Summary Of Gender Roles In Disney Movies

Tanner, Haddock, Schindler, Zimmerman, and Lund (2003) examine the images of couples and families in Disney movies. Four main themes were identified: (1) family relationships are a strong priority, (2) families are diverse, but the diversity is simplified, (3) fathers are elevated, while mothers are marginalized, and (4) couple relationships are created by “love at first sight,” are easily maintained, and are often characterized by gender-based power differentials. These four main themes can be problematic because they are apparent in almost all the Disney movies and causes to form stereotypes of the “typical family.” This reading points out the importance of parents getting involved with what their children are watching and need to learn the
The authors examined nine princess’ films and found that the prince and princess’ characters differed in their portrayal of traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics. Results demonstrate that all the movies portray some stereotypical representations of gender, including the most recent film The Princess and the Frog. Even though the male and female roles have changed over time in the Disney princesses, the male characters exhibit more androgyny throughout and less change in their gender role portrayals (England, Descartes, & Collier-Meek, 555). Gender roles are something that I have negative feelings toward and do not want a child to feel forced to conform to the “stereotypical norms” of their gender and that is why I see importance in discussing these movies with children so they can understand they do not have to make their choices based off what children see in movies. As a child, I tended to avoid the princess’ movies mainly because I had two older brothers and they did not want to watch princess movies, so I did not watch them. I wish I could have had a discussion with classmates to see if there may be a correlation of people who watched Disney princess movies and the “stereotypes” or norms people may have conformed to, without realizing it, but in the end, I still find this an important topic within Disney movies to talk to children
Hurley (2017) argues that children’s self-image is affected by the ways in which the see themselves and fairy tales play a major role in the shaping of self-image in children. Importantly, fairly talks have significance for children of color in relation to the internalization of white privilege (Hurley, 221). This article was specifically important to my decisions formed because prior to this intensive examination of Disney movies, I had not been thinking consciously about the amount of white portrayed in Disney movies. This is specifically problematic to me because children are only seeing white characters (for the most part) and when other races are shown, the history, for the most part, is erased or generalized. This became more relevant to my feelings toward how Disney portrays white. Discussing this with classmates revealed that movies such as Pocahontas basically change the history in the movie by leaving out so many parts and generalizing it. This conversation in our class made my decision even more difficult on whether Disney movies are good for children because I had not thought about that extensively. In the end, I still believe the best thing you can do is talk to children about what they are watching and provide them with information on what they are watching and find a way to talk about race and self-image in Disney movies (in way children would understand)