Gender in Disney

     As one of the most celebrated media for children, Disney accompanied many children worldwide during their childhood and beyond for many years, yet not many people have noticed the stereotypes that are immersed within the contexts of the anime and cartoons of the “huggable” Disney stories until of recent. As Henry Giroux says in “Animating Youth: the Disnification of Children's Culture”, one of the things about children culture is that although it reflects much about the society’s ideas about various aspects in teaching our youngest important concepts, it is not much discussed and examined compared to youth culture. However, since Disney is a big cooperation that sells its stories to so many children, now people are starting to notice the negative messages that are within Disney’s anime and question on the appropriateness of these stereotypes and whether they fit in with our modern society, among which, gender stereotypes is one of the most debated.

     Although gender roles are created because of the way tradition economies were, and in general females have to take care of the whole family and males have to go out to earn the money to support the family, and how positions of power were more often occupied by males, it is how gender roles turn into gender stereotypes. Some gender stereotypes portrayed in Disney stories is the typical dominant personality for male characters, and relatively submissiveness is the common factor among female characters. “[Female characters] go from being the possession of their father, right into being in a possession of their husband or another male” (Gender through Disney’s Eyes).

      The article Gender through Disney’s Eyes uses the way Ariel was handed over to Prince Eric by her father, Jasmine to Aladdin, and Belle to Beast as examples and comments on the absence of a mother-like figure. Giroux adds on to this by first pointing out Belle, though capable of rejecting the evil guy Gaston, falls in love with Beast, “…‘civilizing’ him (Beast)… simply [becoming] another woman whose life is valued for solving a man’s problem”, and doesn’t care that she is used by Beast to break the spell cast on him, because of the love she harbors for him. Then he gives a great example for the submissiveness of female roles, in Lion King after King Mufasa’s death, the way the female lions hung around doing the evil Scar’s biddings without resistance or rebellion. Giroux also questions the lack of mothers, especially since Disney has always played the family card and emphasized family values; he quotes Jack Zipe, a theorist on fairy tales, who believes that Disney films have “an adverse effect on children …[Disney films] are not harmless”. 

      Another thing is, in Disney’s world, females are usually princesses, queens, stepmothers or housekeepers, or some combination of the above; and love at first sight and happy endings are just so easy. Snow White, for example, cleans after the seven dwarfs without being told too, and “takes up the motherly role … by cooking meals” (Schmidt).  Stepmothers, on the other hand, play the role of evil characters, are portrayed as jealous of their stepdaughters –in Snow White and Cinderella -and ugly, using different tricks to destroy the pretty princesses, and again, makes one wonder about the lack of motherly roles. And in the end of both stories, princes come to take the princesses to escape their bad lives, falling in love quickly, and they live happily ever after. Cassie Schmidt, who wrote Disney Princess are Not the Role Models They Appear to Be, wonders whether it’s right to teach children “finding your soul mate is as easy as putting on a ball gown and dancing”.

      People who faithfully stand on the side of Disney argues, “the Disney organization does not create the stereotypes, they simply reflect them” (Schmidt), and the reason why the gender roles of so is that “[if] a character is so far from the expected characteristics that it is unrecognizable”, the message of the movie won’t come across.

     Yet this is debatable; when Disney was first created, it was aimed at its white-middle-class, now after several decades, Disney has been widespread to different social classes and nationalities, and Disney’s audience are now of various cultural backgrounds, but the messages are still received without doubt. It’s why Disney is so popular in the first place. So there is really no clear definition of what is the norm for the audience. Giroux feels that “[Disney restricts] the number of cultural meanings that can be brought to bear on these films, especially when the intended audience is mostly children”, using highly ideological contexts for the stories, and thus creating the gender-stereotypes that may have been accepted as appropriate at the time, such as the at the time when Snow White came out, it was when “the domestic image of woman was commonplace and accepted” (Schmidt), and he expects that something changes.

      Though the Disney die-hards ask “why should Disney be singled out”, while so many other productions and books by other corporations also use gender stereotypes in their stories, and they point out the princesses are becoming more strong-willed since 1937’s release of Snow White and the storylines of Disney movies are being updated, becoming closer to our much modern world, the problem remains that kids will continue to watch the old classics and thinks that the behavior of the characters inside the movies are right, and the fact is, Disney is successful in selling their stories to children, so they should be responsible for what they products contain, as any other business on this world.

     But if course, as the writer of Gender through Disney’s eyes says, they are too many factors that influences one’s view on gender, and many still love the Disney movies as much as when there were little, and feel they don’t have any “detrimental effects” on personal growth in any way or “view of gender roles”. Schmidt also states “a child who watches movies created by the Disney organization will be no more biased than any other child” unless studies conducted can prove that Disney, in fact, are affecting children’s views on gender roles. Until then, we can take Giroux’s suggested pathway of using Disney as the material to teach children of such gender stereotypes in positive ways that will provoke them to learn about equality.

           Works Cited

"Gender through Disney's Eyes." Welcome to Psybersite at Miami University (1999): n. pag.

Web. 2 Jun 2010.  .

"Gender Stereotypes In Disney Movies What About Women In Disney Movies ."

disneymovieonline n. pag. Web. 2 Jun 2010.

< http://www.disneymovieonline.info/gender_stereotypes_in_disney_movies.html >.

Schmidt, Cassie. "Disney princesses are not the role models they appear to be." Daily

Campus(2010): n. pag. Web. 2 Jun 2010. .

Giroux , Henry. "Animating Youth: the Disnification of Children's Culture." (1995): n. pag. Web.

2 Jun 2010. .