The depiction of women in all forms of media, including print, broadcasted and internet media, is constantly showing that they are the weaker of the two sexes. Gender. What is it? How does it make us who we are? Are we dependent on it? So many questions derive from this one word, gender. Gender, according to ITU is the ‘social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female’. There are so many different parts of the term gender and so many roles that each sex partakes in. One role that I have noticed amongst every form of media, weather it is in books or in movies is that women appear to be the weaker of the two sexes.
I don’t believe women are weak and there have been many changes in society to this day that agree
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I think Disney is the obvious choice to blame for the portrayal of weak women. I mean, Disney resolves around the idea that women need rescuing, that we are the damsels in distress. I, being 16, grew up watching Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel. All those movies have the same common motif, “that one day my prince will come”. In fact, the entire Disney princess’ movies collection seems to have the same story line. The endings all had the same idea involving being rescued or saved by a “prince charming”.
Another popular kid’s movie that was created, that did have some hope for the depiction of women was Shrek. The idea of the damsel in distress was turned on its head when Princess Fiona got the shock of her life when the big ogre showed up to rescue her. Fiona went from being the damsel to the sudden ‘I’m better than you’ attitude because Shrek didn’t live up to the typical “prince charming”.
However Shrek lost this powerful message by the end of the movie and completely threw it in the bag by the end of the third movie in the motion picture series when Fiona and Shrek got married and had a family. Yeah, it was sweet and had the message that it is wrong to judge people solely by their appearances alone, but it also showed the transformation that Fiona took to become “perfect” for Shrek.
When I am down in the dumps and just want to relax with a nice cup of hot cocoa and watch some romantic movie that makes every teenage girl reassess her life,
In the film Shrek, Fiona was waiting for her brave knight to rescue her so they may have their true love’s first kiss. Yet, Fiona does not find that. She soon realizes that her “brave knight” or true love, is an ogre named Shrek. She planned how it might have gone but it went completely opposite of that. Feminists like Wollstonecraft and Woolf wouldn’t approve of the way Fiona is portrayed in the film. In the film, Fiona is cursed with turning into an ogre at sun down until she receives a true love’s kiss. Fiona is portrayed as a princess waiting for her knight to kiss her so the curse may be broken. Her character is made to rely on a man to fix her problem, and make everything right. That is one thing Wollstonecraft and Woolf were against.
Shrek began as an animated movie from DreamWorks Studios in 2001 based on a children’s book of the same name. It was a huge success, spawning three sequels, a spin-off, and the musical adaption reviewed here. The movie, about the eponymous ogre hired to rescue Princess Fiona by Lord Farquaad, is an irreverent take on traditional fairy tale conventions, and subverts many of the most common archetypes found in fairy tales. Though tongue-in-cheek and at times slightly crude, the themes of reserving judgment and the value of friendship are distinct throughout.
The effects of the portrayal of the princesses can be positive or negative. Young girls have become more imaginative by watching Disney films. According to Stephanie Hanes (n.p.), “’For 75 years, millions of little girls and their parents around the world have adored and embraced the diverse characters and rich stories featuring our Disney princesses.... [L]ittle girls experience the fantasy and imagination provided by these stories as a normal part of their childhood development’.” Also, children are encouraged to believe and hope. In most Disney movies, the characters convey the message that we can believe in true love (10 DISNEY MOMENTS THAT PROVE LOVE IS ALIVE AND WELL
I agree with Lazarus’s statements about traditional Disney princess movies being sexist. In the early years of Disney movies, every princess movie involved a man saving a woman or it involved a woman conforming for a man. Other examples that support Lazarus’s statement would be Sleeping Beauty, where the princess is caught in a deep sleep and needs a kiss from a prince to wake her up. Or
He ripped her from her family, would yell at her if she chooses not to entertain her and would manipulate her into thinking that he can’t live without her. “We have examples like Beauty and The Beast, where the argument was that this a strong and powerful woman, and why is she so strong and powerful? Because she’s reading a book… Well then reality is just pseudo feminism because ultimately in Beauty and The Beast she marries a batterer.”4 This movie is teaching our young girls that if a man treats you this way its ok, you can love someone even though they do not treat you the right way. Disney makes the woman seem sexy and seductive, like the princesses Ariel. Ariel is gorgeous with a curvy body, long hair and a voice to match.4 this makes our girls think about is this will look when they are older and if you look like Ursula who’s big and isn’t the ideal “beautiful” woman.5 Makes it seem as if that you happen to look like this you do not have the possibility of becoming a
Shrek conveys the idea of true love and appearances while putting a twist on the classic idea. It limits the idea of finding a true love at first sight and the damsel must be saved by her true love, a knight in shining armor. Rather, the damsel in distress is rather not a damsel in distress, but rather a superb fighter who can handle herself well and does not need the help of a knight in shining armor. The knight in shining armor happens to be an ogre in dirty armor he takes from the bodies of dead knights. Throughout Shrek’s quest to save Fiona, they are kept apart by the appearance of a princess and an ogre. Shrek is an ogre who turns out to be the knight in shining armor for Fiona, a princess who is not a damsel in distress.
