The Bechdel Test

Disney movies have been the leading outlets for child education and social learning. Due to such power of influence controversies have been raised which include the following, but not limited to, gender roles and stereotypes, issues of independence, and misrepresentation. Many people argue that despite the morals and messages that occur within such films there are still underlying messages that deal with beauty standards and norms. However, others may argue that Disney is evolutionary and evolved the imagery of male/female standards. The controversy then becomes: are Disney films doing more harm than they are good? Due to certain themes brought on by such movies, it has left younger audiences with both positive and

In current society today, technology is advancing at a rapid rate and with so much exposure to the media it is difficult to control what is being seen by children. Disney is one of the largest and most successful companies in the film industry. From children 4 years old to adults and every age in between, Disney has found a way to create films that entertain all ages. The seemingly innocent content of Disney movies are enjoyed from a very young age; however, behind the colorful and lighthearted storylines of many Disney films lies many unreasonable social ideologies that children may be subconsciously becoming accustomed to. In her work, “Where Do the Mermaids Stand,” Laura Sells discusses the hidden messages in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Sells explains how this movie expresses a hierarchy of gender and exaggerated femininity by demeaning the role of women in society. Susan Jeffords, author of “The Curse of Masculinity,” discusses similar ideologies in her article. This article looks at Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and focuses primarily the role of men and the how they perform to fit into this white male system by means of upholding hegemonic masculinity. The two articles “Where do the Mermaids stand” and “The curse of Masculinity,” bring to attention the reinforcement of the white male system, the racialization in the white male system, and the reinforcement of hegemonic masculinity in beloved childhood Disney movies.

According to Stephanie Hanes’ article titled “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect," she covers the story of Mary Finucane and her daughter, whom she observed and realized that she had changed abruptly from her usual playful self to a serious and more mature looking character despite her young age (509). Later she came to discover that this was because of the effects of the Disney programs that her daughter had begun watching. Hanes covers the issue of young girls growing up in a highly sexualized environment. Her article explains the influence that the media have on sexualizing the environment for kids through the biased images of women on the internet, books and even television. To support her notion, Hanes applies some

Not many companies can influence the childhood development of many Americans like the Walt Disney Company. Disney, named after their founder, began as just an animation studio called The Walt Disney Studios, which the company describes as “the foundation on which The Walt Disney Company was built”. Today, Disney produces various items targeted at children like toys, clothing, and animation (“Company”). In the paper, Images of Animated Others: The Orientalization of Disney’s Cartoon Heroines From The Little Mermaid To The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Celeste Lacroix of the College of Charleston assesses the portrayal of female heroines from Disney animated films that depicts human main characters, examining the sexualization of non-European or the “exotic” others, and brings to light Disney’s strategy to instill an attitude of consumerism in children. Despite my memorable sentiment with Disney animations as a child, I agree with Lacroix’s assertion that Disney impose consumerism onto children, especially with DVD commercials, tie-in products and “apps” on smartphones and tablets.

The Mickey Mouse Monopoly documentary reveals the obscure social messages behind the animated films created by the Disney Company. Although we are conditioned to believe that these movies are pure forms of entertainment, further examination has proved that there are hidden messages concerning gender, race and class that Disney is instilling in the minds of children. The speakers in the documentary argue that Disney is extremely political and hides its ideas behind innocence, magic and fun. When masked by features that are appealing to a younger audience, it is difficult to realize these ideas without taking a closer look.

Media is a powerful agent in entertaining children. It also influences and teaches the youth of society the suitable and appropriate gender roles that they inevitably try to make sense of. The power of media is very influential especially in the minds of the youth. Disney movies target the youth and plant certain ideas and concepts about social culture into the vulnerable minds of children. Media uses gender to its advantage, just like Disney productions. Humorous caricatures reveal some harsh realities about the portrayal of Disney Princesses in many movies made by the Walt Disney Company. Disney mixes innocence with the ultimate form of fantasy to capture an audience. Predominantly, Disney helps highlight the gender roles by showing the

