Little Mermaid Stereotypes

Walt Disney over the years has impacted the lives of millions of children with his animated films. His Disney movies have evolved in the last years and have moved from the traditional damsel in distress theme. Specifically, the classic movie Cinderella gives the wrong idea about what it is to be a woman for young girls. The movie portrays a young woman facing emotional, mental, and physical abuse by her evil stepmother and later falls in love with a charming prince. However, if viewers take a closer look, Disney’s anti feminist message is firmly emphasized. The story of Cinderella is sexist due to it’s lesson to girls that beauty and submission will award them a rich bachelor. This is seen through Cinderella’s submissive behavior, Prince

In Disney films, there is a lot of misogyny amongst female main characters. Many people in our society have noticed a significant difference in the speaking roles between male and female characters that Disney created, as men had way more lines than the women. Because these movies were mostly created in the mid-late 1900’s, this was the time that there was plenty of prejudice against females. Now, in the year 2017, females are getting a little more equality than before to the point where many females now have jobs that were only for males in the 1900’s. Most Disney movies for that matter involve some sort of misogyny, even the ones that recently came out such as ‘Brave’ and ‘Frozen’. Examples of various levels of misogyny can be noticed in Disney films such as Ariel in ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1989), directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. The movie is about a 16-year-old mermaid who wants to live on land with a human Prince named Eric but is only able to after making a dangerous wish with ‘Ursula the Sea Witch’ to be a human for three days. In this movie ‘Ariel The Mermaid’, prejudice can be seen in Ursula, by a female having too much authority, Ariel cannot speak, and Ariel uses her appearance to attract others.

Female Heroism in Disney Animation Analyzing “Disney Dolls,” Kathi Maio’s purpose in writing is to persuade her readers that all the young women in Disney are meant to be symbols and how the company’s target audiences want to portray women. She argues that films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Mulan (1998) all have an implied message towards women. Maio achieves to persuade that typically women in Disney are portrayed as a princess, queen, or a homemaker. When Maio mentions Aladdin (1992), she writes that Princess Jasmine is the only significant female character, then talks about cultural assumptions and internalizing racism, which is not significant to the topic of female

In the film, “The Little Mermaid” Ariel, the heroin of the film, is perceived as a delicate girl who cannot protect herself and has to rely on a man to be rescued. An analysis a child may have is that beautiful women usually must have a small waist. The villain of the film, Ursula, is a woman that is overweight and has animal traits in her figure; therefore, creating a demining perception about overweight females. Males are typically in the films of Disney thin and muscular; this gives a perception that boys should grow up like them to be wanted by women. In the article, “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science …”

With graceful animation and a jubilant, unforgettable score, Walt Disney's 1989 film adaptation of the classic tale, The Little Mermaid, irrevocably impresses itself upon the hearts and memories of its viewers (Clements). The romantic, musical, and adventurous plotline captivates the attention of millions of children, thus initiating an international fanbase centered around a curious, love-struck mermaid and her quest for humanity; consequently, the conflict arising from the adoration of Ariel, the mermaid herself, revolves around the negligence of her creators as they allow the character to fall into heaps of tropes and stereotypes surrounding women. The result of this cultural carelessness resounds in the negative affects experienced by the

I found myself thinking of how different social media supports this stereotype. For instance, in Disney films I started looking how they were stereotyping woman´s appearance. The princesses are wealthy, have seemingly perfect lives and their beauty only helps them advance in life. We often see the princesses turning on the charm to get what they want from others. An example of this is “Ariel” the titular hero of Disney's 1989 animated feature film “The Little Mermaid,” directed and wrote it by Ron Clements. In this film, Ariel, the protagonist, shows that everything about a girl is superficial and that they must change for a man´s love. However, the antagonist of the film, Ursula, shows that girls do not need intelligence. A pretty face is

A little girl sits on the floor with her gaze fixed on the television screen in front of her, watching magical images dance before her eyes and catchy songs flow through her ears. Even though she had seen it at least twenty times before, she still loved The Little Mermaid just as much as she did the first time she watched it. As she watched it, she longed to be a beautiful mermaid with a curvy body and wonderful singing voice like Ariel. She longed to be saved by the handsome Prince Eric, and fall in love and live happily ever-after like Ariel did. In today’s society, women strive to achieve equality between the sexes. Despite the tremendous steps that have been taken towards reaching gender equality, mainstream media contradicts these

