The Hidden Gender Stereotypes in the Animations the Little Mermaid and Tangled

Stefan Babich, a blogger for Periscope Magazine, a blog for women.Wrote a online article in 2011 that Brings up an issue many of us might not have even knew existed, that there is a lack of female protagonists in Pixar films. Babich brings up many points that are important to think about, because whether we realise it or not films,books,video games, and the media in general, at times do treat women to be less than their male counterparts.

When examining The Little Mermaid from a feminist perspective, it becomes clear that the little mermaid is a misogynistic tale that glorifies a woman’s dependence on men and the objectification of women.

Watch the movie Tangled and you’ll find yourself hooked, desiring the knowledge of what’s next. While watching this movie, two main literary themes became apparent. Disney's Tangled is the story of a stolen girl trapped in a castle with her captor as a mother. Throughout the story, Rapunzel wants nothing more but to leave her . Tangled’s plot employs many gender stereotypes and shows a large socio-economic divide.

Mulan is an animated film that was released in 1998 from Disney during third wave feminism, which features an Asian woman protagonist. She is a Disney princess, but at first glance you wouldn’t think so. Mulan is introduced as a clumsy tomboy who did not think she would ever bring honor to her family. In order to accomplish said honor, she would have to by being the perfect bride, in accordance with the matchmaker. The film has a great amount of feminist ideals, however, it doesn’t leave out stereotypical gender roles and several examples of overdetermined ideologies. Patriarchy is very prevalent in this film, from the woman characters positions, down to the songs they sing throughout the film, patriarchy is a theme that cannot be missed. This paper will discuss how feminine and masculine stereotypes are conveyed in the film, how gender stereotypes are portrayed, and of the patriarchal themes included in the film.

Growing up watching Disney movies you never notice how sexist they really are. I always watched The Little Mermaid, but watching it now is very different. When you are younger you just watch things because you like them, you do not necessarily understand them. As you get older you realize what you were really being taught. Walt Disney’s movie The Little Mermaid displays a lot of sexism and displays how society should see women and how women should act.

All of the heroes and princesses in the Disney Princess films are hyper-heterosexual – they fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. However, the Disney villains are not, cross the gender boundaries by displaying masculine or feminine characteristics that oppose their sex. Through the portrayal and association of gender fluidity with evil, young girls, and children in general, associate being different with being bad. Several of the Disney villains display gendered behavior that opposes their sex.

I have chosen to research the portrayal of gender roles in Disney Movies (specifically Snow White, Cinderella, and The Little Mermaid). The term gender is used to describe the socially constructed differences between men and women, I will be investigating the portrayal of the male and female characters to see how today’s society respond to and accept the gender roles portrayed in the films. As well as this, I will analyse how these gender roles have changed over time, by comparing today's gender roles with Disney’s classic ones. The cross cultural aspect will also explored, to see the way different cultures, particularly Indian cultures, respond to the gender role portrayal in these films. I will research the gender roles in Indian societies

Children tend to think that their whole life revolves around who they are in high school or middle school, as if there is no life outside of it. To learn ways to fit into their environment, they look over to the easiest and most relatable source they have, which are movies and television shows. During their journey to find themselves they often stumble upon stereotypes that they don’t live up to, which can lower their self-esteem gradually. Disney has been the main source of children entertainment for decades now but the classic Disney are so beloved that not that many people talk about the gender stereotypes in them. We can see these is movies like, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" where the men are shown as incompetent creatures who don’t

The Disney’s beloved new age film “Tangled”, is extremely complex and diverse compared to previous princess depictions. Filled with life lessons and finding courage, overall quenching the thirst for adventure, this film has created a new form of Disney Princess movies, surrounded by choices and life’s small moments. Tangled is based on is a enchanting retelling of the classic story book of Rapunzel with a modern twist entailing a rebellious teen, an evil “mother” and a compelling thief on the run. “Some people argue that Disney is a corporation that has not only failed to address racial stereotypes and gender norms, but enable them subliminally while hiding behind a display of magic and fantasy” (King). However, Disney’s “Tangled” film challenges

