Gender Roles In Disney Film Tarzan

Gender normals have been integrated into children’s lives starting at a very young age. Children learn it from their teachers, their parents, their friends, TV, and movies, to be specific animated movies. A lot of Americans have watched animated movies at a young age and even currently. I chose to analyze gender roles from a popular Disney movie Tarzan. The 1999 Disney film Tarzan expresses gender roles for both human and gorilla characters to follow. This is seen through the male roles of Clayton and Tarzan as well as the female roles of Jane, Kala, and Terk.
Some background to the movie Tarzan: Tarzan was a small boy who was raised by an ape named Kala since he was a child because his family died in a ship accident. He believed that this was his family, but on an expedition a woman named Jane Porter is rescued by Tarzan. He then finds out that he is a human. He falls in love with Jane and starts having conflicts between his ape family and the humans and must decide which family he belongs to (Buck, 1999).
In this film, the male characters were often portrayed to be individuals who have a large build, well-defined muscles and strong jawline.
She wore a yellow dress for the beginning of the movie, later changing into a pink/red skirt (Buck, 1999). This showed that society perceives dresses as female attire, inferring that is how female should dress. Jane had to climb throughout the whole jungle in this dress/skirt, this adds that women being seen as helpless because dresses and skirts are repressive. She is beautiful, charming and intelligent. She educates Tarzan about human life. However she relies on others to save her from almost every situation. She always changes her mind and the romance she has for Tarzan affects her emotions and manner. Society has made it a normal for females to be the ones that take care of children (Guest 2014,