Disneys Gennder Sonception

Disney's Gender conception.

Gender within Disney cartoons and film has been a recurring theme throughout his works life. Many critics have expressed there concerns with Disney and how he has portrayed gender stereotypes from his full length animated films to his actual screen films. When critics write of Disney's stereotyping of gender it all carry's out in the same themes of how women in the Disney dynasty are harmless and they are looking to be "saved" and how all of these themes are hidden through clever tactics which make it appealing to both the parents and children. While going through this paper you will find that three authors in our reading packets have discussed this subject of gender roles presented by Disney and are critiqued on how his characters in his films and cartoons act out these qualities that are especially stereotyping women and how they portray it in the films. These gender qualities that he uses in cartoons and films come out as being very subtle but convey a very powerful message that women and girls have only certain roles they can and should put forth to make for stable roles in nuclear home values and life. There are a handful of critics that have wrote articles on this in depth subject, three authors that I chose to discuss and compare the way they view Disney and his gender stereotyping are Elizabeth Bell, Susan Douglass and Chris Cuomo. These authors give us there insight into how Disney uses his gender casting throughout his movies.

Elizabeth Bell is an author from our reading packet and has written an article called Sommatexts at the Disney the Disney Shop Constructing the Pentimentos of Women's animated Bodies, in this article she describes how Disney is actually constructing the female form from the angelic princess to the plump fairy god mothers that are always happy and festive. Bell is the author throughout the packet that explains and breaks down Disney and his work of the female ideal and form into three separate types of feminine life cycles ranging from the beautiful young princess, the middle aged power hungry queen or ruler whom is jealous of the young and finally into the ever protecting fairy god mother that is not of any harm to anyone and is most likely looked at as the caretaker of the group then this cycle of femininity is recycled and used again to describe the same type of events as well as draw the line between good Females and Bad ones; as Bell herself putts it "within the language of Disney animation, the constructed bodies of women are somatic, cinematic and cultural codes that attempt to align audience sympathies and allegiance with the beginning and end of the feminine cycle, marking the middle as a dangerous, consumptive and transgressive realm"(147q). Bell uses these three life cycles to break up what Walt has done to classify women and what they stand for at each turning point in their lives. In the early years of the Disney Heroines she begins by describing this stage as the "dancing stage" or what the heading is called "Disney's Dancing Girls". This image of the dancer already puts into your mind that these girls are going to have stunning bodies carry them selves with grace but also acquire the helpless image and innocence of what Bell calls "the girl next door" look (147q). One way that Disney molds the images of his heroines in such titles as Sleeping beauty, Cinderella, Snow white and the Little Mermaid is by going into the real world and modeling these girls off of the big screen stars like Grace Kelly and popular toys such as the always idealized gender type the Barbie doll. Bell is describing also in this chapter of the article that all these heroines in the earlier Disney animated films were drawn "En Pointe" that of which a ballerina is taught to dance "En Pointe" to make her movements as graceful as possible but in the Disney world this is done to show that the girls of these films are possessing of "Beauty, Helplessness, and passivity are the catalysts and rewards for destined marriage and money" (147s). This style of ballet gives these girls this appeal but also is telling us that they are disciplined in the way they carry themselves "being the fairest of them all". With this ballerina stereotyping for the heroines there evil sisters are exactly the opposite of them and are considered by the audience as "commoners" as Bell says. This way of using dance as a form of representations was not used just on woman but also the male hero or "prince charming". What in Ballet is known as "Adagio" is a way to help teach the male dancer in ballet how to handle he fellow dancer and this allows the women to learn to be handled, this allows for Disney to reinforce gender roles in our society of male domination over women and allow for it to go unnoticed to the crowds as they watch the movies. The reason why that Disney uses this gender stereotype of dance to represent the earlier heroines is that dance represents sex but without actually having it or acting it out. What girl wouldn't want to get swept of her feet at a ball by a tall dark and handsome prince and dance the night away and then at the end of the night go back to her place ...but Disney can not show this so he uses this ballet dance form to represent sexual activity. Bell also makes the observations that as the years go on the image of the ballerina dancer is pushed aside for what we see in Beauty and the Beast and the Little Mermaid as the strong intelligent type but instead of being imaged on the dancer now it is the "cheesecake" image or what Bell says "while the earliest folk heroines move in the stilted lines of classical dance, the latest folk heroines tease with the conventions of burlesque" (147t).

Disney is now going towards the bad girl image in the later films which leads our way to the middle aged female villains. Bell calls this stage of the feminine cycle as "Femme Fatale" or "the deadly women" of the story. Also Bell uses the term Diva most often associated with singers like Whitney Houston, Patty Labelle, and Aretha Franklin as a way to describe these villains' movements, "The diva is characterized by exaggerated movements of the hips and arms..." (147t). In this stage of the female cycle the characteristics of these women are all to do with cosmetic and aesthetic visuals that help us identify the character as being bad. In this stage of the cycle these women will most likely be power obsessed as to be associated with middle age even today and wear tons of eye makeup masses of jewels and some sort of tight clingy black dress to go along with their full curvy bodies (147u). Disney also uses their eyes and the way that they look at their "prey" as if they were the