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Stereotypes In The Movie 'A History Of Toy Story'

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Around two years after the first Toy Story movie was released, production had already begun on a second film (“A History of Toy Story”). Long time Disney employee Floyd Norman was the story artist and helped with animation of the film (“A History of Toy Story”). He helped to come up with the newly introduced characters including Bullseye, Stinky Pete, and Jessie: (Disney) who was originally known as Senorita Cactus (“A History of Toy Story”). Jessie essentially became one of the most important characters, highlighting her past, where she was forgotten by her owner (“A History of Toy Story”). Her character is played as a tough female figure who acts as Woody’s partner and tries to convince him not to return home so the same events don’t occur …show more content…

This character can most likely be assumed to be played with by female children due to stereotypes that contain gender differences between cowboys and cowgirls, such as the separation from the male toy version, Woody. She has colors that include brown, yellow, blue, red, white, and black which are typically gender neutral in this case. Jessie also features a talking mechanism that consists of a ring attached by a string that produces over thirty different spoken phrases when pulled (Disney). This figure is soft with a harder head, belt, boots, and detachable cowgirl hat (Disney). The body’s stances can be manipulated in a variety of ways (Disney). The toy is covered in typical western style clothes that have prints and patterns. The word Andy is written on the bottom of her right boot. This doll can be played with by creating motions of walking, fighting, and other actions due to possible engrams that relate cowgirls to “Wild West” stereotypes, such as showdowns and chasing trains, along parts of the movie that feature similar …show more content…

Characteristics such as these mentioned can be seen in toys determining so much about a toys identity and what they represent. Studies have shown that these qualities also have an immense effect on what audience or gender group interacts with the toys along with the overall marketing of toys. A partnered experiment run by the departments of psychology at The University of Cambridge and The University of Hong Kong observed toddlers playing with two gender-typical toys, once in gender-typical colors and once in gender typical colors (Wong and Hines). These assessments occurred twice, for four minute periods, at two different age groups that included twenty to forty months of age and twenty-six to forty-seven months of age (Wong and Hines). After, results between sex and toy choice along with sex and color were collected. It was found that “Boys played more with the train than girls did and girls played more with the doll and with pink toys than boys did” (Wong and Hines). At both time collections, boys and girls combined played more with the gender-atypical toy when its color was typical for their sex than when it was not (Wong and Hines). After reviewing the results, it is suggested that once children develop gender-typical color preferences, they begin to influence their toy preferences, especially those for gender-atypical toys and

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