Yesterday as I arrived to my apartment after a long day at work, I decided to watch The Little Mermaid, since it was my favorite princess growing up and there wasn't anything better playing on TV. As the movie started to progress I couldn't believe how Hollywood implements sexist stereotypes through subliminal manners that are not apparent at first. Despite the film industry being the leading mean of entertainment, it is unbelievable how it still continues to present itself as a sexist industry through various plots and characters. As a feminist, I totally disagree with the message being conveyed throughout the film. In my opinion the audience should be aware about the type of films they are viewing, since they are continuing to shame women and seeing women as less.

The original draft more generally based and less clear of what the exact thesis and argument was because I focused on other dynamics, such as patriarchy, in which I needed to narrow. Overall in the final prospectus, I argued that there are sexist themes portrayed in The Little Mermaid and the importance of analyzing and identifying these are because it is so prevalent and affective in real life society. Every argument has a purpose and a goal, and the goal with writing this paper is to bring awareness of this type of rhetoric in films in order to avoid falling or accepting its skewed

For decades now, Disney Corporation has been providing us with countless films made to delight and amuse children and adults alike. But not all Disney films seem particularly appropriate for their target audience. Many of these films portray violence, gender inequality, and skewed views of leadership roles that seem altogether inappropriate for impressionable young children. Better and more contemporary heroines need to be added to Disney’s wall of princesses in order to counteract years of sexism.

Swimming Against the Current Disney’s film The Little Mermaid (1989) is the earliest most significant transition into portraying a strong female protagonist after a history of purposeless princesses who never demonstrated personality attributes other than delicateness. Nevertheless among Disney’s critics, Roberta Trites responds in her essay “Disney's Sub/Version of Andersen's The Little Mermaid” that characters, images, and conflicts of the film rob women of integrity, making the movie even more sexist than the original story by Andersen. Disney’s film industry used to be notable for their depictions of weak-minded and superficial princesses that taught the young generations, especially girls to be submissive to men and exclusively pretty.

Disney directly exposes the idea that young girls should make their main goal in life to find their prince charming, fall madly in love, and live happily ever after. Making young girls’ aspiration in life revolve around finding a man of their dreams “transfix[es the] audience and divert[s] their potential utopian dreams and hopes through the false promises of the images [Disney] cast[s] upon the screen” (22). Disney tells the audience that women need a man to be happy. Disney presents the idea that women are dependent on me. Just like in The Little Mermaid, Ariel goes as far as surrendering her voice, to a witch named Ursula, and abandoning her family in order to be with her prince. Ariel also trades in her life as a mermaid, drastically changes her body, and sacrifices her greatest talent all in order to win her prince. Disney sends the message that girls need to give up their talents and lives in order to be with a man. Disney suggests that a woman’s main priority is her lover, no one or nothing else. Disney effectively portrays women in a negative way, depicting them as weak and needy. No attempt to break the stereotypical gender roles of women are evident however, these stereotypes are growing as Disney instills this image of women in the minds of viewers.

In the movie Brave directed by Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews from Pixar shared a similar storyline as The Little Mermaid which was directed by Ron Clements and John Musker from Disney, is that they both brought up the cultural and societal expectations on gender roles. Similarly, in between the two movies Brave and The Little Mermaid, the director focussed on the feminine aspects of how society perceives a women and expects females to fulfill their roles. Furthermore, the overall message of both movies is that parents and children need to listen and try to understand each other before the situation gets out of hand. Although, Princess Merida and Princess Ariel grew up with a certain gender role expectations, however, they have prove society’s perception of how feminine should be perceived is wrong by showing how Ariel change for men or how Merida declare war for independence.

Ariel is showing girls of all ages that you “win” guys over with your looks and not your voice or intelligence. Ariel was willing to do anything for Prince Eric and she went so far as to give her voice up

When Prince Eric had all the women contestants sing for him to find his queen he knew by the sound of their voices that they were not the same woman he was looking for. But the night before when Prince Eric and Ariel were dancing he told her that you could tell what someone was thinking or trying to say through the way they danced. That is how Ariel got Prince Eric to notice her when she did not have a voice to sing to him. Ariel was using pantomime with Eric during this part and also when he tried to figure out her