Are Disney Princesses Affirming the Patriarchy?
*Last weekend I went to Disneyland so this week all of my posts are going to be Disney themed*
Recently I had a conversation with a senior classmate about how my favorite princess is the Little Mermaid, but I was informed aptly that my childhood favorite was one of Disney's worst representations of femininity. The Little Mermaid was one of the few movies I saw growing up and I always had appreciated that the protagonist was a woman who was 'following her heart', but as I've grown up the beloved movie has lost some of its luster in my eyes especially after watching Miss Representation. One particular aspect of the documentary that I found applicable to The Little Mermaid was the lack of highly developed female characters, Ariel's only goal is marrying a man she's only seen a statue of and Ursula simply wants power. More controversial however, was the overly sexualized scantily clad mermaids that everyone seems to look past. Lisa Lang described it best when she said that woman are being cultivated to be dependent upon men and unfortunately even in these 'feminine' movies the majority of the plot is centered around the male characters which the Washington Post described in their article Researchers have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies. Astoundingly enough men speak much more frequently than women (upwards of 90% in films Aladdin). This reinforces another aspect of Miss Representation, that women are lacking leadership roles and therefore the content targeted towards them lacks any female input. The Washington Post's article in contrast to Miss Representation's arguments about the film industry point towards the lack of gender equality which has existed for a substantial period of time in the film industry.
Recently I had a conversation with a senior classmate about how my favorite princess is the Little Mermaid, but I was informed aptly that my childhood favorite was one of Disney's worst representations of femininity. The Little Mermaid was one of the few movies I saw growing up and I always had appreciated that the protagonist was a woman who was 'following her heart', but as I've grown up the beloved movie has lost some of its luster in my eyes especially after watching Miss Representation. One particular aspect of the documentary that I found applicable to The Little Mermaid was the lack of highly developed female characters, Ariel's only goal is marrying a man she's only seen a statue of and Ursula simply wants power. More controversial however, was the overly sexualized scantily clad mermaids that everyone seems to look past. Lisa Lang described it best when she said that woman are being cultivated to be dependent upon men and unfortunately even in these 'feminine' movies the majority of the plot is centered around the male characters which the Washington Post described in their article Researchers have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies. Astoundingly enough men speak much more frequently than women (upwards of 90% in films Aladdin). This reinforces another aspect of Miss Representation, that women are lacking leadership roles and therefore the content targeted towards them lacks any female input. The Washington Post's article in contrast to Miss Representation's arguments about the film industry point towards the lack of gender equality which has existed for a substantial period of time in the film industry.
It is sad to see that a childhood favorite had followed the same restrictions given to women. There was an interesting statistic I saw in the documentary that stated something like 1 in 14 writers at Disney were female, perhaps the male perspective of women is that we should be these mindless objects and that influenced the Disney movies put out into the audience?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think the part of the movie where Ariel has no voice shows about women's voice in media and in society as well?
ReplyDeleteHow often in media does a woman have to go silent or be shunned for a man? How often does this happen in reality? Are the responses to these two questions reliant on each other?
ReplyDeleteDisney had been remaking many of its princess and Classical/Renaissance movies with The Jungle Book (2016), Cinderella (2015), Beauty and the Beast (2017), and Aladdin and the Lion King in progress. They also have been releasing new princess movies, and as the article points out, these newer ones are changing. These remake movies, while retaining the charm and familiarity of the old movies, have spun them slightly. Do you think this could be Disney's attempt to, for lack of a better phrase, right their wrongs and redefine the definition of Disney princess? Despite the older movies do you think these newer movies are actually changing how girls see themselves and people see women?
ReplyDelete