SEXUALITY AND DISNEY MOVIES

BY: Kajal Verma and Pavneet Kaur

RESEARCH QUESTION:
Do Gender Stereotypes persist in Disney Movies?

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The Disney Corporation is one of the largest media companies in the

world. Disney’s full length animated films have been a popular form
of children’s entertainment for more than sixty years. Many images
of gender, race, age and sexual orientations can be seen in Disney’s
featured-length Animation Films.

According to Mary Kosut (2012) Media strongly influences our

everyday notions of gender roles and our concept of gender identity.
The work addresses a variety of entertainment and news content in
print and electronic media and explores the social construction of
masculinity as well as femininity.

According to Johnson Cheu (2013) Disney Films has role in both

mirroring and influencing our increasingly diverse society.

According to other writer Dafna Lemish (2017) “Boys are better

leaders than girls.” “Girls are more emotional than boys”. Children of
both genders internalize damaging media messages such as these,
starting at very early age, with life long consequences for both the
genders.
Understanding the way Disney Portrays gender roles in their movies
can be helpful for both Parents and teachers to understand why their
children act in particular ways. ( Disney Gender Portrayal)

ANALYSIS

Gender roles are defined and based on norms and standards created
by society. In most of the societies masculine roles are associated
with strength, aggression, and dominance, whereas female roles are
associated with passivity, nurturing, and subordination. Children
learn their respective gender roles through various agents of society
such as family, education, peer group and mass media ,the Children
when they see female and male characters acting in a certain way in
fairy tales, they create a schema about how man and woman should
behave.

The famous classic fairy tale writers are Charles Perrault, The
Brothers Grimm; Jacob and Wilhelm and Hans Christian Andersen
who has written “Cindrella”, “The Sleeping Beauty”, “Rapunzel”,
“The Little Mermaid” and so on. Almost each of these fairly tales
presents typical male and female stereotypes. Women are often
depicted as inferior weak or unfavourable characters. They are most
of the time fragile young beautiful girls or princesses who wait to be
rescued by brave princes The princes also fall for the beauty and
innocence of the young maiden and marry them.

On the other hand men are presented as active, assertive, bold and
authoritative, Without the interference of a male character, No
movie, fairy reaches to its happy ending. Seeing men and women like
this, Children construct ideas of gender role at a very early age.
Visual medias even more influence the role of gender in a better way
than literature. In the twentieth century, with the advancement in
technology of film making, people now see their favourite fairy tales
in visual form. Most of the time the target audience of the Walt
Disney productions are children who are in the stage of gradually
understanding gender roles. Through Disney, children acquire gender
information and understanding of themselves and how they should
look and behave. Disney’s animated films exemplified what men and
women should do, how they are supposed to look, and how they
should act. In Signorielli and Bacue (1999) it is shown that women
are underrepresented as compared to men, women are portrayed as
young , attractive and thin. Libe Garcia Zarranz discusses the
evolution of Disney’s female characters in her article “ DISWOMEN
STRIKE BACK? THE EVOLUTION OF DISNEY’S FEMMES IN THE 1990s”
She remarks that “ Disney’s fairy tales often manage to conceal a
suspicious ideology concerning sexual, race and class politics.”

In movies and on TV , males are often characterized as being prone

to violent behavior. In Snow White movie, The prince kisses
Snowwhite without knowing her and awakes her. He had no
emotion, does not work for anything nor does he punosh the evil.
Nevertheless, the impression that men are the savior and they are
the protectors of women remains the same in twentieth-century
movie version because he ends the misery of the princess by
marrying her.

Between 1930-1945, Black actors and actresses were limited to roles

of slaves and servants. (Holtzman, 2000), After few years this theme
was changed.
In movie Pocahontas, Pocahontas is portrayed as a strong female but
at the end of the film, Pocahontas says that she is staying out of duty
to her community.

The Disney princesses are very influential characters and their

actions influence young girls understanding of themselves as
females. These characters teach young girls how female should act,
and might provoke girls to act foolish around men and take big risk
like Ariel did in order to get a man’s attention. But then again Belle
teaches girls not to just settle for a man like Gaston who is handsome
but find someone who you love for their personality.

