Disney children’s movies have been around for the past 70-odd years, ever since the great Walt Disney started the Walt Disney Production Company in 1934. Walt Disney, for the main purpose of making full-length animated features out of folklore, produced adapted fairy tales, folk tales, and legends to suit the children’s audience, doing away with or changing certain events that occur through the course of the story. Since then now, Disney has released numerous animated features for children. Although a number of their features are adapted from books or are original, the most recognized are the ones that are adapted from fairy tales.
From the very first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was adapted in 1937 from an 18th Century fairy tale by the renowned Brothers Grimm(Jacob and Wilhelm), Disney started a whole new era of animation. The story of Snow White was modified suitably from the original, which was by no means meant for children. In the story, the Queen had asked for Cinderella’s heart to be presented to her in a jewel box, and, unknown to her knowledge, was given a pig’s heart instead. It had cruel, almost gruesome instances in it. For example, the Queen was punished by being forced to wear a pair of heated iron shoes. She danced in them till her death. To evade such a horrid display, the animated feature showed the Queen being struck by a bolt of lightning and falling into a chasm, a more viewer-friendly adaptation.
Snow White, at the tender age of seven, is shown to the viewers doing household chores for dwarfs. The image seems to be that of a maid and not of a Princess – an extremely sexist depiction of females. The dwarfs themselves present a rather odd sight, wearing different colored Santa hats. According to mythology, dwarfs were creatures associated with death. Then why their presence in such number in the company of a Princess? They did not harm her simply because she cleaned their hut? It must also be understood that the fairy tale was dependent hugely on Dark Magic and Witchcraft. The Queen was a Witch, possessing a Magic Mirror and having powers enough to transform herself into any form at will and make poison apples to kill whoever she wanted.
It must also be noted that the original Grimm’s fairy tale showed us that the poison apple which killed Snow White was simply dislodged from her throat while her coffin was being carried away by the Prince’s men. The concept of ‘love’s first kiss’ was added to the movie merely for cinematic purposes, and also shows us that Snow White was dependent on a man for her survival. She could only be awakened from her death by love’s first kiss, as opposed to her self-dependency in the original fairy tale; an instance of total dependency of a female on a male.
The tale of Cinderella, a young girl of unparalleled sweetness made to work relentlessly by her stepmother, can be traced back to Egypt and was recorded as far back as the 1st Century B.C. Since then, there have been numerous versions of the story. The Disney version sees Cinderella befriending creatures such as mice, birds, and even a bloodhound. Here she lives with her stepmother and stepsister who treat her like a maid rather than a member of the family. And even in Cinderella, we see the female character dependent on her fairy Godmother, who gives her favors, and a Prince, who gives her royalty by marrying her. And like Snow White, this is also extremely sexist in its depiction.
In The Little Mermaid too, we see a similar representation of a female character. Here, Ariel, a mermaid who desires to one day have human feelings and have a human identity, is dependent on a Prince’s ‘kiss of true love’. She is transformed into a human for three days by a Sea Witch and must receive the kiss within the three days if she wants to stay in her human form. Like Snow White and Cinderella, Ariel is also one who, in order to gain her identity as a Princess, is dependent completely on a male, continuing Disney’s sexist adaptations. Also, in all three features, the lead characters have friends who are creatures from completely different species. From birds and mice to bloodhounds and even a talking crab with an oversized head.
It is also noticeable that for life “Happily Ever After”, the lead characters absolutely must be paired with a Prince. The situations are also extremely reliant on chance. Only when a Prince falls in love with them can they be considered to become Princess and be rid of their suffering. The concept of love is also placed very precariously. In each of the cases, love is at first sight and could be extremely physical in nature. The Prince simply falls in love with the way the female looks with no heed whatsoever to what kind of a person she might be. These concepts are neither clear nor justified. ‘True love’s first kiss’ is an extremely typical image of romance that, in Disney, the animation element introduces. It is a cartoonish exaggeration of emotions, images, types – all of which, in real life are more muted. Children are misled in a way that they seemingly believe in what they are shown in these films that Happily Ever After is achieved by marrying a Prince after receiving true love’s kiss, and the very depiction of humans befriending harmful animals can influence children to explore whether such things are true. These can have disastrous consequences.
In Beauty and the Beast, the sexist depiction in most Disney features is reversed. Here, it is the beast, a male, who is dependent on the confession of love from Princess Belle in order for him to obtain his original human form. However, Princess Belle’s father is shown to sacrifice his daughter to the Beast for his own safety. A female is merely used for the safety of a male. Again, a sexist representation of females in Disney movies. At the end of the story, there is a marriage and the promise of a Happily Ever After as in all the aforementioned features.
It is clear from the worldwide video, books, and merchandise sales that children have quite happily absorbed these concepts of magic, love, beauty, and of Happily Ever After. The release of movies that seek to question established social and religious mores are often banned from screening, or even release. They result in heated protests and are given the go-ahead only after they clearly state that ‘this work is purely fictional and means to harm no sentiments and bears no resemblance to any character, living or dead’ added with a further 15-second display of the same. Then why isn’t the same done to make it known to children that what they are about to view in a Disney movie is fictional, and should not be mistaken for reality? Why is it that an error so grievous in nature, which concerns children aged below ten, is overlooked? Is it merely because the makers, adults, have taken it for granted that the views of ten-year-olds on the subject of Disney features will be on the same page as theirs? Or is it that the commercial success of the features is so important to them that they have plainly forgotten the moral aspect?
A change is necessary in modern Disney animated features in order to make them more viewer-friendly and reduce negative criticism. There have been claims ranging from sexual innuendo to subliminal images in Disney features. Such flaws have not gone overlooked by critics and scrutiny continues. The makers of Disney’s children’s movies must pay more attention to detail in order to render such allegations groundless. An approach to fix the sexist problems which have been portrayed through their movies would be the Beauty and The Beast approach, where they tried to balance the depiction of females they had made in earlier movies by doing the same with a male character. Though that approach did not work to the extent they might have desired, it is a start. The other, more effective approach to deal with differentiating reality and fantasy fiction is the Finding Nemo approach, which clearly showed the differences between the animal world and the world of humans. We saw a similar concept in the Toy Story films, which made sure that the real world and the world of the toys were of two totally different dimensions with no interaction between each other. With such, more refined scripts Disney could be headed in the right direction towards preserving logical standards of their stories. But, on the other hand, if kids think crabs are friendly creatures and will help them, there promises to be a whole new field of doctors operating on crab bites on children.
Works cited
Article by Ali Wachutka on Disney’s sexist portrayal of women. 2008. Web.
Fairy Tales. 2008. Web.
The Brothers Grimm. 2008. Web.
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Cinderella. 2008. Web.
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Wikipedia pages of the features of The Little Mermaid. Index, pt. 5. Web.
The Lion King. Index, pt. 8.2. Web.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Index, pt. 5. Web.
Aladdin. Index, pt. 6.4. Web.
The Rescuers. Index, pt. 13.1. Web.
Finding Nemo. 2008. Web.