Walt Disney over the years has impacted the lives of millions of children with his animated films. His Disney movies have evolved in the last years and have moved from the traditional damsel in distress theme. Specifically, the classic movie Cinderella gives the wrong idea about what it is to be a woman for young girls. The movie portrays a young woman facing emotional, mental, and physical abuse by her evil stepmother and later falls in love with a charming prince. However, if viewers take a closer look, Disney’s anti feminist message is firmly emphasized. The story of Cinderella is sexist due to it’s lesson to girls that beauty and submission will award them a rich bachelor. This is seen through Cinderella’s submissive behavior, Prince

perpetuated over the years throughout Disney’s movies. Disney is one of the largest media companies in the world. According to Forbes, the “net worth and market capitalization of Disney Company has been estimated as $103.96 billion in 2013” ("Walt Disney Company Net Worth - Celebrity Net Worth,”). From the premiere of the Steamboat Willie cartoons in 1928 Disney has transformed pop culture as we know it today. This paper is designed to look into four major issues gender identity, gender roles, ethnicity, social class throughout Disney’s Cinderella (1950) and Frozen (2013). I aim to show that in these films can be found a subtle manual for social norms, a supplier of dominant family values. I will assess certain sociological concepts that are represented in these films namely ‘The American Dream’, standardization, pseudo-individualism and the creation of false needs. As a society, the understanding of these issues are instrumental to our being since our identity is often distorted through long term norms, ideals and merits set forth through these animated films.

Like most of you, I was only able to do the first part of the test. I received a score of 17 out of 20. I do not like geometry, so I am pretty happy with the score I got. Even though the results stated that men score higher than women due to their good spatial judgments skills, but I think some women are better at it than men and vice versa. Nevertheless, it was a pretty fun quiz. From reading other students' posts, I came across an article that really caught my interest. "10 Famous Films That Surprisingly Fail The Bechdel Test" by Ashe Cantrell blew my away.

For decades now, Disney Corporation has been providing us with countless films made to delight and amuse children and adults alike. But not all Disney films seem particularly appropriate for their target audience. Many of these films portray violence, gender inequality, and skewed views of leadership roles that seem altogether inappropriate for impressionable young children. Better and more contemporary heroines need to be added to Disney’s wall of princesses in order to counteract years of sexism.

Many young children grow up watching Disney films. Many parents do not think that these movies could have a negative impact on their children. Henry Giroux, who wrote the book, “The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence” is a firm believer that Disney films have a negative impact on the children that watch them. For several generations Disney films have been a huge part of children’s lives, but many parents do not realize how these films can negatively impact their children. Disney films can teach young children stereotypes, how to deal with life events such as death and they can learn negative ideas and values from these films.

Disney movies bring a rush of joy, imagination, and excitement within little children whenever Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and/or Snow White pops up on the screen. The bright colors and exciting story makes them want to watch Disney movies again and again. Their dreams circle around finding their own prince charming and living happily ever after. Disney send lovely messages within their movies implying to never give up on one’s dreams, but if one analyzes these movies on a deeper level a few concepts come into play, misogyny, and patriarchy.

The biggest challenge while researching and writing this paper was strictly presenting scholastic and objective arguments in order to avoid bias and reduce critics’ opportunity to discredit or delegitimize my work, especially those who oppose feminism. Presenting a rebuttal statement and then counteracting it with more critical arguments of how that specific repudiation is problematic, acknowledges critical audiences’ concerns while remaining adamantly strong in my stance. I was conscious to pay the respected attention to detail when selecting rhetoric language as it conveys the appropriated tone and mood of the paper to the reader as it represents the film. Just as typical research papers require, my primary source, The Little Mermaid, is immediately and easily identifiable within the paper, and unlike most scholarly works, the analyzed topic is the primary source itself. However, the problematic dynamics the film presents based on the sexist theme it poses, may be too broad and largely based without adequately supportive and specified examples from the film. This was another one of the concerns I had when I first began to construct my paper because there were so many different examples of female

Cramped in a small Los Angeles office, Walt Disney drew a few larger than life cartoons. After Disney’s big hit Alice Comedies and cartoons of Mickey and the gang, he moved his office to Burbank, California. There, Walt and his brother, Roy, came up with their most famous movies such as Cinderella, Snow White, and Alice in Wonderland. Now with two American amusement parks, three international parks, multiple cruise lines, multiple resorts, over five hundred films, and over thirty academy award, it’s hard to not heard of Disney. Every boy or girl has at least seen or heard of Disney movies. It’s such a big part of society today that it becomes influential in a kid’s childhood. This project will look at the underlying effect of the Disney princess phenomenon and how it shapes a young girls’ perspective of herself and how she’s “supposed” to be.

In line with this, only 9% of directors of the top 250 domestic grossing films of 2015 were women (Lauzen, 2016). This is an incredibly low statistic if you take into consideration that women account for 50.4% of the entire population. Furthermore, although there have been 88 Academy Award ceremonies since 1929, it was only during the 82nd Academy Awards last 2010 that a woman, Kathryn Bigelow, won an Oscar for Best Director for her movie, The Hurt Locker. To this day, no female director has won since. On the other hand, women only account for 11% of writers, 22% of editors, 6% of cinematographers, 26% of producers, and 20% of the executive producers of the top 250 domestic grossing films of 2015 (Lauzen, 2016).