Disney Gender Stereotypes

For decades Disney has been using gender inequity to portray the females and males as princes, princesses, and evil character roles influencing the youth of our world that watch animated movies. However they are not alone. The animated movie making industry has long been known for its gender bias following in the footsteps of long ago written fables, folktales, myths, and fairy tales generalizing stereotypical male and female images from the movie industry and our society in general. The culture of genders and their roles in society is ever-changing for more gender equity than ever before; however there have always been leading giants in the industry of moving-making and stories and Disney is one of those goliaths who have shaped the way …show more content…
Disney aminations made a huge impact when they created princesses that didn’t have the ideal body image that most princesses had. These princesses’ stories were created to help people understand gender expectations, too. They did this in order for children in today’s generation to connect and relate more to their characters. Merida from Brave was one of the first princesses that broke the ideal Disney princess image and concept. Merida wears absolutely no makeup, has red, frizzy, unruly hair, and does not have the body of a normal princess. Merida does not care about her appearance, and she shows this by being a wild, ambitious women who chooses to rebel against the stereotypical principles of pure beauty (Saladino, 2014). This is a huge female character change created by Disney to show how Merida challenges the stereotypical image of beauty; which gives children today motivation and courage to not have to identify with a certain female body image but rather have a unique body and image that is not typical to all other females. One of the reasons Disney is making these changes is that they have seen a change in the roles of females and how they contribute to societies and they have heard the pleas of many females to create a character that the young children of today can actually relate to in a realistic way, not just through a fantasy. For Elsa from Frozen, she has the typical princess qualities by having large blue eyes and a small waist, but when she leaves the kingdom her body appearance changes drastically. Her dress becomes more revealing, hair is worn down and messy, and her makeup is applied more heavily (Law, 2014). This shows that girls can let loose, be confident, and find themselves in whatever way possible. These physical representations of these new