Stereotypes In Disney Movies Essay

In many classic Disney princess movies the characters promote female stereotypes. In fact, according to the Washington Post Disney films focus on looks so much that more than ½ the compliments given to the characters have to do with appearance. With the focus on beauty, young girls start to feel that being beautiful on the outside is what they are best at and what they should be good at. As they are being shown in these films the more they start to think that the being a female stereotype is what makes them beautiful. Girls are not born liking a pink dress. At some point we teach them. So the big question is where they get these ideas about being girls. Quite obviously these ideas are coming from media, from what children watch. They learn …show more content…
According to Sarah M. Coyne a professor for Brigham Young University, “Disney Princesses represent some of the first examples of exposure to the thin ideal.” The girls who watch these movies start to learn from a very young age that being skinny means that you are beautiful. “Just like the Barbie, the thin perfectly proportioned, predominantly white characteristics perpetuate a potentially harmful beauty,” claims timenews.com Given these toys when they are so young, girls everywhere strive for a perfect body just like their dolls which they model themselves after. As shown through many studies, an obsession with beauty can increase a girl’s vulnerability and leads to eating disorders and depression. Being exposed to these body types from such a young age do nothing but harm for girls. All girls strive for is that perfect body from the movies, but in truth that is unreachable. As the girls grow older they become more susceptible to eating disorders because of something they watched when they were young. The body is unique to each person, yet that is not what disney teaches their audiences. WIth these perfect body concepts girls learn one fact only: that you must be skinny to be beautiful though that is not true, yet they show this in the movies, being pretty is the only thing that can help princesses achieve their