Stereotypes In Disney Stereotypes

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,

Young girls that are inspired to have this "Disney princess effect" are not growing up to be strong, independent women that are motivated to change something in the world. In many of the Disney princess movies for example, The 1991 film, Beauty and the Beast, shows how women are not supposed to be intelligent, but should focus on fulfilling a man's needs. This has an impact on how a girl views her female position in the world.

For my final paper where we had to pick a topic from current popular culture, I decided to write my paper with the focus on Disney movies. More particularly with the focus on the Disney princess movies. When it comes to the Disney movies they have always been and will always be such a huge part of our society. While growing up most children grow up watching these movies and get the idea that that is what they want to be when they grow up. When you ask a young girl what she wants to be when she is older there is a good chance that she will say that she wants to be a princess when she grows up. I have always been such a huge fan of Disney movies and I have a feeling I always will be. I found it very interesting this semester when we spend the short class period talking about the Disney female and male characters. It is rather interesting and something that I can say that I really never noticed before but the fact that the majority of all the female characters all had the same face shape. Whereas the males there were none two that were the same. However for this paper I will be looking into the relationship to cultural meanings about gender and other identity markers, such as race, sexuality, and cultural norms as seen in some of the more classic well known Disney movies.

Little girls are seen as the opposite of boys. They want to be involved in things their mothers do. Some enjoy playing with dolls, or makeup. Since they are “feminine”, girls are believed to wear dresses. They are drawn to princesses instead of superheroes, because the qualities of princesses include beauty, grace, and kindness.

Disney makes over $3 billion on their Disney Princess products every year and now have over 25,000 items in their princess collection (Orenstein 2). Disney has played a big role in shaping not only societal viewpoints on what young girls should like, but also what little girls believe they should enjoy as well. Gender stereotypes have been around for a long time, but now with technology advancements, such as media in western society is able to play a bigger than ever role in influencing people’s perspectives. Not only do we see gender roles and stereotypes in television shows, but also in advertisements and in children’s toys. Although many readers of Peggy Orenstein’s “What’s wrong with Cinderella” have argued that the princess culture is corrupting today’s young girls and making them more dependent on men, a closer examination shows that many girls grow out of the princess phase with no negative repercussions and choose whatever passions they want.

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.

Little girls? Or little women? The “Disney Princess Effect”, an article written by Stephanie Hanes was published September 4, 2011 the CS Monitor. Girls growing up in today’s society are being stripped of their childhoods. With fictional figures to dream of being, young girls aren’t falling in love with the beauty of the stories but more so they assume that they don’t look good enough to be like the world adored princesses. The author wrote this article in response to the epidemic of young girls growing up too fast and the concern it leaves. Between the Finucane Theory, the “Hottie Mystique” and the media onslaught will all reveal the beginning to a much bigger problem that these Disney princesses are creating. The author contends that young girls are losing sight of their childhoods and are becoming sexually advanced too soon.

Aside from how Disney Princess films portray femininity, the mindset that Disney princesses are created with negatively impacts young American girls as well. The need to always display femininity is not the only gender role stereotype that females experience. In fact, there is stereotype that says that women should be inferior to men, and it is represented throughout several Disney Princess films. For instance, Princess Ariel loses her voice after the evil witch, Ursula, takes it away from her. The only method that works to retrieve her voice back is to get the prince to kiss her.

Men are portrayed as physically aggressive, non-expressive and gallant guardians of females. Women are depicted as beautiful, reliant on men and occupied with domestic obligations. These particular attributes exhibit that Disney characters, more so princess and princesses, regularly show exceedingly conventional beliefs (Bispo, n.d., p.3). Researchers postulate that females are delineated as exceedingly feeble and submissive people, who should express their feelings and affections while displaying extremely nurturing qualities. Socially acknowledged women are additionally portrayed as physically appealing with a variety of feminine attributes.

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

This means that children’s perspective of gender roles are influenced by the stereotyped portrayed in media especially from cartoons. Disney and its princess phenomenon have been acknowledged as a powerful influence on children. Thus, disney princess can be used as how gender representations in media are portrayed. They reflect the ideology of patriarchal society and at the same time they construct this ideology to children. Traditionally, Disney prince and princess characters were portrayed in opposite gender characteristics such as Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

What young girl does not dream of becoming a princess and living in a castle happily ever after? Virtually every young girl identifies with princesses and has watched at least one Disney Princess movie. From the first movies of Snow White and Cinderella, to the later movies of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, to the most current movie Moana, Disney Princess movies permeate not only the movie theaters, but also our culture. In fact, “becoming a princess is as easy as purchasing a tiara and hosting a princess-themed birthday party or buying a Halloween costume and playing pretend” (Garabedian, 2014, p. 23). Nonetheless, as declared by Princess Merida in the movie Brave, “there comes a day when I don’t have to be a princess. No rules, no expectations. A day where anything can happen. A day where I can change my fate” (Andrews & Chapman, 2012). In other words, does the life of a princess measure up to the expectations of little girls everywhere? The Disney Princess brand has grown incredibly popular, especially with young girls. In spite of this, the franchise has also become extremely controversial due to potential gender stereotypes in the films. “Gender is one of the most discussed topics in today’s society…[it] represents and also reproduces certain attributes, expectations and roles which are associated with male and female…influencing the views and opinions of future generations” (Maity, 2014, p. 31). Yet, is the Disney Princess brand harmful to young children due to gender stereotypes? Two essays that contemplate the Disney Princess brand and gender stereotypes with opposite viewpoints on this controversial issue are “Girls on Film: The Real Problem with the Disney Princess Brand” by writer Monika Bartyzel and “In Defense of Princess Culture” by writer and mother Crystal Liechty. However, Liechty’s essay “In Defense of Princess Culture,” is the most effective article in convincing the audience of her point of view due to the claim, support, warrant, language, and vocabulary employed.

As a result, oftentimes young girls strongly identify with princess culture and even into adulthood we not only blindly seek our own “happily ever after” but we assume that girls innately love princesses, dress up, and anything magical, making children even more susceptible to gender stereotypes.

In the 2010 film Tangled, a modern retelling of the Grimm Brothers’ story Rapunzel, Rapunzel pursues her dream of seeing the floating lights away from her hidden tower and escaping from her “evil mother” Gothel with the help of a young thief named Flynn Ryder. The film manages to navigate the tension between the traditional fairy-tale storytelling archetypes of the early Disney princess movie-musicals and a modern reinvention of these stereotypes in order to create a harmonious blend between the two. However, both “When Will my Life Begin?” and “I Have a Dream,” with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater, employ diverse musical references and techniques that nevertheless starkly challenge the construction of the typical Disney

I dug into a study that shows the different effects that Disney princesses play in the lives of children. This study focuses on body image, gender roles, and the portrayal of love. The author focuses on three different eras of princesses: the first era covers Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1959); the second era covers The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995), and Mulan (1998); and the most recent era covers The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Brave (2011), and Frozen (2013) (England et. al., 2011). The first era princesses display compliancy toward traditional female gender roles and stereotypical beauty, such as a petite body and pretty face. As time has gone on princesses are becoming more egalitarian, heroic, and athletic. Although Disney shows changes in their independence, princesses continue to acquire beauty and have become more sexualized. In the second era of princesses we see that they possess a provocative look and still find their happily ever after with a prince (England et al., 2011).