Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Disney: An Unquestioned Authoriy

Growing up, I was the little girl who wore Disney Princess dresses to church, school, and the where ever my mom would allow. The countless amount of videos, sing along tapes, clothes, and toys, were some of my prized possessions as a child. Never would I have questioned the meaning of these stories, as they were all Fairy Tales-- dreams that could be made real for me as long as I believed.

As I now sit and watch Disney movies with the little girl I babysit, my feminist mind races. I find myself thinking, "No this can't possibly be the message they are trying to send. It's Disney, for goodness sake!" But now as I have began to look more closely, I realize that reaction is Disney's complete intention. Innocence and imagination have been linked to Disney in a way that has become interchangeable.

I cannot help to think of the gender roles Disney time and time again reinforces through the Princess movies. In every Princess movie, the Princess is controlled and in the end given her "Happily Ever After" through the winning of her Prince Charming. One extreme example is The Little Mermaid. Ariel trades her voice for legs. In other words her power is stripped from her in order to be happy with the "man of her dreams,"Prince Eric. She trades her independence for subjection to authority of a man. Although this may seem an extreme analysis, it is perpetrated through most Disney films. Every princess finds her value in her prince and being rescued.


Not to mention, every Disney Princess is the image of an extremely skinny, young girl. Disney quietly reinforces the idea of having an anorexic looking body in order to be beautiful, being shy and timid in order to be desirable, and allowing a male to dominate her in order to see value.

This is not only effecting little girls to believe that their sole value is in the man who rescues them, it is also effecting young boys to believe that they have the ability to control and dominate women.

Disney has the ability and authority to display a message without really ever being questioned.
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. Kevin MSeptember 17, 2009 at 9:03 AM

    So, how did you escape? That is, if Disney's power as an agent of (gender) socialization is so powerful and so specific, how did you ever manage to become a feminist? Was there a time when you embodied the traditional, Disney ideal? (I mean, besides wearing the princess dress when you were little?) Do you still see remnants of that ideology in your life as a young adult? And do you really think it's a good idea for you to be up blogging at 3:45am? :-)

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)