Television, Music And Games Help Build Society 's Knowledge About The Unknown

These gender stereotypes of fairy tales constructed and conditioned the society to conform to the social norms imposed by the representation of women and men. As Zipes stated, children are conditioned to assume and accept arbitrary sex roles that they perceived from fairy tales (3). Portrayals in fairy tales presented dichotomies among men and women: good and evil, beautiful and ugly and lastly is the dominating and submissive. These dichotomies expected a gender to choose only one and assume that the other gender will embody the opposite. Also, ‘Fairy tales influence a gender ideology that encourages an obsession with physical appearance and dependence on men for financial and social security’ (Louie, 76). By portraying the female characters as subordinate in fairy tales, this naturalizes the role of women as passive. Men, on the other hand, should fulfill his role as the brave saviour and provider to women. Portraying men in the positive light and the women in the negative way repeatedly in literature formulated stereotypes among texts and in the society. This resulted to the women internalizing and embracing

In her article, “Fairy Tales and a Dose of Reality,” Catherine Orenstein is aware of the fact that most readers associate “Cinderella” with images of “true love” and “happily ever after.” In her argument, however, she challenges these concepts. She examines the difference of fairy tales based on different eras, this helps the reader better understand society’s perception based on the time period. She discusses how television’s fairy tales have affected today’s society, this helps the reader understand how television has changed our opinion of love. She also questions if reality TV is really real or just a staged lies that help the actors get a profit.

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.

This showed girls that the man was more important and that they had to hide in the mans shadow per say. Pollitt had said that “Little girls learn to split their consciousness, filtering their dreams and ambitions through boy characters while admiring the clothes of the princess” (Pollitt, 1991) and this was correct. Ken was always the one who had an important job. These jobs included but were not limited to a doctor, rockstar and professional tennis player. The fact that he was in the Army, also showed us that men are more powerful then women”. Pollitt had said that “Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys” (Pollitt, 1991) and she was right. It is shown a great deal in the TV show between Barbie and Ken. Due to the fact that little girls do not know any better, they accepted this as the norm. They thought that in order to be perceived as perfect and accepted into society, they had to demonstrate the same characteristics and physical features as Barbie did. Not only this, but they begin to think that they are not superior to men. Children's minds are shaped at a very young age and will continue to carry this with them for the rest of their lives. Once a child has their mindset that this is how they must act and present themselves, they will continue to do that for years to come.

Every little girl has seen at least one of the Disney Princesses movies and have played pretend as if they were a princess. They dressed in the costumes and parade around the house as if they were waiting on their Prince Charming, but are Disney Princesses bad for little girls? Are they forcing little girls to grow up faster and more provocative? Stephanie Hanes, a freelance journalist, wrote “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect” published October 3, 2011 in the Christian Science Monitor. In the article, Hanes argues that little girls tend to grow up faster because they watched Disney Princesses. The author of “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect” has an effective argument when using ethos, logos, pathos, and writing choice when explaining the effect that Disney Princesses have on little girls.

However, there’s something else these shows are teaching your kid. Your child is being exposed to gender norms. Gender norms are expectations society has set for both genders. While a man may be strong and rigid, a woman must be soft and delicate. These expectations have and continue to significantly affect your child's life.

An in depth study orchestrated by Lori Baker-Sperry and Liz Grauerholz analyzed the correlation between sales of fairy tales and the emphasis the story placed on traditional feminine beauty standards in their essay “The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children’s Fairy Tales”. The study followed the sales of fairy tales from the 1900’s to the 2000’s to determine if feminine beauty in the stories was more common in times of “normative constraint” ( Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz 715). While there was no significant difference in the number of references to beauty of a specific gender, the feminine beauty ideal came with more standards in the tales. Stories used beauty to represent goodness and ugliness to represent poor character. Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz observed that during times of increasing female power in society, book sales increased for fairy tales that celebrate traditional feminine beauty standards. Throughout the essay, the authors argue that the feminine ideal found in the fairy tales “helps to maintain and legitimate the institution of gender” (Lorber 1994). According to the essay, as women spend time making themselves beautiful, they waste resources that men are putting into society. I do agree with Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz that feminine beauty standards are rigid and are often used as a form of constraint. However, I do not agree with their subtext of negative opinions on feminine beauty in general.

