Gender Roles In Walt Disney's Cinderella

In her novel, Cinderella Ate My Daughter (2011), Peggy Orenstein describes that in today's society, young children are exposed to feeling obligated to be the best girl (or boy) they can be in society. They are not free to be themselves. She discusses this topic by first address the issue of “Disney Princesses” and how they can play a major role in what a girl chooses to do in their life. Next, she talks about how it’s not the children who choose the specific lifestyle, the parents play a major role as well. Finally, Orenstein expresses the idea of children and the internet. Her purpose is to explain that there is a major separation between the two genders and how it plays a major role in how people act during their day to day life. The audience consists of mothers who want to learn how to let their children be themselves and feminists.

Authors James Poniewozik and Peggy Orenstein are both concerned with the increase of princess culture among young girls. Poniewozik’s article “The Princess Paradox” and Orenstein's article “Cinderella and Princess Culture” discuss similar aspects of princess culture that could be potentially harmful to it’s audience. Both Poniewozik and Orenstein take on a feminist perspective in their articles. Specifically, both authors discuss feminist themes in princess culture but Orenstein focuses on toddler to pre-teen aged girls while Poniewozik is more concerned with specifically teenagers.

Hi Nhung, I like that before you started analyzing which character archetypes are in the film, you gave a summary of the movie. This makes it so that whoever reads your response, have an understanding of the film. I agree with your point that, “Cinderella is the innocent archetype because she always get bullied by her stepmother and stepsisters.” This is true that she is innocent because most people would defend themselves when they get hurt, but Cinderella does nothing about it and continues to take the harassment. Also, it is interesting that she fits into the innocent character archetype because about every Disney Princess fits into the same category.

In “Cinderella and Princess Culture,” Peggy Orenstein compares girls lives to princesses. Society is stereotyping girls as princesses negatively impacting girls well being. As a result, Orenstein claims society should stop stereotyping girls as princesses and have parents limit the girl's exposure to them. Orenstein proves her claim by stating playing with princesses lowers girls self-esteem and can harm their mental and physical health. Orenstein also states the word princess is such a broad meaning, that it is very misunderstood. For example, when one hears the word princess they can think of a girl wearing a fancy dress, or all the princess products. A lot of girls are being stereotyped as being a princess,

Our culture is full of fairy tales. Girls are taught at a young age about Prince Charming and happy endings while boys are taught to be the girls’ heroes. They are taught these dreams and desires through fairytales and movies. These fairy tales started out as entertaining stories, but as they were handed down from one generation to the next, they slowly became more than that. They became bedtime stories for children, and as such, they have great importance because they teach children how to be in the world. One such fairy tale I want to focus on is Cinderella.

In “Feminism and Disney Princess” Corey Gross uses popular Disney movies to illustrate the gender issues that occur. In addition to that he mentions that he is not here to start a debate. Gross is a proponent of women’s rights, social justice, and freedom. He explains each female’s obstacles and what they stand for. For example, in the popular movie Aladdin, Princess Jazmine is being told who she can and cannot marry.

Walt Disney Company is one of the shrinking number of corporations that dominate the world media today. The documentary “Mickey Mouse Monopoly” talks about how Disney has been a powerful force in creating childhood culture. Disney stories and movies are absorbed by the young children while they watch these as a source of entertainment. These stories influence or shape a child’s imaginary world. I certainly grew up watching Disney movies and reading Disney stories, indeed I still sometimes watch Disney movies to revive the childhood memories or just to relax and enjoy the innocence and joy displayed in these movies.

Disney is a world famous company that has been around for more than ninety years, every year, creating new stories so that everyone can enjoy. Walt Disney production premiered its first Disney princess in 1937 which was: Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. With the years going by, Disney has created countless of Disney princess stories from "Cinderella" (1950) to "Moana" (2016). In the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the evil queen sends the huntsman to kill Snow White; however, they decide not to kill Snow-White. After the queen discovers that Snow White was still alive, she created a poisoned red apple that will put Snow White into a deep sleep.

Contemporary visual media contributes to the social construction of gender in that the way that men and women are portrayed in advertising is vastly different.

Changing Gender Role Disney movies have without a doubt always be known for the stereo type of a damsel in distress meeting their prince charming and falling in love. The morals of these stories have always taught children that young girls main purpose in life is to find the perfect guy and fall in love. Every “happy ending” ends with a married couple riding off into the sunset. Only recently has Disney started to stray from these customs. The movies Frozen and Brave break these conventional ideas and branch out through the idea of family and independence.

