Disney Animations Harm Female Youth

Louis Gomez Jr.

Introduction.

While growing up, we have all been influenced by what we watched on television mostly as kids watching cartoons or animated movies. We may not always seem to understand or comprehend what we have just seen due to our age range and our mind’s ability to process, but we tend to mimic certain general ideas that we preserve as right or wrong. Just as we are guided into gender norms of what only boys can do and what girls can do.

Disney is a huge industry full of animated movies that have attracted the attention of children for many decades while entertaining and rubbing off on the child’s mind. What Disney movies say and do is seen through the child’s eyes and is being processed to the best ability that the child can understand, which affects the way the child may think or react to the world after watching. For this research paper, I wanted to find out if Disney animation movies can really alter the way a child grows up to view themselves and the societal norms that are around them.

Context.

During my research, I will be talking about the sexism within the films. Sexism is found throughout a lot of the early Disney princess films. Although there are many of these films, I will go through and analyze certain film scenes while discussing the partial anti-feminism within Disney. The overall discipline that I will be covering is going to be through the psychological perspective. Meaning from what they watched or experienced through the films as children what kind of mental impact have, they encountered, and has it altered the way they think or respond to daily life scenarios.

Literature Analysis.

Disney is known for these fairy tale movies but has anyone ever noticed how sexist these movies are and how they only seem to target female leads? I feel like with Disney’s large influence over the younger age groups these movies have widely impacted the ideas and actions that these children now grow up with, causing self-confidence levels to drop and depression levels to rise. Disney movies set body standards for the female leads, while also allowing the character to seem vulnerable enough that they feel like they should depend on a big strong man to help save them.

Disney is responsible for how young kids mainly girls grow up with body shame, due to how they express stereotypes throughout their movies expressed as how a lady must act in public, or how a lady must look. One study I read discussed how young girls at an early age even though they can’t mentally understand the sexual representation within the films are able to see and understand that a female must be thin to be desirable, therefore they start to feel bad about themselves when they gain a little fat. It goes on to say that even if at a young age the child doesn’t fully react to it, just being exposed to the ideas implicated about the values and looks of what women should be like over time will influence their ideas of how they should look as they are getting older.

Although it’s not purposely meant to sound like this, we as people tend to reinforce what Disney movies do. We tend to talk to little kids in ways that are meant to make them happy, but we often just do the opposite with certain phrases. A study that analyzed the films also said we are partially to blame for unwillingly helping reinforce the movies’ norms. When we tell a young girl, how she looks just like a prince, or how she looks so pretty in that dress or outfit we in fact are contributing to the gender norm attack of feminism because we instead could compliment them on how smart they are or how strong they are for being brave in times. When we use words like pretty, princess, and perfect or phrases like I'm so proud of how you look we are reinforcing what Disney is doing in the films. We do this though because we as adults also were raised watching films with princesses and princes. We are repeating this endless cycle that Disney has sent out which influences us in many ways, some that we might not even realize at the moment.

Throughout my onlooking of interviews, I found another effect besides body shame. I found that there is a decent percentage of girls that watch Disney films and that have grown up to live their life in what they see as them being a princess. These women worry about their beauty and stay home cleaning, cooking, and being there for when the spouse comes home from a day’s work. In Disney films, we are taught that there are certain things that women can’t do so in response to being constantly shown and taught that it’s better to just look the part and let your prince do the hard work for you we start to see this effect of princess culture that starts to limit your gender.

This literature will contribute to the research that I'm doing because it’s helping to point me in the direction of the information that I need to better collect and support my ideals about how Disney is responsible for the influence of female body shaming and bad self-esteem. It helps to reinforce what I'm trying to say, while also pointing out the pieces of information I'm still missing.

Research Questions.

Some research questions I had while writing this paper was

• Can watching Disney animated films affect female self-esteem?
• Can the view on gender norms be challenged by watching Disney animated films?
• Are the films all to blame or do we share a part in the cycle?
• Does the time- period in which the movie was made influence the behavior?
• Are all the princesses over-sexualized or is it certain styles?

