Snow White Sociology

Snow White is a fairy-tale known by many generations; it is a beloved Disney movie, and a princess favoured by many kids. But did you know the fairy-tale was made to teach young children, especially little girls, their duties in life? It also values beauty over knowledge, portrays women to be naive and incompetent, and assumes that women cannot understand anything other than common household chores. Throughout this criticism, I will be using the feminist lens to analyze the fairy-tale, Snow White, through the perspective of a feminist.

Disney princesses are fun for all ages, but their target audience is young children and “as children grow and develop, they can be easily influenced by what they see and hear”. Therefore, what they see and hear in Disney movies leaves an impression on them. The first princess, Snow White, was created in a time where each gender and race had a specific role in society. Recently, many believe that Disney has come a long way in regards to gender and race since Snow White, as several multi-cultural protagonists have been introduced subsequently, and gender roles do not appear to be as stereotypical as they once were. However, many of the apparent innocent messages about race and gender in these movies, can be exposed as otherwise. Despite

Steven starts to feel comfortable and proud of his Jewish roots, and this will have a positive effect in his upcoming films (Friedman & Notobohm, 2000). When his wife, Kate Capshaw converted to Judaism before the marriage and they decided to raise their children as Jews, Steven began to feel his Jewishness as a blessing and not as a shame anymore (Friedman & Notobohm, 2000). The change in his personality after the film in which finally he accepts himself was the change the audience saw. It is a fact how the audience, firstly saw him as a Peter Pan that could never grow up to a director who could express himself through a personal film like Schindler's list. After a long time, Steven finally felt his Jewishness as a real bless (Friedman & Notobohm,

In the lecture, Mirrored Archetype: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La Malinche and Pocahontas tells that Pocahontas rescue to John Smith from execution by laying her over his head . In the film show the same action Pocahontas opposes that they kill Smith and tells his father not to do that he can learn things about him. Another of the scene of the film shows when Pocahontas went to live with the English and a lady proposes that if she wants to be

One of the most obvious being the important figure, John Rolfe, being completely erased from the story. Instead he is replaced by John Smith, an English explorer who comes to America. Though Pocahontas and Smith are said to be “friends”, they didn’t have any romantic feelings towards each other (as far as we know). In fact, the real story isn’t your ideal romance tale either. When Pocahontas was about seventeen she was kidnapped by the Englishmen and, “As a condition of her release, she agreed to marry Rolfe…” even though she was already married to a Native

The prominent narrative in the film is that John Smith is the true hero and is deserving of Pocahontas’s love for his acts of passion. However, John Smith was historically a narcissistic person. The article The Myths abound the New World went in depth to say, “Smith also had a wide self-promoting streak. He penned thrilling adventure stories of his exploits, with himself as the swashbuckling hero.” With those credentials it would be hard to pressed to make John Smith a hero due to his exaggerated tales. Another false narrative spread throughout the movie was that Pocahontas had a mature body in the film. Suggesting that she was older when in reality she was no more than twelve or thirteen years old. Which is pedophelic on Disney’s part. With the continuation of false narratives, the true relations between natives and settlers were enshrouded in inaccuracies.

The movie, “Pocahontas” is a film about the young daughter of a chief and her adventure with a white man coming to conquer her land. Pocahontas is a spirited girl who is faced with the challenge of choosing her own path or the one her father set for her and she has no idea which one is the correct path. Her father, Powhatan, wants her to marry, Kocoum, a good warrior, but Pocahontas is not convinced on whether she wants to settle down with him. On the other side, John Smith, a successful explorer, is going with a crew paid by the Virginia Company to come to the New World to find gold.

A young Native American woman is walking in the forest, she has “a wasp waist, sexy hips and legs, and breasts that are truly impressive” (Kilpatrick 30). According to Jacquelyn Kilpatrick, a professor of literature at Governor’s State University in University Park, Illinois, these descriptions about Pocahontas's appearance in the Disney movie are not true according to history. Kilpatrick uses a sarcastic tone to explain her feeling about the facts that Disney changes the truth about the story of Pocahontas. This is an effective way to persuade the readers to agree with Kilpatrick’s idea about that the Pocahontas’s story should be follow the true history instead of revising the story to make it entertainment for the children.

