Over the years, Disney has presented many movies to their audience—most having a Princess as the protagonist. These movies became a babysitter for most parents in the early stages of their child’s life. Most people found these movies as relatively harmless. The obvious assumption about the Disney Princesses is that they only desire true love since almost every movie ends in romance. Parents just viewed these movies as romantic movies on a child’s level. However, these movies were not solely intended for an audience of an age that can be counted on both hands. They were intended to speak to “an intelligent and active audience” (Sumera 40). However, there are many people who disagree with the ways of the Disney Princess movies. The disagreements lie within the portrayal of women gender roles in these movies. It is argued that Disney portrays women as a being nurturing individuals without any control over their identity. The women are unable to think for themselves, because they are uneducated, and they are quick to fall in love with the first man that pays them any attention. However, this is not completely true. The people that are against the portrayal of women in the Disney movies are failing to recognize the underlying concepts in these movies. For example, Belle, in Beauty and the Beast, was well educated, Mulan went to war despite the consequences, and Merida, in Brave, stood up to her mother in refusal to marry. The Disney Princesses desired intelligence, bravery, strength, and independence—not true love’s kiss.
Beauty and the Beast is a Disney movie that debuted in 1991. When it first came out, the idea of the beautiful girl falling in love with a man because of what is inside of him was not a new concept. Inner beauty a...
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...e movie Brave, Merida was strong, and independent. Before passing judgment on the Disney princess films, perhaps one should pay closer attention to the underlying concepts in each movie. Each princess is different. However, they all desire independence.
Works Cited
Cummins, June. "Romancing the Plot: The Real Beast of Disney's Beauty and the
Beast." Children's Literature Association Quarterly 20.1 (1995): 22-28.
England, Dawn Elizabeth, Lara Descartes, and Melissa A. Collier-Meek. "Gender Role Portrayal and the Disney Princesses." Sex Roles 64.7-8 (2011): 555-67.
Levy, Ariel. "Female Chauvinist Pig." Emerging: Contemporary Readings for Writers.
Barclay Barrios. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins (2013). 265-78. Print
Sumera, Lara. "The Mask of Beauty: Masquerade Theory and Disney's Beauty and the
Beast." Quarterly Review of Film and Video 26.1 (2008): 40-46.
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
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.
Since Disney’s Snow White appeared in 1937, Disney princesses have been a present in pop culture. With the release of new movies frequent and re-release of decades old movies inevitable, a continuous stream keeps Disney princesses in the foreground of adolescent society. It is with the value of entertainment they have been created and as entertainment they should be viewed.
From a young age, princess culture has impacted the lives of numerous people. Some individuals may have spent their childhood parading around in the attire of their favorite Disney princess while they put on their best rendition of the character they admired most. Ohers may have only seen a few Disney princess movies here and there and went seemingly unfazed by the phenomenon. With Disney’s debut of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, princess movies would provide the defining factor of the Disney entertainment empire for years to come. From this, fairy tales embarked into a territory that would touch the lives of many individuals
In the past all of Disney’s Princess movies tend to follow a similar plot line. It was always the same formula, the princess falls in love with the first man she meets and relies on him for comfort and guidance as they go off to live happily ever after. This formula has worked commercially and financially for Disney with movies like, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995). While these movies have turned Disney a huge profit they have never given young girls a strong, independent role model to look up to. These films, while entertaining and visually appealing, have taught young girls nothing but to find the person that they will spend the rest of their life with as soon as possible. Not one of the princess movies allows the princess to be anything more than something of a housewife. These women did not pursue any type of dream or career, they just fell in love with the first man they saw. Now while the Disney princess movies of the past have only been about finding love and riding off into the sunset, there was a Disney release last year that broke the cycle. Frozen, released in November of 2013, was a box office hit grossing over $400 million domestically and $700 million internationally. It did not focus on finding love for the main female character. Instead it built two strong female lead characters while focusing on the importance of sisterhood.
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.
