Gender stereotypes within Disney
The construction of gender stereotyping of both males and females in the media is based on outdated and unfounded beliefs and therefore has had and continues to have a detrimental impact on society. On average, Australian children aged 3–6 spend 4 and a half hours in front of a television screen every day. That means children between those susceptible ages watch 32 hours of television weekly. An exceedingly high amount for such young individuals, when studies show they believe television paints a factual image of reality. Children are highly impressionable and begin to shape their reality between 3-6. So when you think about it 32 hours a week, of watching the Media’s deception of the world. Wouldn’t it affect
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As a result little girls strongly identify with princesses and parents assume their daughters love them but it’s not all fun and games. Disney princesses receive seven times the praise for appearance opposed to skills, with earlier on films having 60 percent of compliments related to looks and 9 percent to abilities suggesting their value is appearance. Disney princesses have rather strange attributes such as: size zero waists that are ludicrously tiny in saying this a team at comedy website went as far as placing coloured bars over the width of their eyes and waist as shown, for comparison and saw the eye width of princesses is bigger than their waists yet again promoting unrealistic standards. If this isn’t demeaning I don’t know what is? Glenn Boozan on the site commentated “Hungry, gals? You must be, because these Disney kweens’ eyes are literally bigger than their stomachs”. As Disney explored taking animated Disney classics to real life they attracted an uproar from viewers after their live action version of Cinderella starring Lily James, whose corset-cinched waist was so unbelievably tiny that the audience believed producers had digitally altered her. Along with having incredibly tiny waists they acquire no hips, emaciated limbs, flawless hair, big eyes and tiny feet. When young girls look up to …show more content…
Even the female villains, are ridiculously proportioned, and the little group that aren’t, like Ursula of “The Little Mermaid,” are still hyper-sexualized to the point of absurdity. Due to these discrepancies a survey was conducted on a group of girls in the targeted age groups of 3-6 which was selecting the real princess from an assemblage of Ballerinas, 50% of the girls chose the thinnest one, which only further fuels the argument. At such a young age isn’t this the last thing they should be worrying
Are the little girl 's in America being cheated of their privilege of having a childhood? Stephanie Hanes, a freelance journalist, believes so and she decided to express her opinion in the article “ Little girls or Little women ? The Disney Princess Effect”. Hanes argues that today’s society is morally ambiguous because of the sexual messages being sent to young girls. In consequence of this , toddlers now aspire to attain the pre-teen goal to be sexy at such an early age. It all begins with the influence and example that The Disney princesses give to their young fans. For the reason that the article appeared in magazines and in the USA today , the targeted audience must be
Your sparkling eyes gazed at the television, reading the word “Cinderella” by Disney. You had all your Cinderella toys lined up, ready to grab whenever necessary. Your Cinderella pajamas on, and your tea set is all prepared.Your mom adored your love for princesses. Didn’t we all love to sing along to the Disney movies about princesses and true love? Peggy Orenstein sure didn’t. Peggy Orenstein, the author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter has a sharp opinion about how a “pretty and pink” culture is influencing girls in a negative way. The author proves this argument by discussing gender colorization, dolls, and princesses.
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.
Disney princesses are fun for all ages, but their target audience is young children and “as children grow and develop, they can be easily influenced by what they see and hear”. Therefore, what they see and hear in Disney movies leaves an impression on them. The first princess, Snow White, was created in a time where each gender and race had a specific role in society. Recently, many believe that Disney has come a long way in regards to gender and race since Snow White, as several multi-cultural protagonists have been introduced subsequently, and gender roles do not appear to be as stereotypical as they once were. However, many of the apparent innocent messages about race and gender in these movies, can be exposed as otherwise. Despite their mask of progression, Disney princesses still have the potential to corrupt the minds of young children through sexism and racism.
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.
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 (...
England, D. E., Descartes, L., & Collier-meek, M. (2011). Proquest. “Gender role portrayal and the disney princesses”. Sex Roles, 64(7-8), 555-567.
Firstly, I believe that Disney fairytales are atrocious for little kids, for the subject of body image. Body image is a major controversy when it comes to Disney movies, beautiful locks, ‘perfect’ eyes, ‘perfect’ nose and thin waist are what most all of the Disney princesses look like. In the Disney original movies the bad guy, for example the stepsisters in Cinderella are portrayed as ‘ugly’, while in the original version they are known as beautiful, and delicate. The disney version of Cinderella was practically that the prince did not look towards the stepsisters because they don’t look ‘perfect’. Further proving that Disney movies suggests that you have to look beautiful, and skinny to have a prince or anyone fall in love with you. Kids should be taught to love themselves, not try to look ‘perfect’.
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
"Disney Princesses: Classic Fairy Tales Or Gender Stereotypes?" Hartford Courant, 27 Aug. 2012. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.
The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.
Disney has been an inspiration to kids since October 16, 1923. With the start of Mickey Mouse cartoons, Disney has created an empire of imagination. Ever since Snow White, Disney’s first princess in 1937, came on the screen, young females have been amazed by the vision of the “Disney Princess”. As the years went by, dozens of princesses have hit movie screens and Disney has made billions off of the profits from these individuals. In reality, Disney has influenced the immature views of what to expect of beauty from a woman.
Another major factor that influences millions of impressionable females and males is television. Not only does the television teach each sex how to act, it also shows how one sex should expect the other sex to act. In the current television broadcasting, stereotypical behavior goes from programming for the very small to adult audiences. In this broadcasting range, females are portrayed as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked completely or seen as unimportant entities. Stereotyping women is not only rampant in the adult world; it also flourishes in the kiddie universe as well.
When one thinks of animation, Disney is probably one of the first animation studios to come to mind. They are in fact one of the first and most well known animation companies. Little girls say that they want to be princesses when they grow up, but is wanting to be a pretty little princess really as innocent as it seems? The young daughters have these girly expectations pushed onto them at a very young age; they need to keep their little dresses clean, but God forbid if a young boy picks up a doll or does not feel the need to get his new shirt dirty. Disney in particular really enforces the “be perfect, act perfect” stereotype onto girls with their character models all looking nearly the same. The characters do not necessarily have to look the same; there is much diversity in the men and villains, but all of the princesses look almost exactly alike. This imprints the notion that to be likeable, you must fit these certain standards, which can be damaging to young and impressionable minds.
Gender stereotyping has been ongoing throughout history. The media has been distorting views by representing gender unrealistically and inaccurately. It created an image of what "masculinity" or "femininity" should be like and this leads to the image being "naturalized" in a way (Gail and Humez 2014). The media also attempts to shape their viewers into something ‘desirable’ to the norm. This essay will focus on the negative impacts of gender-related media stereotypes by looking at the pressures the media sets on both women and men, and also considering the impacts on children.