“People learn more from media than any other single source of information” (Missrepresentation). This quote exemplifies how society learns and creates their standards about people, places, and things. All sources and mediums of media impact billions of lives every day. The media holds this power over society and it’s time to change that; especially when it comes to the media’s view of women. Women are constantly being misrepresented. This misrepresentation of women in the media is negatively impacting America by corrupting both the youth and adults. This is occurring because of the hyper-sexualization of women, wrongly portraying women in leadership positions, and creating stereotypes of women in movies and television.
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.
I agree with Lazarus’s statements about traditional Disney princess movies being sexist. In the early years of Disney movies, every princess movie involved a man saving a woman or it involved a woman conforming for a man. Other examples that support Lazarus’s statement would be Sleeping Beauty, where the princess is caught in a deep sleep and needs a kiss from a prince to wake her up. Or how
The Disney Company has received much criticism with regards to their princesses and the roles of feminism portrayed in their movies. Many believe that the way the princesses are portrayed depict a negative view of women and present a stereotypical view of the woman’s role in society (Bailey).
Fiona, starting out as a beautiful princess and turning into an ogre herself, gives the same example of gender representation as Shrek. One very interesting thing about her character in addition to her perfect behavior as a princess and expecting Prince Charming to rescue her, which represents her feminine character as typical, is her masculine characteristics that are much unexpected, such as burping and fighting like men when she gets attacked by Robin Hood and his men in the first movie. Also, the way in which she is scared that that Shrek would not like her as an ogre, is something that is unusual, however, shows some feminine aspects of society, such as being afraid for not being accepted or liked based on appearance. Her support towards Shrek in the second movie when she rather walks away and cry by herself, also underlines her femininity, through the scene of her Feminine speech where she is trying to encourage the good relationship between Shrek and her family, inviting everyone into conversation. Hence, her character displays the idea of a shift from masculine to feminine characteristics which clearly demonstrates that sometimes gender characteristics might shift according to personalities, and people should not really stereotype gender because it is relative to the individual. As far as
Throughout history, women have been portrayed as submissive characters in all forms of stories. This is especially evident in the Disney versions of commonly known fairy tales. Not only are the female characters most often subservient to the domineering male characters, but they are frequently passive as well.
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.
However, a close analysis of a particular scene in Shrek produces a complete subversion of this expectation. This scene, which begins with Princess Fiona frying and serving eggs as a peace offering to Shrek and Donkey for her unreasonable behavior the day before, portrays the princess as a contemporary woman. It goes on to show her single-handedly fighting off
The Disney film “The Lion King” is a great example of how females are seen as subordinate to males. Giroux states, “All of the rulers of the kingdom are men, reinforcing the assumption that independence and leadership are tied to patriarchal entitlement and high social standing” (Greene 582). This is the case for most Disney films that the male characters have power over the female characters. The female characters are depicted as weak and dependent on the male characters. This can give young girls the wrong idea of what type of roles they should take on. If they keep seeing female characters being portrayed as weak and dependent on males they may think that they should be the same way. However, not all of the female characters in these movies are portrayed the same way.