Disney and Gender Roles

During the time period they were made thats what was socially acceptable. Most women and men didn't think much of it. Its only this day in age we go back and look at how "awful" the movies are.

The truth is, if the movies werent made that way at the time they wouldn't have been considered "good" or "Correct"

Thats why now you are seeing a lot more change in disney movies, because society itself has changed.

We shouldn't blame disney for making movies that were correct for the times.

They've outlasted their times because they ARE considered good kid movies.

I dont know, I grew up loving disney and I'll probably defend it till the end. I'm not stick skinny and I don't even like burly men with muscles, and I grew up on disney movies.


I dont think it effects children that much. It didn't effect me. Or my friend who also grew up on disney and is the same way as me. less

And there are just as many reasons you can argue against it too.

Mulan promotes independent strong women.

Beauty and the Beast is about a girl who is smart, not "sexy" and its about how being gentlemanly gets the girl, not being a beasty manly jerk.

There are a lot of good morals in disney movies that outway the subliminal messages. less

I'm not saying they did it on purpose, but subliminal messaging does do a lot and you may not have been (affected) by it, but have you noticed gender roles in society and the images that are portrayed in the mass media within, say, the last, FOREVER?

@DS- I you! You have a SOC major? I knew you were smart, but damn!

Please, get back on the soc soap box!

Wow. I love this pic, it explains it all: Disney Princesses Deconstructed less

Um.

Well.

Since you went there...

Let's look at Mulan, one of my favorite films.

In this one, Mulan masquerades (a woman with no control over her life, as seen by the beginning of the film) as a man for the beginning, after which she is shunned by the (MAN!) she will later fall in love with (You didn't forget the ending, did you?) Only after the emperor (ANOTHER MAN!) says that it's okay for her to be an ass-kicking lady does he get up on with it. What message is this promoting? That it's okay to be who you are, if you know that all your "friends" are going to abandon you when they find out you aren't who they think you are? And in the film, Mulan isn't lauded for being a woman: she's lauded for being masculine (I mean, let's face it: being a warrior is far more masculine than feminine.) Even SO! At the end, she goes back to being the submissive woman in the garden, with the soldier "coming home" to her.


I'm only going to briefly discuss Beauty and the Beast since it's been about a decade since I've seen it... But let's pause and think about how verbally abusive Beast was to Beauty, threatening her, and breaking objects while screaming at her. And then she falls in love with him and they stay together. Stand by your man, Belle Wynette. less

It does. My respect for you totally just multiplied ny a TON. I have been thinking about minoring in Sociology, but I would be more of a symbolic interactionist and for reform. (that's right, I threw some awesome terms in there to sound smart too, lol) Seriously though, I would be a reformist, and I totally think that Karl Marx guy had something good there... I wish we had a devil smiley. less

I'm not big on Marx, but if we're gonna discuss it, I'm a structural functionalist and I prefer Durkheim.

I don't want to derail your thread, but my foci was neither reform nor theory (but I guess you decide if you want your thread derailed, no?). less

And there are just as many reasons you can argue against it too.

Mulan promotes independent strong women.

Beauty and the Beast is about a girl who is smart, not "sexy" and its about how being gentlemanly gets the girl, not being a beasty manly jerk.

There are a lot of good morals in disney movies that outway the subliminal messages. less

I completely disagree that movies screw people up. I love Disney movies, alright, and I turned out fine. I do not expect a woman or man to be stick thin and perfect, and I don't expect a man to be a charming, wonderful prince. So really, I think that that's horribly fictional. Just because it messed one person up doesn't mean that it's the movie's fault - it's the person's fault for having a skewed way of looking at things. less

I completely disagree that movies screw people up. I love Disney movies, alright, and I turned out fine. I do not expect a woman or man to be stick thin and perfect, and I don't expect a man to be a charming, wonderful prince. So really, I think that that's horribly fictional. Just because it messed one person up doesn't mean that it's the movie's fault - it's the person's fault for having a skewed way of looking at things. less

It's not just one person, and it isn't just Disney movies. As children we are highly impressionable and strive to imitate those we look up to. So when we see nothing but the messages portrayed in movies and the world around us, that is what we subconsciously strive for.