This story, like many other Disney stories, involves a young, naïve girl who is easily and illogically swayed by the good looks and charm of the handsome man, the same heterosexual and misogynistic fairy tale that is constantly recreated in each of Disney’s movies. The same company that retold classic fables like Cinderella, Pocahontas, and Sleeping Beauty, notoriously exploits, objectifies, and hypersexualizes women’s bodies and femininity and has created a multibillion dollar industry that profits from its demeaning ideals that negatively categorizes and homogenizes women. The Little Mermaid is no exception in the way it portrays beauty in terms of youth, smallness, and a ‘pretty singing’ voice, thus subliminally sending the message to its youthful audience that women must ‘prove’ their womanhood to men, the ultimate and most important judges or they are in fact inauthentic and flawed. This story also idealizes and constructs ways that feminism is falsely related to sexuality, consequently assuming that women’s transition from childhood to womanhood is influentially provoked by their sexual curiosity and promiscuity, and unable to resist the opposite sex’s carnal advances. Arial is just another example of the ways in which Disney ritually practices invoking inferior complexes to the linkage of women, depicting them as susceptible and needy of the dramatically hypermasculinized men, insinuating their superiority as the saviors of these women. This, however, poses the idea that this antiquated idealism may potentially emanate from patriarchal society’s intimidation by the threatening challenge women pose to masculinity if these sexist ideas were to ever cease. Undeniably, The Little Mermaid is another classical children’s tale that has

The problem lies with Disney as a media mogul targeting children throughout most of their lives through TV, movies, and commercials. This is not a new idea. Parents and scholars alike have taken notice over the last few decades about how Disney targets young children. In a study about gender roles and Disney princesses, the researchers discuss the different characteristics given to male and female characters in Disney’s princess movies. They found that the males in these movies were portrayed at strong, unemotional, and independent.

The original draft more generally based and less clear of what the exact thesis and argument was because I focused on other dynamics, such as patriarchy, in which I needed to narrow. Overall in the final prospectus, I argued that there are sexist themes portrayed in The Little Mermaid and the importance of analyzing and identifying these are because it is so prevalent and affective in real life society. Every argument has a purpose and a goal, and the goal with writing this paper is to bring awareness of this type of rhetoric in films in order to avoid falling or accepting its skewed

When someone mentions the name “Cinderella”, the first thing that usually comes to our minds is the fairytale in which the fair maiden who works so hard yet it treated so poorly gains her “fairytale ending” with a wave of a magic wand. However, the fairytale of Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers has multiple differences in plot from the fairytale we all usually think of. The plot of the Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers, written in 1812, is that a young female’s mother passes away early in the story, departing with the message to Cinderella to remain “pious and good”. Cinderella remained true to this message given to her by her mother, and she showed this in her work ethic. Because Cinderella had remained pious and good, her mother, in return, watched over her in the form of the birds above her grave that gave Cinderella help and material things that she needed. In the end, Cinderella has her “happily ever after”, for when the prince held a festival to find a new bride, she was chosen due to her insurmountable beauty. The feminist lens critiques how females are commonly represented in texts, and how insufficient these representations are as a categorizing device. These representations of women often include them being passive and emotional—staying back while the men do the work. Cinderella relates to the feminist lens because she fits into the typical representations of women created by men. Feminist criticism is important to recognize because women are often falsely represented as helpless, thus needing a man to come to their rescue. It is common in literature to see helpless women, crying and begging for help instead of being able to work out their own problems and hardships. Others, however, may believe that it is still important to uphold the fundamentals of the feminist lens because it keeps the man in power, which they say is important in keeping the man the head of the household. Cinderella thoroughly represents the feminist lens because it shows how women in literature uphold the representations of passive and emotional, created by the man.

Disney movies, especially those with a female protagonist, have been influencing the idea of femininity and beauty ever since the first Disney Movie “Snow White And the Seven Dwarfs” debuted in 1937. The depiction of female characters has been depended on the social and cultural expectations and stereotypes of the contemporary society. Therefore, the representation of female characters has been undergoing constant changes over the decades.

Hello, my FOA is about how the language and plot that showed gender stereotypes in Disney princess movies have changed according to change in culture over time.