Among the ones I remember well are: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Jungle Book, Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmations, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, and Pocahontas.
Take a look at Disney's princesses and the men who love them. The morals of this genre of movies are quite comical once you start to examine them.
Belle, Jasmine, Cinderella, Ariel, Snow White, Aurora
Prevalent qualities of the women: meek, dainty, beautiful, helpless, naive, nurturing
The Prince, Prince Eric, Aladdin, Prince Charming, Prince Phillip, Prince Adam
Prevalent qualities of the men: protective, determined, brave, shallow, physically strongEven Mulan, a movie in which a woman shows bravery, determination, and wit, sends a message about masculinity. In order to pretend to be a man, Mulan must demonstrate physical prowess and be capable of violence.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is that children don't need to be sheltered from these movies. They just need to be exposed to more proper sources of male and female role models, as well. These role models should encourage values such as character, thought, and confidence over appearance or performance. The ultimate goal should be for children to grow up feeling secure about who they are as individuals and not being concerned with how they compare to society's definitions of masculinity and femininity.
This was a very interesting view of something so embedded in our childhood. We grow up watching these movies and dreaming of being a princess that will be swept away by prince charming. I must admit this is not just a childhood fantasy, but an occasional adult fantasy as well. It is easy to see how growing up with these stories can shape our view of gender roles. I am fully in favor of some fairytales centered around strong and empowered women, with a happily ever after that doesn’t depend on a man. I agree that these stories and movies should still be a part of childhood, it would be a shame if they weren’t, but they should not be quite so central in the minds of impressionable children.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested in seeing a study of the progression of "princess profiling" over time. I know that recent history has brought with it a much less limited conception of the "Disney Princess"; such characters as Pocahontas, Mulan, and the girl from Princess and the Frog (I never saw it) have tended to be more capable, more ethnically diverse, and generally less keyed-in to 1950's gender roles than their earlier counterparts.
ReplyDeleteI do have take issue with your comment about Mulan, though. The whole point of the training sequences ("You must be swift as a coursing river", etc.) was to display the narrowness of the male/female dynamic of a particular culture at a particular time; the moral of Mulan has more to do with equality than with some idealized notion of masculinity.
I definitely see your point. I do admire Mulan for its departure from the early Disney themes.
ReplyDeleteI still feel that way in which Disney wrote Mulan results in a misguided preferential view of so-called masculine qualities. We love and admire Mulan for her bravery in escaping the gender roles of her culture, yet it seems that if she had had a brother (or even a sister) who preferred to master all of the social graces and facets of housework that Chinese women were expected to learn, we would have little respect for him. Such a task would not have been a simple one, yet he would be regarded as neither brave, determined, or intelligent, like Mulan.
because those tasks were stupid, the movie shows that we should think they were stupid and that women shouldn't have been doing them. however, that was what they were expected to do back then, making it all the more inspirational, because if mulan could break free of that then women now can break free of whatever sexism might exist now
Deletei disagree with what you're saying about even Mulan. She's trying to break the gender roles that have been set by society. The movie emphasizes the fact that at that time, chinese society was sexist. The traits that were respected in men back then can't be changed. However, the movie shows that bravery and strength shouldn't be limited to men; they are traits that are should be respected in everyone. after all, mulan is celebrated as a women warrior in the end, and in the second movie she goes on the mission dressed as a woman.
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