Methods.

For my data report, I went, and watched some of the movies and analyzed what I was seeing. I was on the lookout for the number of parents that I saw present or if any of them had passed away. I was also looking to see how these characters were in terms of if they were strong-minded and can handle their own protection or if they was on the helpless side of the spectrum. I wanted to see if Disney princesses all talked to animals or not. I felt that with this research I should also pay attention to if the characters were sexualized or not by the male characters.

Data Analysis.

Discussion.

In my research, I was able to spot that children who watch Disney movies for multiple hours a day can be affected by it. When watching a character that you admire, and you see their image of body and their clothes you feel you should reflect this. Because you admire that character and want to be like them, you’re going to start forcing yourself without even noticing to become like this fictional person. A quote I found that I felt strongly represents this is “media images play an important role in shaping body images and personality in young people more so than adults”.

I was also looking through a research paper which was discussing how with older women who grew up watching Disney movies that there was more of a chance that they depended on a man to help in their life in these times of need. Some grew up with the norm that they would have to work around the house and keep everything cleaned and fresh for when their prince arrives back home from a day of work. This is typically a mindset based on the old Disney movies from the early to middle of the 1900s Disney movies. From a time where outside of animation the real-world people lived like this where men worked, and women stayed at home with the kids and house duties.

This gender norm situation starts earlier though, for most during their early kid years. A study found that when boys and girls watch Disney movies a lot, they follow what they see and that the girls will mostly play with feminine toys and clothes while the boys will play with masculine swords, blocks, and heavy and messy stuff.

Conclusion.

With my paper now complete and my data all collected, I can officially say that Disney animated movies can really alter the way a child grows up to view themselves and the societal norms that are around them. The media presented in them can teach a boy to be more masculine while teaching a girl to be more feminine. It can show girls that if they dress and look a certain way then at some point in their life a big strong man will come to marry them and solve all these issues. The movies put these children in a seductive state of mind in which they grow up believing some of these illusions and revolving the life choices around them.

References.

Pasha, S. A. (2021, June). Analyzing hidden elements in Disney movies and effects on children. Research Gate. Retrieved November 30, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358699350_Analyzing_Hidden_Elements_in_Disney_Movies_and_Effects_on_Children

McBride, J. (2016, June 20). Study finds Disney Princess culture magnifies stereotypes in young girls. Phys.org. Retrieved November 30, 2022, from https://phys.org/news/2016-06-disney-princess-culture-magnifies-stereotypes.html

Pulver, A. (2016, June 27). Disney princesses contribute to 'body esteem' issues among young girls, finds study. The Guardian. Retrieved November 30, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/27/disney-princesses-contribute-to-body-esteem-issues-amongst-young-girls-finds-study

Coyne, Sarah m, Rasmussen, eric e, Linder, Jennifer Ruh, nelson, David a, & Birkbeck, Victoria. (2016, December). Pretty as a princess: Longitudinal effects of ... - Princeton university. commons.princeton.edu. Retrieved November 30, 2022, from http://commons.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/87/2019/01/Coyne-et-al.-2016-Pretty-as-a-Princess-Longitudinal-Effects-of-Enga.pdf

Asawarachan, T. (2014, February 1). The Disney influence on Kindergarten Girls' Body Image. UNT Digital Library. Retrieved December 5, 2022, from https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc271773/

brown, Kaitlyn m. (2020, May 11). Happily Ever After? How Disney Princesses Represent Gender Role Stereotypes in Animated and Live Action Films . digital commons. Retrieved December 5, 2022, from https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=pell_theses

minor, Brittany Danielle. (2014, December). Happily Ever After: Is Disney Setting Us Up? A Study on Disney Princesses and Their Influence on Young Women and Their Personal Lo ersonal Love Narratives . the athenaeum. Retrieved December 6, 2022, from https://athenaeum.uiw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=uiw_etds