Gender Roles in Animation

Watching the Disney animations in class brought back so many memories and made me giddy inside, I guess it’s just the magical spirit and the sense of imagination that is involved with these films. I can remember going to the hairdresser when I was little and asking them to make my hair look like a Princess’. These characters were my idols; they embodied everything that I wanted to be when I was young. However, now that I am matured it is interesting to re-watch these animations as they strike different feelings then before. Analyzing them now I still see why I loved them as a child but, I also now see all the false truths Disney creates through these animations. I cannot say I did not enjoy watching these Disney animations as they had interesting stories and messages. However, it is noticeable that Disney movies displayed women and men in very stereotypical roles and bodies. I found that the Disney movies can be seen as having a very sexist influence on children as they are some of the first thing’s children see and start to form their views of the world from. However, when we considered the society today, Disney movies only follow along with the sexual biases that exist in today's society. These sexual biases are most likely due to the time period in which the early animations were produced. The early animations such as “Snow White” and “Cinderella” were made around the time of WWII in which women did not have many opportunities to gain social independence. These animations support the strict gendered structure of society in which men dominate the public sphere. While watching the early animations of Disney it occurred to me that many of the heroes or rescuers in his films were male characters; whom the female lead character relied on. The one opportunity available to women during this time was to get married, as expressed in Cinderella. Women were portrayed as a princess, queen, or homemaker. Cinderella is a great example of this; she is left to stay in the same...