The first movie produced by Disney was “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Snow White is a Disney Princess who is portrayed as beautiful, romantic, and sensitive. She runs away from an Evil Queen and is rescued by seven dwarfs, in this case men, again enforcing stereotypes that women are helpless without men, they allow her to stay at their place. They vow to protect her and support her until one day she falls. A prince charming soon finds her and kisses her, in which he saves her life again. Although, now there are these politically correct stories coming up and this could be considered as a case of assault on a sleeping person. The story line of snow white shows a typical female princess that is hopeless without a prince charming. These gender stereotypes are reinforced in the aspects of media and literature through the use of degrading, bias and generic language. Media uses popular culture to reinforce the idea of typical gender roles and ideologies. Media brings certain groups to dark mainly based on physical attributes.
The Disney movies produced have always portrayed race and gender roles in an inaccurate way. Women in these movies were expected to be helpless, weak, sensitive, romantic, and always have to keep their husbands happy. For instance, in the Disney movie, Aladdin, the sultan tells Jasmine he just wants to find a husband that ‘will provide for her and take care of her,’ insinuating she can’t do it on her own. In Aladdin there are Arab stereotypes, sexualization of females and showing them as erotic, Jasmine is shown wearing revealing clothes, and Arab men are shown as barbaric. Conveying a wrong message to the kids that men are dominant, women are always helpless, men are only here to provide and being ‘masculine’ means being hot and buff! Although men don’t play central roles, being handsome is always a stipulation for being a desirable prince in any Disney movie. Young kids often think that a prince charming will always come to their rescue and the princess always gets what she wants. The movie also creates a belief among the younger generation about love at first sight.
“Outward beauty is what makes you special”, this is probably the message of almost all Disney movies, but most of it is exemplified in Cinderella, where the basic storyline is that a prince sees her all dolled up, thinks she’s super cute and falls in love with her on the spot. Sleeping Beauty is another big offender where Aurora and Prince immediately fall in love with each other when they meet, don’t even spend time getting to know each other, and then live happily ever after. Literally everything that Aurora does is only to receive the ‘true love’s kiss’. This sends a message that it is what counts on the outside when it comes to love and affection. These movies portray a make-belief world in which we all live, where a girl’s most valuable asset is her beauty, where beauty is defined by the way you look, pale or a fair skin tone and red lips but not who you are from within, this was pre “Mulan”, where the girl is shown tough and disguises herself as a man to replace her father in the army and “The Princess and the Frog”, where for the first time in the history of Disney, they have shown a black princess. There’s nothing wrong with being white or skinny, but when the kids grow up, they are exposed to heroines that look remarkably similar to the characters in the movies, makes them want to be like what they see on the screen. In these movies, being thin and fair makes you precious and more beautiful. But at the same time, also implies the opposite, dark skinned and not being thin is evil and unattractive. This also causes a lot of bulling among the school going children. Being or feeling pretty is not a choice but a global expectation that must be met in order to be accepted as a member of this society. It allows people to understand the idea of misogyny and how they are subconsciously trained to be sexually attractive as if they were other people’s toys, and if a girl does not dress fancily, she is deemed as oppressed and having lower self-esteem. Another Disney movie in which portrays that weight of the person decides the temperament. “The Beauty and the Beast”, where the beast is huge but his juxtaposition with tiny Princess Belle implies that one’s weight or size affects mood, teaching children that fat people are mean and angry, and skinny people are sweet and nice. And unknowingly, we often threaten the younger kids by saying that some imaginary giant man will come and eat them if they don’t do what they are asked to.
Most people assume that young girls like princess and dolls whereas the boys don’t. And suppose if the girl doesn’t like the doll, it’s unexpected and people are astonished. Although the toy can be gender neutral, the media creators choose to market it just for the girls in order to create a brand. If they are raised to believe that there are certain things that they must enjoy only due to their gender, they will automatically believe the generalization made between females and males. This text can also shape how society views males and females in the workplace. Males are typically accustomed to go into rough and tough fields such as engineering and mechanics whereas females typically enter the humanity fields, although that’s changing now.
And in the end.. it’s always living happily ever after, this kind of thinking fabricates the mindset of ‘the ends justify the means’, which means that if a goal is very important, any method of achieving it is acceptable. How will the children learn about diversity and the empowering of both the genders?
