Hi, everyone. As you may have noticed, Disney is mentioned in two of our class readings (“Media Representation and the Global Imagination” and “Differing Traditions of Research on International Media Influence”). I thought this topic would make for some decent blogging/discussion as identity tells us who we are, where we come from, and often who we will become. I’m aware that Ograd said that it’s near impossible to analyze this, but let’s play with it anyway.
Princesses vs. Evil Spinsters
In the animated Disney films which primarily feature human beings, there is at least one of two distinct types of women represented: the princess and/or the witch. This pattern has existed since the release of “Snow White” in 1937 and can be identified in recent films such as “The Princess and the Frog” which was released in 2009. Most of the films are female-oriented, so I’m choosing to critique the representation of the females, but I welcome any comments about male roles as well.
To start, most Disney films feature a “princess type” protagonist (or supporting character) such as “Snow White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Little Mermaid,” Jasmine from “Aladdin,” and “Cinderella.” She’s not always a princess, but she’s young, beautiful (with a waistline smaller than her head and normally light-skinned), love-struck, delicate, and usually a damsel in distress. She has little to no power over her life and frequently has “Daddy issues”- meaning her father isn’t in the picture or he’s overbearing. Whether or not she realizes it, partner-seeking is her number one priority and there are characters around her to help her realize this. Via the wise words from fairies, witch doctors, and village people, eventually she realizes that a man will change her life for the better. In some cases, the misguided little lamb will make outrageously asinine decisions like choosing to sell her voice and never see her family again in order to marry her dream man (The Little Mermaid, 1989). Other times, she needs to be locked away in a castle with a wolf-man for a few months before she realizes that she loves him (Beauty and the Beast, 1991). If she wants to be taken seriously in other aspects of her life, she has to become a man to do so (Mulan, 1998).
If young girls don’t wish to be delicate and powerless, they have another choice. They can choose to be the miserable “spinster/witch type” antagonist character which isn’t featured in every Disney film but is definitely an identity that old Walt felt the need to portray. She’s got all of the power she could ever want, but she’s also old, unattractive, jealous, vengeful, and sometimes has an unnatural skin color like green or purple so we all know that she’s not to be trusted (The Little Mermaid, 1989 and Sleeping Beauty, 1986). Her jealously toward the “princess” will drive her to do anything from locking the “princess” away (Cinderella, 1950) poisoning the “princess” or attempting to harvest her organs (Snow White, 1937).
Although, Disney films are most definitely changing with time and are beginning to represent a wider range of people, but now that we understand these two major female identities featured in Disney’s films, one has to wonder: Are these identities reflections of real women or were they created, constructed and manifested throughout the years? What is this multinational mass media corporation trying to communicate to Americans and to the rest of the world about women?
I have no doubt that this insistence of marriage has something to do with the fact that a few of these films are based on old-timey tales from a time when all a woman could do with her life was get married- not to mention that Walt Disney grew up in the early 1900s. Walt was probably reflecting beauty standards in his princesses (young, light skinned and thin) and this is still the standard today which Disney is trying to change, but that doesn’t explain the old, ugly yet powerful woman. Did Walt simply need to juxtapose the two to highlight the beauty of the princess, or is there something else happening? Is this some kind of comparison between good and evil? Maybe. It’s difficult to take a position between reflectionist and constructionist theory, but this is simply one reason for my personal distaste for Disney.
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post on Disney films and their perpetuation of female co-dependence, western notions of beauty, and the convention that ambition equals evil (which also signifies physical offensiveness, apparently).
ReplyDeleteAn element of Disney that has always proven to be thought provoking to me is the flip side of what you present here; the male role. Or rather, the evolution of the male role. Early in the twentieth century, male characters were portrayed as strong yet mysterious, extremely good looking individuals, usually covered in muscles, and ultimately saving the main female to transform her life into 'happily ever after.' But, around the 1980's, this static character begins to not be so static. The males evolve from the savior type, to being emotionally confused victims (at times), that often need saving themselves.
The Little Mermaid (1989), for example, shows the Prince needing to be saved from the evil sea witch, Ursula, because she has put a curse on him. Another instance is Beauty and the Beast (1991), in which the greed and arrogance of the 'beast' leaves him helpless to a curse that can only be broken by the pure and true love of another. And finally, the movie Mulan (1998) all but eliminates that once required male machismo element, when the heroine Mulan becomes her own savior.
So, in response to your post, do you think that Disney (the corporation at this point, not Walt) recognized the need to diversify the broad spectrum of human emotions for all its characters, not just within specific gender roles? Or was this in response to the second wave of feminism that took place from the 60's-80's? I don't really know for sure, but I do know good ol' Walt played a defining role in my childhood. Whether it was through encouraged creativity, or unrealistic expectations, through media, he became a fixture among the generations.