Pocahontas is a beautiful Indian princess who loves the earth and has a personal connection with the wildlife around her. She is able to communicate with all living things, in her native language. Her and her tribe depicts American Indians as earthly connected individuals, who are fit (men and women all have six packs), athletic, healthy, and sexually attractive. They use Pocahontas as a key to unlock the connection with youth to describe how the Europeans came to America. They create a picture of American history as a love story that has a happy ending.

The film primarily emphasize the love between Pocahontas and “John Smith”; however, after the critical analysis of both primary and secondary source document, many errors were displayed throughout the movie. One of the major error was in fact: the relationship between Pocahontas and John Smith. “Pocahontas was a young girl of age 10 or 11 when she first became acquainted with the colonists who settled in the Chesapeake Bay area in 1607,” stated by a secondary source document (Price, 1). At that time, Captain John Smith was at his late 20s; therefore, displays a huge gap between the two, in terms of age. As a result, it was not practical for them to be in an intense love, with romance scenes as portrayed by the movie (Gabriel, “Pocahontas”.

From all of these relationships, Pocahontas is shown to be very oppressed due to the voices that are heard. She is equal to Grandmother Willow and Nakoma but because John Smith, Kocoum and Powhatan think she is childish and naive, she has no power. Her ideas are dismissed, she is not needed at the tribe and she can not make decisions for herself, let alone anyone else. Not only is her power omitted, but her appearance is provocative. Pocahontas is dressed in very revealing clothing compared to any of the other colonizers or men in the tribe. She is in a tube top that reveals her stomach, and wears a very short skirt that reveals all of her legs. It is not only Pocahontas, but all

Some of the recurring themes and messages I found while reading "Snow White", were women, (even Queens) actually like to do domesticating chores like sewing; that women are so indecisive that even after they get what they ask for they will still find some measure of dissatisfaction. Extreme vanity is a priority, being the most beautiful in comparison

Walt Disney once said, “First, think. Second, believe. Third, dream. And finally, dare.” These four steps to greatness seem almost painless in today’s age, but for women in the 1930’s, it was challenging to overcome “the gender barrier”. In 1937, Walt Disney created Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first animated film in English. Walt Disney portrays Snow White as a beautiful, young girl who falls into a death-like sleep that can only be broken by a true love’s kiss from the prince, but is this the only description perceived of Snow White? From the time this movie was released, this iconic film has been analyzed by several experts. Art historian, Carmenita Higginbotham, states that Snow White was the ideal figure of a woman in the 1930’s. (“Snow White”) Carmenita explains how in the movie, Snow White lives in a small cottage with seven dwarfs and was expected to cook, clean, and take care of household chores while the men were working in the mines. Snow White was not the only piece of entertainment that recognized the poor treatment of women. John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, demonstrates the significance of Curley’s wife by not even naming her throughout the book. These examples show how women were valued during those long years of bigotry. A woman living in the 1930’s had to conquer baggage such as expected roles, work force, and discrimination during that time.

Disney Studios has been creating princess characters since the debut of it’s first princess movie in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.Since that time, these women have been role models for young girls across the nation but the messages they are teaching have changed throughout the decades. As women become more powerful in society so do the princesses, giving inspiration to young girls. A student of James Madison University explains that “there are three eras of Disney princesses: pre-transition, transition and progression”(Kirwin). The evolution of Disney princesses from "damsels to heroines" connects to the timeline of transition from the 20th century woman to the 21st century woman in the United States.

The traditional 1930’s American woman was encouraged to be a homemaker. Usual cues attached were to be motherly, passive, submissive, and have “feminine” gestures. Devor describes femininity and masculinity as “most commonly seen as mirror images of one another with masculinity usually characterized by dominance and aggression, and femininity by passivity and submission.” (Devor, 530) This type of female “normal” and traditional was connected to being motherly because women were supposed to enjoy cleaning their homes and care for their children, this image was portrayed in Snow White who had no type of authority or