There is tension between the Disney Corporation and feminists since the first Disney princess movie in 1937. This study is going to correlate the thoughts of the Disney Corporation and the women in the feminists‘ movements since the first movie. This information affects how parents choose what their children will watch. With information on both sides of this background conflict and knowledge on how children remember the media they watch. It helps parents realize the messages that movies can transmit and let‘s them decide how often they will influence their children by media.
14 Feb. 2009. 2 June 2009 This source discusses the topic of children beauty pageants. Young girls are exploited in beauty pageants and are placed under harsh conditions. They must receive a total body makeover and spend hours preparing when they should be out enjoying their childhood. This source was one of my favorites because it proves so much information that backs up my idea on child pageant; I am going to refer to this source later on.
The theme of the story is to show how Barbie dolls are negatively influencing young girls and the drastic change they had on young girl’s observations of relationships, self-image, and childhood innocence. At a young age, these girls are creating stories of infidelity and aggression that mimic how relationships are viewed through the media. “Every time the same story. Your Barbie is roommates with my Barbie, and my Barbie’s boyfriend comes over and you steal him okay?” (Cisneros, pg 576) This is giving girls a distorted insight of what occurs in normal relationships. These stories, the young girls create using theses dolls, make it seem okay if these types of unhealthy relationships occur.
Some Disney movies are filled sexism stereotyping such as “Beauty and the Beast”, “Aladdin”, and “Snow White” just to mention a few. Have we really moved past the sexist stereotypes that marked Disney's earliest films? Although Disney movies are beautiful to watch, they are are portraying harmful stereotypes. We all girls, dreamed to be a princess from a fairy tale. Who did not?
Her daughter came running over in a full-skirted frock with a gold bodice, a beaded crown hanging sideways on her head, and she says, “Look, Mommy, I’m Ariel!” referring to Disney’s Little Mermaid. Her daughter then stops and raises her eyebrow and asks her mom, “Mommy, do you like Ariel?” Orenstein thinks and says it’s not the perpetual dissatisfaction with the results, but then questions herself and says “Or is it?” Orenstein says the Princesses are not what really bother her anyway. Well what does? Isn’t that’s what she’s arguing throughout the
PROJECTOR: My focus question. Presenter: my presentation will be questioning how women are portrayed within Disney films, and whether Disney will ever be able to embrace feminism. My focus films are Tangled, Mulan and Cinderella and referencing Snow White, the little mermaid and 101 Dalmatians. PROJECTOR: screen grabs of various characters either showing the ‘damsel’ or an ‘evil’ character. These will include the evil step mother and Cinderella from Cinderella, Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians, Mulan, Snow White and the evil step mother from Snow White.
Anthea Longville Eng 101 Professor Muhlstein September 26, 2012 Male Dominance over Female Dominance In this essay, “Cinderella Stepsister”, Toni Morrison speaks about the violence that Women do to each other. However, she uses this fairytale Cinderella as a valuable lesson to let women know that they must not treat their stepsisters (other women) as Cinderella treated hers. She discusses the humiliation, abuse and the enslavement that other women willing do to others of their kind. She also stresses about women with power in society who bring down the less educated ones and also try to over-power those that are same rank with them. Morrison feels that women should work together with kindness and be generous towards each other.
These questions begin to linger in the backs of our minds and leave an unconscious impression on how we see ourselves. Little girls would wish that they could grow up and be like Belle, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan or Snow White. All these Disney characters were idols for little girls over the years because they portrayed who they wanted to be. In the older Disney movies, the
Common Readings Narrative Essay The essays “My Hips My Caderas”, “Just a Little Princess?” and “Black vs. ‘Black’” by Alisa Valdes, Peggy Orenstien and Gary Kamiya all blame society for their own issues. They all believe that the American society has caused their self esteem issues and how they view themselves. In the essay “My Hips My Cadaras” we read about her not knowing which race to claim. She does not know how to perceive herself verses how these two cultures reacted to her. In the essay “Just a Little Princess?” we are bombarded by how the Disney Company is influencing how her daughter will perceive herself.
Girls’ affair with the “Princesses” “What’s wrong with Cinderella?” by Peggy Orenstein speaks of a mother’s struggle through the princess era with her daughter’s obsession with princess culture (Orenstein, 2006). Orenstein who is a writer for The New York Times Magazine adopts an informative approach towards writing this article. Thus, I believe her intended audience would be her fellow mothers who, also, are falling into the royal moment. In this article, Orenstein blames both the marketers and mothers for the perpetual of the princess culture which she believed to have damaging consequences to the girls’ future development. She backs it up with the following statement “I worry about what playing Little Mermaid is teaching her” (Orenstein, 2006, para.10) implying that her doubts toward such play.