Stereotypes And Microaggressions In Disney Films

As a young girl, I remember watching Disney films and falling in love with the Disney princesses. Every Halloween I would dress up as Princess Belle and my cousin would dress up as Cinderella. Today, many people are familiar with Disney films and the Disney princesses. The first original Disney princess was Snow White, which was released eighty years ago in 1937. Since then Disney has created fourteen Disney Princesses. These Disney princesses all had common facial features. They had a tiny waist, defined cheekbones, a thin nose, and light skin. For most of the Disney princesses, except for a few, they were characterized as the damsel in destress who needed saving from Prince Charming. The last princess brought to the big screen in November

The mouse we all grew up to love and adore, Mickey Mouse, the face of the Walt Disney Corporation, has a racist past. Although he was initially created to become a satirical character, he ended up as the face of racism as well. Sadly, not many are aware of Mickey Mouse’s cartoon shorts, Mickey’s Mellerdrammer and The Opry House, which incorporate blackface in a minstrel and vaudeville show. Considering, that these films were made in the early 1930s, it is not surprising that they contain racist ideals. Thus, this raises questions about Disney’s past. It even makes me wonder if this all started from the creator, Walt Disney, because many assume that “Walt Disney himself was a famous anti-Semite, and under his direction, notoriously racist and sexist films were completed” (Dague 1). For instance, after the Mickey Mouse debacle, films, such as Pocahontas and Peter Pan; contained racist characteristics. Ironically, Disney always reiterates the importance of teaching a moral lesson, so it is quite baffling that they would have forms of racism and cultural appropriation in their films.

What images come to mind as one reflects upon his or her childhood? Playgrounds, blackboards, and soccer balls may be among the fondest of memories. Yet, for many, mermaids swim their thoughts, princesses get swept off their feet, and lions roar to their royal place in the animal kingdom. Disney films have captivated the American culture for years and have become a pivotal part of popular culture as well as a form of education. However, these films have devoured the youth of America and, in the process; have perpetuated an institutionally racist society based on harsh stereotypes. Minorities are often underrepresented, and even completely left out, of many Disney films such as Dumbo (1941), The Lion King (1994), Aladdin (1992), and

Apart from the stereotypes, recent Disney princesses have been counteracting the stereotypical images of a Disney princess. They are no longer waiting around for their prince to come and be with them. Instead, they are using their intelligence to achieve their dreams and aspirations. Also, they can be independent and that they don’t always need a man (Bowser n.p.). The portrayal of love in these films are different from the others. The characters are not focused in waiting for their prince. Rather, they were trying to achieve their dreams. In "The Princess and the Frog", Tiana pursues her dream in becoming a restaurant owner. She didn't need a male counterpart to be able to feel happy but only wanted to fulfill her dream to feel happiness.

Disney strongly portrays gendered stereotypes using their eleven official princesses. Young children, specifically young girls in this case, are extremely susceptible to being influenced by the portrayal of these gendered stereotypes. Golden and Jacoby performed research regarding how preschool girls interpret the gendered stereotypes shown through Disney Princess media, through both the young girls’ pretend play behaviors and the discussion of the princesses. Golden and Jacoby performed this research project in order to examine the perception of young girls in relation to princesses and awareness of gender-role stereotypes, a different research study found that girls who lived and accepted gendered stereotypes, in believing that women

Influencing our youth and future world leaders, Disney can create a racist society. Disney’s films have the capability to create a racist culture in the near

1. Describe three specific example of how Disney movie can unintentional create roles certain groups of people through socialization.

if that is bad enough, Mulan’s unintelligent and socially awkward sidekicks serve as comedic function, which alters the authenticity of the film and offended many Chinese viewers. Disney’s production team really dropped the ball when they decided to have Mulan tote around a sidekick cricket for good luck, because crickets are not considered good luck in Chinese culture and therefor they once again negatively affected the authenticity of the film, which unknowingly offended many Chinese people (Amy, 53).

According to A Dictionary of Journalism, the media is defined as journalism as part of a much broader field of public communication organizations, including newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV channels, the film industry, the music industry, websites, advertising, and public relations. For young children, media plays a predominant role in developing schemas of one’s identity, including body image, and gender roles. Young children spend the majority of their time viewing media, therefore the process of generating one’s identity based on his or her observation of media is inevitable. Disney’s princess movies have brought significant effects to children’s development of their identities. There are three main stages of Disney movies. The first stage is the “princess” stage, where the movie depicts the most stereotypes (i.e. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). The second stage is the “rebellious” stage, where the princesses are illustrated as curious and adventurous, yet still show the aspect of female stereotypes (i.e. Jasmine in Aladdin). The third stage is the “hero” stage, where the princesses are shown to fight the female stereotypes (i.e. Mulan). Although Disney has portrayed more complex, yet evolving gender roles as time went on, Disney’s princess movies had significant effects on young audiences by planting changing gender stereotypes.

Throughout the course of eighty years Walt Disney has made a lot of movies. In these movies there are characters that dance, sing, and do things that normal people could not do. Their movies have been very profitable over the years; however, these movies have faced some serious issues. Walter Elias “Walt” Disney is the of the founder of The Walt Disney Company. He started off writing short little stories that could be ran in television and movie theaters. Some of these short stories were little pieces of “perceptions of reality and constructing a normative “vision” of the world” (Tavin and Anderson 21). Disney always seemed to have an issue with race, some show how different race’s were portray in real life. Walt Disney Movies even from the start seem to always have some sort of issue with race so viewers wanted more diversity because of the effect that it has on children

During the last several decades, the media has become a strong agent in directing and controlling social beliefs and behaviors. Children, by nature, can be particularly susceptible to the influencing powers of the media, opening an avenue where media created especially for children can indoctrinate entire generations. Disney movies, like all other media “are powerful vehicles for certain notions about our culture,” such as racism. (Giroux 32). Racist scenes in Disney movies are often identified as simply being “symbols of the time” when the films were produced. Furthermore, Disney racism is often passed over as simple humor, or as a simple guide to

"I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a world where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" Martin Luther King Jr.

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

Disney is one of the most successful and largest companies in the world. They have their hand in nearly every form of entertainment as well as media, and broadcasting. Disney is best known for their animated films, unique cartoon characters, catchy musicals, and fairy tales that most of us were first introduced to as children. They are one of the few entertainment companies in the World whose primary demographic is children and teens. Nearly everybody is familiar with the Disney name and its brand, and its realistic to suggest that nearly everybody has experienced a Disney film and animated character at some point in their lives; which may have helped to influence them or their behaviors or even their

Disney has been around for many generations of people’s lives and has had a true impact on most of society, but now Disney is slowly straying away from the true purpose that they have built all of their old work upon. No longer is Disney focused on being a “magical” company, but more of one that has the most power in the world, which they have already been able to achieve. Disney now appears to be profit hungry by producing films that relate to society rather than inspire it, or repeat an old animation film through live-action, i.e. Cinderella. Society’s influence on Disney became so grand, with the demands of more feminist movies, different ethnicities, etc. that Disney decided to please society. Disney now is meeting these demands with