“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible” - Disney Princess Castle. In the world of Disney there are specific characters most little girls want to follow in the footsteps of : princesses. Mom’s have been putting together princess parties and getting princess clothes for years just wanting to make their little girls happy. Little girls look up to princesses because they are supposed to be great role models, but are they? Have they been teaching kids the right things about how women should act? In most fairy tales you see the prince always saves the princess. Why hasn't there ever been a story about the princess fighting her own battles in all of Disney Princess movies? Or has there? In comparing and contrasting Disney Princess the way society looks at woman has changed drastically over time.
Considering that, by viewing a Walt Disney film, they will alter their perspective as a result of identifying themselves as being similar to a princess. The unrealistic tale of Walt Disney films motivates children to act in a different way. In these issues we tend to investigate the perception of children towards viewing the films. As well as identifying themselves with specific fictional characters shown in Walt Disney films. Furthermore, we can discern the different emotions of female children within viewing it.
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
Everybody knows the classic Disney Princess films. They always starts with a beautiful, helpless princess who needs a handsome prince to ride in on his noble stead to save her life with true love’s kiss. Disney imparts this ideology that true love is the means to finding eternal happiness. It becomes the focus of the movies and is engraved in the minds of the audience. This story line can be seen in many classic Disney movies, such as, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and Cinderella just to name a few. Disney Princess films encourage an expectation for relationships that is unrealistic, causing young girls to grow up idolizing Disney Princesses and longing to be saved by a handsome prince and live happily ever
The point of many films is to convey a message to its viewers, such as morals and ethics. Consequently, films intended for adults convey messages suitable for adults; while children’s films do likewise for their target age groups, as one might expect. These children’s films, directed towards particularly younger audiences, prove useful when they contain beneficial maxims. Although at times, these films elicit less than healthy social views. Disney’s Aladdin is a prime example of a children’s film that immerses the audience in unhealthy views towards women. This film is an irresponsible in its portrayal of women - it sexually objectifies the female protagonist and enforces sexist ideologies, which directly affects the female characters within the story’s patriarchal system. The idea of sexism towards women is rampant throughout the movie Aladdin by making the following three claims: a woman’s worth is defined by men, women are incapable of making their own choices, and that women are inadequate and thus require saving by a man.
Disney films have always been a huge part of the pop culture. They featured instantly recognizable characters among every age group. These characters, especially the princesses, have been very influential, more precisely on young girls, from Belle to Frozen. However, the majority of these films revolve around the same plot with minor differences: it is always a tale about finding romantic love, a prince charming who saves the princess from a danger and they live happily ever after. However, in 2012, Disney and Pixar produced Brave, a movie that challenged the types of Disney movies we were used to. It favors feminism and gives girls a nontraditional princess model. Brave stars a strong female protagonist, Merida, and an influential plot that
Each Disney princess has different positive attributes that make her unique, the most recent Disney princesses are especially fitting in today’s society. In Jena Stephens’ analysis of the three most recent princesses, excluding Anna and Elsa, she describes Rapunzel by saying, “Her forward thinking, desire to prove she is just as capable as a man, and realistic dreaming make her a great role model for young girls”. Whether it is to become a princess and marry her true love like Cinderella or open a restaurant like Princess Tiana, all of the Disney princesses have aspirations. Jena Stephens says, “The words that Tiana sings about the necessary hard work it will take for her to reach her dream stand out as a message to young viewersone that does not covey that love is the only thing that will make girls happy”. Not only do Disney princesses have dreams but they make their dreams come true with hard work. As Liz Gumbinner described her trip to Disney World with her daughters, “The princess luncheon led to a great discussion later in our hotel room, in which we told our girls that it is okay to be strong, smart, hardworking and still dream of marrying a prince”. Disney princesses carry themselves in a humble and confident manner. The princesses are beautiful but they are not conceited. Lastly, they are never stuck up but rather loving and independent which makes their character so
In today’s modern age, young children are being raised by their TV screen. Reining from the original tales of Perrault and the Grim Brothers, the Disney princess line has been a staple on the screens since the 1930s (Do Rozario 1). However, these princesses have gone through dramatic changes to remain relevant to todays youth. The effects that can be influenced by the roles expressed in these types of films send mixed messages to the audience, causing them to ask themselves whether or not they should believe what the princess is expressing on the screen.
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