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maddykav12 · 3 years

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Gender Stereotypes and Misrepresentation of Women in the Disney Franchise

A common yet unfortunate gender issue present in the media is the misrepresentation and marginalization of women. Gender stereotypes and misrepresentations of women are particularly evident in the Disney Franchise and their popular TV shows and movies. In this type of media, gender roles are represented in extremely biased and stereotypical manners. Women are typecast in very cliche roles while men continue to dominate the screens both in numbers and characters. The misrepresentation of women in the media has been an issue for decades. Though there have been minor improvements in the last few years, there is still a long way to go in order to reach any kind of level of gender equality, especially within Disney. The Disney Franchise in particular has an immense amount of work to do to help enhance the representation of women in the media. Disney is infamous for their issues regarding gender stereotypes in their media output, particularly in their children TV shows and movies. Gender has been represented in many negative ways through the Disney platform from their Disney Channel TV shows to their famous princess movies. Some of these negative representations include the gender stereotypes and biases surrounding the female roles level of importance, screen time, lines, character development, personalities and even their careers, all of these aspects play a vital role in the misrepresentation of women in the media. Most female roles represented, particularly in Disney's children TV shows and movies, are repetitive and can be characterized by seven stereotypical representations including; The infant, the shrew, the eccentric, the maternal, the vamp, the frump and the twin (Green 1997). Of these common seven female stereotypical roles that are frequently represented in the media, three (infant, shrew and frump) are inherently negative portrayals of women. These types of characterization are oppressive, undesirable and suggest that human nature is a static, one-dimensional entity (Green 1997). Not only are women viewed in a negative light because of these stereotypes and misrepresentations, but the underrepresentation of females as both protagonist and participants is also evident and problematic. A study regarding the gender representation within the Disney Franchise found that the Disney network telecasts 16 shows from 6 am to 3 pm that target pre-school and young children, of these 16 shows only one show (The Little Mermaid) featured a female lead. These implications of watching TV characterizations that stereotype female gender roles is extremely negative and troublesome. These types of stereotypes are also very apparent in the Disney Princess movie series. For example, all of the Disney princess movies from 1989-1999 (Disney’s “Renaissance era”) are ridiculously male-dominated. During the Beauty and the Beast movie (1991) men speak 71% of the time, in Aladdin (1992) men speak 90% of the time and in Pocahontas (1995) mean speak 76% of the time, even though these are “Princess” movies the princes are speaking even more than the supposed main characters (McLean 2017). The gender stereotypes continue on to the princesses physical features, attributes and attitudes. Disney princesses are represented as being petite, sweet, pure, quiet and are frequently labeled the “Damsel in distress”. They are portrayed as homemakers and are often cleaning or in need of rescue by a man. They are friendly and romantic while the princes are portrayed as strong, aggressive and brave. Females and their behavior, occupations, attitudes and actions are the main areas of gender stereotype and misrepresentation. In a recent study that focused on the implications that the Disney princesses cause, it found that the engagement with these princesses with young girls around 2 years old was associated with greater female-gender stereotype behavior and lower body self-esteem (Gray 2019). Overall, gender has largely been misrepresented and stereotyped within the Disney Franchise. Through their TV shows and movies, Disney has marginalized and misrepresented women for decades. These representations have been extremely negative, problematic and disappointing and have only created further issues for how females are represented in the media at large.

Sources:

Gray, R. (2019, July 21). Did Disney shape how you see the world?https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190724-did-disney-shape-how-you-see-the-world

Green, G. L. (1997). Televised gender roles in children’s media: Covert messages. Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, 17(1), 23-39.

Merritt, A. (2016, June 27). Disney Princess Movie: Gender Roles and Stereotypes. Medium. https://medium.com/@alisha9193/disney-princess-movie-gender-roles-and-stereotypes-e2122b0c83c6.

McLean, C. (2017, December 11). Is Disney sexist?BBC Three. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/24e20f4c-5f17-45fa-9179-f8a9fdccbe9a.

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