And no one's view is skewed, it is all about perception and cultural location. What one person thinks is unacceptable, another thinks is fine. It also isn't anyone's fault how they see the world, because it is how we are socialized as children. We can't pick how we act, what we feel, and how we see things when we are children. We learn what we see. less

I was going to start with a quick comment, but got caught up and this turned huge. I totally understand if you skim past this

I was a little girl in the late 80s early 90s, and I love Disney movies. To this day I still sing along to various soundtracks on my ipod. I also can recognize the horrendous sexism, racism, stereotypes, and cultural appropriation that make up the typical Disney movie. But that doesn't mean we need to hate what came before. Yes, we should as a consumer population demand more female speaking roles, more racial diversity in leading roles, more physical and personality differences in characters. But the movies for all their flaws, aren't all bad. In fact, many are very good and entertaining. We just can't allow them to be the only message kids receive. Talk about the films with them, both their strengths and weaknesses.

Belle was trapped between two masculine men one of which she saved by the power of her love, but she was also an educated woman and assertive (the "control your temper!" scene post-wolf rescue).

Having a positive outlook about your job, taking pride and joy from your work is a good ethic. Snow White cleaned houses and cooked. Should we belittle her for that? No. The responsibilities within the domestic sphere have too long been undervalued. We should instead wonder if she was paid a fair wage beyond room and board. The dwarfs had a frickin diamond mine. They could afford to pay Snow White the wage she deserved for her work.

So have the movies gotten better? Lets look at Tangled. (Disclaimer: I've only seen it once, and that was on vacation, sitting on a beach, drinking a pina colada. These are just my casual observations. Also, major spoilers.) Rapunzel is the only Disney princess to not have her name included in the title or have it allude to her if she is the main character. I'm not sure if I'm bothered or proud of that yet. She was thin with long blonde hair, had an evil witch mother figure, was the naive girl counter to the worldly man, and at the end was planning to sacrifice her happiness for a man. Not so original. Yet, I still enjoyed it. The humor was well done, and I like it when the characters sing.

When living in the tower Rapunzel baked, knit, and cleaned, but she also painted, worked out, and read. She blackmailed Flynn into guiding her to the lights, and showed complex emotions as she left the tower (even though the back and forth nature was played for laughs). I loved her use of the frying pan, and how she used her hair and environment in creative ways to move around and defend herself. Jackie Chan would have been proud. I thought how she saved Flynn aka Eugene because the power came from within her, not her hair, was well done. I'm glad her hair didn't magically grow back, and she kept the brunette pixie cut. Yay for having a princess that doesn't have long flowing hair straight out of a shampoo commercial. I liked her dipping and kissing Eugene (and how much do I love his name!) because she seemed like a very active character in the film and it fit.

The one thing about the ending I hated was that Eugene cut off Rapunzel's hair. Even though he did it to save her, I was bothered that he was the one to cut it. To me that belittled her choice and took away her free will. She had been raised defined by her hair and what it could do, and for him to be the one to cut it felt like violation. Mother Gothel could have refused to let Rapunzel heal Eugene, or stalled until he died (which he did anyways) and the ending would not have changed much, except for one thing. Rapunzel cutting off her own hair in retaliation, as a way to fight Gothel would have been an empowering action for Rapunzel, not an event she was a passive victim of.

So my long-winded point: Disney princess movies have both good and bad elements, you just need to look beneath the surface. It's also ok to just sometimes relax and enjoy a movie for simple enjoyment and/or nostalgia. I want a t-shirt of Rapunzel not with long, blonde hair but the brunette pixie cut. And maybe her frying pan. (How long did it take before we saw Fiona merchandise in her ogre form? I can't remember if it was only after the second movie, or we saw toys and the like after the first movie.) less

During the time period they were made thats what was socially acceptable. Most women and men didn't think much of it. Its only this day in age we go back and look at how "awful" the movies are.

The truth is, if the movies werent made that way at the time they wouldn't have been considered "good" or "Correct"

Thats why now you are seeing a lot more change in disney movies, because society itself has changed.

We shouldn't blame disney for making movies that were correct for the times.

They've outlasted their times because they ARE considered good kid movies.

I dont know, I grew up loving disney and I'll probably defend it till the end. I'm not stick skinny and I don't even like burly men with muscles, and I grew up on disney movies.


I dont think it effects children that much. It didn't effect me. Or my friend who also grew up on disney and is the same way as me. less