Numerous amounts of research have been conducted on elementary school children to reveal the effects of stereotypical Disney images in the media. In multiple Disney films, well established representations of female gender roles are conveyed to young female

Animated fairy tale movies directed to children are what children look up to and base their childhood around. These movies not only allow Halloween costumes and toys for children they shape the type of character a child wants to be. Unfortunately most of these fairy tale movies involve an extremely sexist plot as well mainly consisting of a damsel in distress and a big strong man ready to save her. The main Disney princesses that I think of Cinderella,

As a child, I watched several Disney movies over and over, and as I have entered college and taken women’s studies classes, I began to start questioning the influences Disney movies may have on children. Without knowing it, we are constantly being sent messages in society, including television and movies, like Disney movies. Disney movies are often shown to children at a young age and almost always, results in children watching these movies over and over. Disney films have several underlying messages that are often unconscious, but exposing children to these messages can lead children making unconscious connections and form stereotypes constructed on the movies they are exposed to. The purpose of this paper is to discuss under what conditions (if any), children should be shown Disney movies. First, I will summarize main points and findings

Children are the future—the next generation that will inherit the earth. And for that alone families try to instill the proper values into their children in order to teach them how to govern themselves when they become the deciding generation. This is done through social messages transmitted to younger generations. But as society’s values change, so too do the social messages. After all, only a few generations ago the role of homemaker was solely designated to the woman, and the idea of a woman working side by side by men seemed unfathomable. Now, women are widely accepted as equals to men. This radical change in how women are viewed can be partially attributed to the transformation in gender messages conveyed through various mediums. And nowhere is this change more evident than in Disney movies, one of many facets of gender messaging. The messages Disney movies used to convey with their classic princesses—Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty—and the ones they

First of all, a rather sexist view of women has emerged from the evolution of a variety fairy tales. In older versions of many fairy tales, on can see the female dominant, matriarchal societies through the strong female protagonists. For example, as Yolen reminds, “Cinderella until lately has never been a passive dreamer….The forerunners of the Ash-girl have been hardy, active heroines” (33). One of the earlier Cinderellas belonged to a hunting community where “most important is the function of a female. She was at the center of this society and maintained a nurturing element” (194). As time went by Zipes concludes, women lost their supremacy and “fairy tales…reinforced the patriarchal symbolic order based on rigid notions of sexuality and gender” (qtd. in Tatar 338). As Zipes explains, “the heroines in these fairy tales remain pathetic , passive, and pale in comparison to the more active characters”, usually the men, when compared to those of the first generation of fairy

Animation and cartoons are potent socializing agents for young children in the current era and children spend about thirty hours a week watching TV (Witt, 1999). Furthermore, cartoons and other shows are cultivating young children to understand the expectations associated with specific statuses. A status is a human created position in society (Ferrante 43). In addition, a role is “an expectation associate with a status” (Ferrante 52). The movie Cinderella is a cartoon motion picture created by Walt Disney in 1950. This movie displays traditional gender roles and sexism throughout the film. Though it may seem as a virtuous cartoon, this movie implements a patriarchal society where men are the only ones that are able to make decisions, subjects’

Once upon a time in a land not so far away, the society of man created the idea that it was a woman’s job to conform to the ideologies generated in fairy tales. From women depending on their prince charmings all the way to romanticized sexual abuse and lack of consent, stories like Cinderella and Snow White radiate sexism within an array of scenes of the stories and films. Not only does this affect the way that men view women, but it has had a relatively negative effect on the ways that many women view themselves. Many fairy tales have made their way into mainstream culture, and today many young girls and boys grow up hearing and seeing the subliminal messages in fairy tales. As more and more fairy tales make their way onto the big screen, it can be seen that all princesses seem to share a common feature other than their crowns and lack of self worth without a man by their side; their tiny waists. In recent years during the 21st century more and more people in the media have been calling out fairy tales for their anti-feminist attitudes with sexism, body standards as well as societal comments about women being dependent on men.

Human culture is filled with fairy tales. These fairies start out as simple but entertaining stories but as they get handed down from one generation to the next, they gradually become more than simply fairy tales. They grow and become bedtime stories for growing children as such play an important role in the children’s perception of the world and society in which they live in. One such popular fairy tale is (Cinderella, Cary & Anita, 52). It demonstrates that modern day fairy tales play a role in our society as subtle instructions for behaviors and morals that Children are supposed to follow. On the surface, it may come across as a very simple story on a young woman whose wishes eventually