Sam, great post! You brought up a lot of issues that go along with the female roles in Disney movies. The messaging that comes along with some of the Disney films is quite concerning! Not only have the films illustrated the role of women for our societies youth for many many decades but they have contributed other messages which are concerning to equality, beauty and many other values. For instance, think back to "The Little Mermaid", remember how Arial was able to go "search for her true love"? She had to make a deal with the evil Ursula! By selling her beautiful voice Arial was able to have legs and go search for the dark handsome man. Now, what other well know character in our society (and many others) does Ursula remind you of? The Devil! Arial had to sell part of herself to the Devil in order to achieve what she truly wanted in life. Now if you ask me that is not a positive message to be relaying to our youth!
ReplyDeleteLets take another movie into consideration...um..."The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Quasimodo saves the life of the women he is in love with. She begins to accept him for who he is, despite his physical flaws. When things are looking good for the two of them, a new character is introduced. A tall, mysterious and good-looking guy! All the loyalty and good heartedness that Quasimodo showed to the women he was in love with, now just don't matter to her. What does this message say? The way I interpret it, regardless of how caring and nice you are, looks will prevail.
Now, Chelsea you also have some great points in regards to the evolution of the female Disney role. In the more recent films you do not see the females as the "helpless girl" they are either played as equals or as the dominant character that creates the happy ending. Lets look at the movie "Tangled". The female role was not just swooped off of her feet and saved by the all-amazing prince charming. Her character was seen as having just as much of an influence on the positive outcome in the stories ending. Even further, she is the one who pushed the lead male character to be a more ethical person by influencing him not to lie or steal any more. How about another movie, "Brave" (by the way, I love this movie). Brave was a deviant from the norm. Her father and mother would tell her that she needed to learn how to become prim and proper so that she could become a great queen/desirable wife one day! Well, that didn't suit Brave's (the main character) desires at all! She defied her mother and father's wishes. In the end, she was the one who saved to story and brought about the happy ending. The female role! Now, talk about evaluation of Disney's female roles! We went from the damsel in distress to the women who saved it all! Now, if you ask me, I think that women's roles in today's society have a large influence on the topic we are pointing to here...
Anyhow, great job both of you! See you soon!
Nice Post!
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up with Disney films as well I think it’s definitely a relevant question to ask what the root and origin of the characterizations and roles are that we create and define.
I think Jeremy and Chelsi both made some good points that some of the newer films are meeting more of our cultural needs in terms of diversity and variety. Growing up though, I must admit, I always found it strange that Disney movies often lacked mothers or maternal figures in general. Maybe that just stuck out to me growing up in a single parent household, but honestly, the only Disney films I remember off the top of my head that had moms were Bambi, and we all know what happened there, and the Lion King, but she had a very minor role in the story. That was actually the first thing that stuck out to me when I saw Brave (which I also loved), that the mother figure had such a key and integral role in the plot.
Sam, I think you’re definitely right in regards to much of the imagery and symbolism having old roots. In fact, if we dig a little deeper, I have a theory as to the origins of the old, ugly witch as a common nemesis.
Let’s start with the obvious looking at Germany in the early 1800’s, with the renowned linguists, the Brothers Grimm. Much of the early Disney stories are adapted from their works; such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. But the brother’s themselves did not actually write most of these stories. As linguists, the brothers were originally famous for compiling the first ever dictionary known. They travelled the country-side, collecting linguistic data to develop the best definitions for the German language. Through their travels though, they ventured to many German speaking lands, and they discovered some peculiar trends and commonalities behind local tales and folk-lore. As a side note; Germany did not yet exist as a nation state, but instead was a collection of hundreds of tiny, independent principalities that had just been ravaged by Napoleon and the French army. (It’s here we find the roots of Nationalism as an ideology starting to take place, but that’s another topic for another time).
The Brothers Grimm took it upon themselves to collect as many of these tales as they could, most of which were already hundreds of years old. For stories that shared common plots and characterizations, they adapted what they thought would have been closest to the original and published them in the collection we know today as Grimm’s Fairy-tales. Interestingly enough, one of the themes they themselves noted from their studies was the propensity of evil step parents, and dead parents, particularly mothers. Anthropologists attribute this to the fact that the percentage of mother’s dying at birth was significantly higher during the Middle Ages, not to mention disease and the plague, so missing parents and step parents was a standard theme in those times. Hence why there is a often a lack of back-story in these tales for parental loss; it was just assumed and taken for granted back then.
Now let’s briefly consider Hans Christian Anderson, who wrote other iconic fairy-tales such as the Little Mermaid, Thumbelina and the Princess and the Pea. Being from Denmark, He was also inspired by much of the same stories and lore, incorporating many of the old themes and trends that were prevalent in the Grimm tales.