Gender stereotyped images are portrayed in the media, but that

men’s control over and abuse of woman is shown as romanticized as
in Beauty and the Beast. Media nowadays Portray so many things, It
present Genders in a specific way so does The Disney Movies.

NINE HARMFUL STEREOTYPES DISNEY MOVIES TAUGHT US:

1) You should change who you are for a love interest (The Little
Mermaid)
2) In Snow white and the seven dwarfs, The message is portrayed
that men are hopeless and need woman to take care of them.
3) Cindrella portrays us that outward beauty is what makes you
special.
4) Mulan represent that being Thin and white is what makes
women beautiful and valuable.
5) Weight determines temperament. Taught by Beauty and the
Beast.
6) Women have to be strong and gentle (Pocahontas)
7) Arabs are erotic, barbaric and ignorant. (Aladdin)
8) MEN ARE SAVIOURS
 9) Hercules Teaches that Being masculine means being hot and
buff.

THE IMAGES OF FEMALE CHARACTERS IN FAIRY TALES

In Disney Tales, there are two types of female characters. The first
one is the perfect heroine who is beautiful, Kind and compassionate,
She is the idealized model which every girl want to follow.

The second kind of women is witches, fairies, stepmothers , mother-

in-laws. These women lack the feminine characteristics which the
heroine possesses, and create opportunity for the heroine to destroy
her happiness.

THE IMAGES OF MALE CHARACTERS IN FAIRY TALES

Different fairy tales by Charles Perrault, The Grimm Brothers and
Hans Christian Andersen tell us the image of ideal men of patriarchal
society, the males are most of the times rich, young and sometimes
both , Only ideal masculine man has agency in fairy tales. They are
shown Dominant in the society.

METHODOLOGY
In order to know about the Sexuality or Gender Stereotypes in The
Disney Movies, the following Questions were asked in the interview
From 10 people:

1. WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

2. WHAT IS YOUR AGE?
3. DO YOU THINK DISNEY MOVIES PORTRAY GENDER
STEREOTYPES?
 4. IF YES, HOW DO THEY PORTRAY GENDER STEREOTYPES
ACCORDING TO YOU?
5. WHICH MOVIE OR FAIRY TALE WAS YOUR FAVOURITE OF
DISNEY MOVIES?
6. DO THOSE MOVIES SHOW MALE AS DOMINANT?
7. HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT OF BECOMING LIKE YOUR
FAVOURITE FAIRY TALE CHARACTER?
8. WHAT MESSAGE DO YOU GOT FROM YOUR FAVOURITE FAIRY
TALE OR MOVIE?

FIRST INTERVIEW
1. SONIA
2. 24
3. NO, I DON’T THINK SO.
4. NO
5. CINDRELLA
6. IT WAS JUST A LOVE STORY WHERE PRINCE SAVED CINDRELLA
FROM THE MISERY.
7. YES
8. THAT FOR EVERY GIRL, A PRINCE IS MADE FOR HER.

SECOND INTERVIEW
1. HARJOT
2. 17
3. YES
4. THEY SHOW MALE AS THE SAVIOURS
 5. BELLE
6. NO THERE WAS EQUAL LOVE BETWEEN THEM IN THE END
7. YES
8. LOVE BREAKS EVERY CURSE, BEAUTIFUL HEART MATTERS
MORE THAN BEAUTIFUL BODY .

THIRD INTERVIEW
1. KASHISH
2. 18
3. YES
4. DISNEY MOVIES SHOW PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY WHERE MALES
ARE THE DOMINANT.
5. SNOW WHITE
6. YES
7. YES
8. A KISS FROM A PRINCE CAN SAVE THE PRINCESS THAT IS A
LOVE CAN HEAL THE WOUNDS AND MAKE THE PERSON ALIVE.

