, newspapers, magazines and the internet. Since the beginning of this media phenomenon, men and women have been treated very differently, whether it be through advertisements or news stories. As women have gained more rights and social freedoms, the media has not changed their views on women. They are often viewed as objects, whether for a man's pleasure, or for as a group to sell only cleaning products to.The portrayal of women in the media has a highly negative impact on the easily shaped young women of today. Women of power are often criticized, others hypersexualized. The media also directs advertisements for household things at women.
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...
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.
Disney and old fairytales threaten gender politics and ideal women roles by giving certain stereotypes for domestic and personality traits. Fairytales that have turned into Disney productions have sculpted domestic roles for women that consist of cooking, cleaning and caring for the children. Disney has also created these princesses with personalities that are shy, passive, and vulnerable. The cause of these stereotypes are making individuals obliterate their own identities and becoming clones from the mold that was prepared for
...oited by the royalty, those concepts did not exist yet. By the time Disney got around to it the tide of morals meant that girls must be presented as lady’s none of the sexual desire stuff of the more ancient versions. The story had to revolve around the selfless prince rescuing his bride to be all good Christian values. However even with those changes the story maintained things that survived the course of history. The damsel who needs to be saved and the role of Man saving the women.