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ReplyDeleteThese themes have their roots in ancient Norse Mythology; the legends of the people from the Scandinavian and Germanic world. The legends and mythology even left their mark in the English speaking world of childhood stories in the collection of Mother Goose rhymes. Most of the rhymes just come off as silly and nonsensical, but many of them have roots to ancient tales. Jack and Jill, for example, refers to an old story also found in the norse legends called Hjúki and Bil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hj%C3%BAki_and_Bil). It is about a brother and sister that were sent to fetch Mead (or water) for their father (stories vary), and on their way back home, they accidently spilt the contents. They were too afraid to confess to their father what happened, and the kind Moon taking pity, kidnapped them forever, never returning them even after they decided to go back. The moral was that it was better to confess to your parents, because although it might seem scary, running away or hiding could have dire results. Over a thousand years, the meaning in the rhyme has become lost to the average person. There is still debate whether these tales were condensed to rhymes that could easily be repeated to children without telling the whole story every time so they could remember the values and morals of their culture; or if the heavy influence of the Church in England starting in the 1000’s forced society to encrypt their cultural heritage and old-ways through funny rhymes that were ultimately forgotten. Probably a bit of both.
Understanding how themes and stories have evolved now, I present us with a character from the Norse Pantheon; Loki. Some might recognize the name from the film ‘The Avengers’, but he did play a critical role in Norse mythology as the god of Mischief. In his epic, he marries the queen of the frost giants, whose name was Hag. And there is no coincidence, she is the origin, and the name still embodies the chilling stigma that it did a millennia ago. She was supposed to be a strong, magical, wizened, woman but with an ugly, dark, malevolent nature. It’s no surprise that she became synonymous with witches in terms of imagery, even the funny coloring of blue or green (she was a frost giant). You could say the modern notion of the witch is Hag transcribed into modern culture (This isn’t the only example, ask me about Santa sometime). The Middle Ages, of course, were the time of the great witch hunts, as people of the old-faiths were condemned or converted in wake of the spread of Christianity. New converts would have obvious knowledge of the old ways, and would have still found power and relevance in invoking the old terms, which is why the word itself wasn’t lost. Later generations would have been familiar with the general idea of the word, but as the old generations died out and without a writing system or access to the old knowledge, the word just became a word. But the image was left in the cultural psyche, and the presence of the ‘old hag’ and ‘old crone’ was written into stories like Hansel and Grettle, Snow White… you name it. She was an icon of the times.
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ReplyDeleteMost of these stories came from long oral traditions before being written down only 200 years ago. Disney himself grew up out of a semi oral tradition, as these stories were probably read and shared the old fashioned way with the family. As far as Disney’s interpretation and imagery, yeah, I’m sure he added a bit of 40’s/50’s culture to it. He had to to make it relatable to the audience. And he certainly watered the stories down quite a bit from the originals. But those were the times. I think we need to be careful how much credit we give Disney for creating a stigma of roles, because the notions had been around for eons. He just merely ascribed the ‘image’ that standardized it in everyone’s mind, so it became his ‘brand’. But overall, I’d attribute his imagery to little more than inherent cultural bias.
The challenge we have today is looking at the past through the lens of our modern moral code. And it’s difficult not to. With how fast communications are growing and allowing access to all parts of the world, our expectations, knowledge and general understanding have exceeded everything we had before in relation to comprehending how our thoughts and actions affect the world around us, and what they mean in terms of cooperation and progress. We are in the age of questioning, and our criticism and critiques are nothing more than our modern way of trying to understand and give purpose and meaning to the world around us. It’s what we need now. To those ancient people, though, those strange and gruesome stories were their way of doing the same.
(I'm really sorry about how long this ended up being :S )
Sam, thanks so much for the post. I think it is super useful to analyze these issues in the context of something we all understand and are familiar with -- Disney movies! I really appreciated reading everyone's comments as well.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I wanted to build on/play a bit of devils' advocate with Jeremy's argument about the movie "Brave." I totally agree with you, Jeremy, that the creators of that movie were onto something new and innovative (in the context of Disney) when they chose to create what feels more like a "modern day" woman/girl with Brave. She certainly was not the "damsel in distress" and creates an alternative role model for little girls to admire. However, as a marketing initiative, Disney also has official "Disney Princesses" on their website and interactive games that kids can access.
Merida, the princess in Brave, was recently added to this group of designated princesses (like Cinderella, Belle, Pocahontas etc..) curiously, when she was added to represent the "Disney Princess Brand" her appearance was drastically altered from the one we see in the movie. Instead of a normal sized girl with tangly hair and a bit of a "rough around the edges" appearance, she is much thinner, wearing a beautiful and sparkly dress and has well-groomed hair and sparkling eyes. (see link -- no clue how to embed photos in comments section): http://totalfratmove.com/braves-disney-princess-merida-undergoes-makeover-before-official-induction-to-the-disney-princess-collection/
Is this new representation problematic for children who see both sides of Merida-- the before and after? What kind of message does this send? While kids, particularly little girls around the world, are told that they can be the hero (denotative messages), what is the connotation that comes with making the princess look significantly more glamorous and beautiful in order to qualify for the Princess Club.
I agree with Jeremy that Disney is certainly on the right track with their different methods of story-telling -- but I can't help but think that they aren't totally off the hook. What do you think?