FOURTH INTERVIEW
1. SEERAT
2. 18
3. NO
4. NO
5. RUPANZEL
6. YES
7. YES
 8. THE FEMALES CAN SACRIFICE ANYTHING FOR THE SAKE OF
THEIR LOVE

FIFTH INTERVIEW
1. AYUSHI SINGH
2. 15
3. YES
4. MALES ARE SHOWN AS MORE STRONGER THAN THE FEMALES
5. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
6. YES
7. NO
8. A FEMALE CAN CHANGE THE HEART OF THE MALE.

SIXTH INTERVIEW
1. AKSHITA
2. 17
3. YES
4. DIFFERENT IDEOLOGICAL FEATURES ARE SEEN IN BOTH MALES
AND FEMALE
5. MERMAID
6. YES
7. YES
8. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHO YOU ARE, WHAT MATTERS IS HOW
PURELY YOU LOVE.
SEVENTH INTERVIEW
1. JASBINE
2. 15
3. NO
4. NO
5. FROZEN
6. YES
7. YES
8. A FEMALE’S BEST FRIEND IS A FEMALE.

EIGHTH INTERVIEW
1. ISHNEET
2. 16
3. YES
4. MASCULINE AND FEMININE CHARACTERS ARE DIFFERENTIATED
5. THE JUNGLE BOOK
6. YES
7. YES
8. WE SHOULD ALWAYS BE TEACHABLE

NINTH INTERVIEW
1. SIMRAN
2. 19
3. NO
4. NO
 5. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
6. YES
7. YES
8. THE GOODNESS ALWAYS CONQUER EVIL

TENTH INTERVIEW
1. JASS
2. 18
3. NO
4. NO
5. PINOCCHIO
6. YES
7. YES
8. IF YOU DISOBEY YOUR GARDIANS THEN YOU GET INTO THW
TROUBLE.

RESULT
From the above Interview, We can conclude that Most of the people
are of the view that Disney Movies portray Gender Stereotypes,
Disney Movies had presented the partriarchal Society which has
shown the male as dominant, Every Gender has assigned different
qualities, Men are shown as saviours in the Disney Movies, Males are
shown as arrogant, intelligent, strong while the women are
presented as Beautiful but weaker than males. Everyone has their
own perspective towards Everything.
 CONCLUSION
So From this we can conclude that Disney Corporation is the largest
media in the world, Every form of Media generates some messages,
Movies Influence people in a more better way than any other kind Of
Media, Disney Media has made several movies, fairy tales till today,
Every Movie of Disney Present some kind of message, Disney is
watched By a large number of people especially the Children, Disney
has created a large impact in the minds Of children, It has created
gender stereotype in their minds, It has governed them Roles as
according To their Gender, Disney’s movies has given Good as well as
Bad messages, Fairy tales reflect cultural and social values of the
dominant group of society, Male characters in Movies are more
active and independent than the female characters, Without their
help, a female character cannot achieve their dreams.

Since 1980, Disney has broken many traditional concepts of gender

stereotypes and gender role, but it has created other stereotypes as
well, The films are criticized for presenting Sexually attractive Disney
princess such as The Little Mermaid. Overall Disney movies reflect
that Females cannot imagine their world without men, All the stories
has given different Chapter or Messages.

REFRENCES:

1. Kosut.Mary.2012.Gender in media.New York:Sage Publications

2. Cheu.Johnson.2013.Diversity in Disney Films.North Carolina
London: Mc Farland & Company, Inc. Publishers
3. Lemish.Dafna.2017.Beyond the stereotypes? Images of Boys
and Girls and their Consequences.Germany: Nordic Information
Centre
4. https://www.mic.com/articles/88167/9-harmful-stereotypes-
our-favourite-Disney-Movie-taught-us (October 7, 2019
11:02am)
5. Mia Adessa Towbin , Shelley A. Haddock , Toni Schindler
Zimmerman , Lori K. Lund & Litsa Renee Tanner (2004) Images
of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-
Length AnimatedFilms, Journal of Feminist Family Therapy,
15:4, 19-44, DOI: 10.1300/J086v15n04_02