During spring break I was playing with my niece and she was getting very frustrated because she was not able to make Daisy stand up because this plastic figure was wearing high heels that are really hard to stand on a flat surface.
What followed was my niece trying to walk in my sisters high heels that were laying around in the living room and naturally she fell.
Most people believe that Disney is a safe way to entertain their children. What most people do not think about is the way it influences our young. Daisy and Mini both wear makeup, high heels and short dresses.So naturally little children want to do the same.
Then they get a little older and become interested in the Disney princesses. All of these ladies are damsels in distress. Cinderella needs to be saved by not only a man no, she is so incompetent that she needs the help of mice and birds and magic. She is considered not worthy of the love from Prince Charming in her normal clothes, she needs new clothes to impress a superficial man.
Mary Poppins is another Disney character that shows little girls that they always must look proper (even in the chimney scene, her clothes are not out of place she looks like a perfect doll covered in soot) to be and ideal woman. She is portrayed as this perfect little lady similar to Kelly Ripa and her Electolux commercial. Ripa portrays this wonder woman that can do all things faster and then spend more time doing even more "womanly" things.
What this does to our society is create women that believe the way to be a good woman is to be a typical 50's house wife.
I do understand that Disney has tried to make more modern movies such as Finding Nemo where they portray a single dad trying to make it in the world with his son. However, in this case their is no female role model. It seems that Disney simply does not know how how to create a good female role model.
According to some sources:) it is a top management problem
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about this. For years Disney has been teaching girls that the only way they will be happy is if they marry a rich, handsome man. Even after young girls grow up and realize that high heels are extremely uncomfortable and difficult to walk around in (as your niece learned over Spring break), and that Prince Charming might not really rescue them, they still hope that Disney has not been lying to them. It is a little sad that these movies have permeated our culture so much that, even after all these years, they affect women and young girls so much. Many Disney movies not only promote sexist stereotypes, they can also be racist. If you have ever seen Pocahontas, Aladdin or The Lion King you don’t need to dig that deep to see the racism (Pocahontas and the other Native Americans are all portrayed as being “one with nature” and “magical.” Aladdin’s opening song describes the fictional Arabian city, Agrabah, as “barbaric, but hey, its home.” And the Lion King’s hyenas are all portrayed as stereotypical minorities). So, not only does Disney promote impossible standards for women, they are also upholding many racist stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteDisney has always been under a microscope by feminists and women's studies groups. They normally show women as the damsels in distress, needing the man. Like Snow White, Cinderella, and Jasmine. These women are saved from a life of dispare from a man, a life where no one would love them or they didn't love themselves. Girls need to find their "one true love" their "Prince Charming" and ride off happily ever after into the sunset. Little girls believe in fairy tails and do not see the implications of the real world. Could Disney be why the divorce rate is SO high? Are woman getting married only to try to find true love, not because they have already found it?
ReplyDeleteEven the movie you mentioned to be revolutionary, "Nemo", the character Dory, a female blue angle fish, needs Marlon, the orange clown fish whose wife was killed and he was left with only Nemo. Dory constanly gets lost and forgets things and relies on Marlon to help her find her way.
Disney continuously tells little girls, and even little boys, that the impossible is possible and makes small children strive for what they will never accomplish.
Sorry. I don't see anything wrong with Disney. When I was little I didn't pay any attention to how short Mini's dress was or how tiny a waist Ariel had. I really Don't think children see these things when they watch Disney movies. There are many good qualities that Disney characters have. My favorite is Cinderella, because even though she is treated so poorly by her family, she is still kind, loving, and obedient to them. She lets herself be the bigger person. She knows that how her family acts is wrong, and chooses not to act as they do.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that children do not consciously see these things. It is the subliminal message that gets embedded into their brains. No child actually thinks about these thing, however, children learn from these shows. Most children also do not have parents that are willing to sit down with their children and explain the things that are not factual. We learn from our care takers and TV that women wear dresses and and makeup.
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