The limitations of female roles in classic fairy tales is a prominent issue. In fact, looking at the Grimm stories, there are very few roles that are simply reused. For female antagonists, there are only two significant roles: the witch and the evil stepmother. Witches are typically noticeably evil by some physical difference and have become unlikeable outsiders. Stepmothers are wicked and cause the victimization of the protagonist. There are just as few roles for female protagonists: the rescuer and the victim. The rescuer must save a male figure, family member, or both in her life, “Female protagonists prove themselves not in battle against an opponent, but in rescuing the bridegroom, brother, or male friend” (Wardetzky 163). The victim is moved by events that happen to them, as described by Ortner, “-although they are the protagonists, the action of the story is moved along by the virtue of bad things happening to them, rather than their initiating actions as in the case of the majority of male heroes” (Ortner 9). As suggested by the description of these (few) roles, in many cases they represent a loss or lack thereof agency.

A fairytale that almost everyone knows is Cinderella. Cinderella is about a young girl whose father decides to remarry after her mother dies. The women who he remarries is evil with two evil daughters. As Cinderella's father is out of town for various things the evil step-mom makes Cinderella do all the chores. They treat her like a servant rather than someone apart of the family. Since Cinderella has no friends she becomes friends with animals who help her complete her daily chores. One day they receive an invitation to a ball. Cinderella is allowed to go if she completes a set of chores but Cinderella ends up staying home while her stepmother and stepsisters go to the ball. Cinderella's fairy godmother shows up and makes her beautiful (changes her dress, etc) but says she has to be home at midnight because her beautiful dress will disappear and she'll go back to her old self. She goes to the ball and the prince falls in love with her but she has to leave at the strike of midnight. As she is running out of the ball she loses one of her glass slippers. The prince searches town for Cinderella. He then finally finds her and they live happily ever after.

The best leader in the book was Christina because not only did she lose her husband and was forced to go back to Parr’s Landing, the one place that has brought her so much pain and suffering, but she made these sacrifices for the well-being of her family. Another great trait that Christina possesses is that she voices her opinions strongly but also knows when it is best to not do so and just listen. As stated in the novel a good leader knows when to make his or her voice heard and the time when he or she needs to listen to those around them.

To describe the gender stereotype example, I have selected advertisement from the website of coloribus. It is the advertisement of the Johnson & Johnson Company to promote the Johnson baby care products. It released on June 2009. It is picturized with the woman with her baby and saying that this company’s baby products are more suitable for the small babies’ skin. I found this ad online Johnson’s baby product advertisements. I have the photo of the advertisement at the end of the writing part. And this is the link for the advertisement: http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/promo-casestudy/johnsons-baby-products-johnsons-baby-diaries-15560755/

When someone mentions the name “Cinderella”, the first thing that usually comes to our minds is the fairytale in which the fair maiden who works so hard yet it treated so poorly gains her “fairytale ending” with a wave of a magic wand. However, the fairytale of Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers has multiple differences in plot from the fairytale we all usually think of. The plot of the Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers, written in 1812, is that a young female’s mother passes away early in the story, departing with the message to Cinderella to remain “pious and good”. Cinderella remained true to this message given to her by her mother, and she showed this in her work ethic. Because Cinderella had remained pious and good, her mother, in return, watched over her in the form of the birds above her grave that gave Cinderella help and material things that she needed. In the end, Cinderella has her “happily ever after”, for when the prince held a festival to find a new bride, she was chosen due to her insurmountable beauty. The feminist lens critiques how females are commonly represented in texts, and how insufficient these representations are as a categorizing device. These representations of women often include them being passive and emotional—staying back while the men do the work. Cinderella relates to the feminist lens because she fits into the typical representations of women created by men. Feminist criticism is important to recognize because women are often falsely represented as helpless, thus needing a man to come to their rescue. It is common in literature to see helpless women, crying and begging for help instead of being able to work out their own problems and hardships. Others, however, may believe that it is still important to uphold the fundamentals of the feminist lens because it keeps the man in power, which they say is important in keeping the man the head of the household. Cinderella thoroughly represents the feminist lens because it shows how women in literature uphold the representations of passive and emotional, created by the man.