Sociological Analysis of The Nightmare Before Christmas The Nightmare Before Christmas, a stop-action animation movie written by Tim Burton and directed by Henry Selick, is a classic Halloween movie. With Halloween quickly approaching, a sociological analysis of this film seemed particularly appropriate. This film demonstrates many sociological phenomena in our society, but the one that was most prominent was Role Theory. This film shows how society prescribes us roles, and how filling these roles and expectations impacts our lives and who we are as social beings. The first example of Role Theory that was evident while watching this film was the representation of specific roles within our society. Many of these were very easy to identify,
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Many of her actions are brave, even heroic: she throws herself out of a window, poisons the Doctor, and tries to save Sandy Claws. However, in the end, it is all for Jack. Many people love Sally as a character: she is strong, self-reliant, and willing to sacrifice herself to save others. These are all characteristics men are taught to strive to be from a very young age (Pollack, 2005). Could this be Tim Burton’s way of trying to break gender stereotypes, by creating a ‘strong female lead’? Hypothetically, yes, but it is soon revealed that she has done many of these things for Jack, whether it be to impress him or save him. For someone who appears to be trying to break gender stereotypes, the writers and directors of this movie just ended up enforcing them further, creating this message that women can be strong, but only for men. We, as a society, have created these gender roles that everyone must fit into, including fictional characters. While we cannot know the writer’s and director’s thought process while creating Sally as a character, one can assume that reverting to these gender roles was not a conscious decision, rather one that has been sociologically implanted in our thoughts and actions, to the point where it is natural. We do not consciously “do gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987), but we enforce these stereotypes out of habit
Many of her actions are brave, even heroic: she throws herself out of a window, poisons the Doctor, and tries to save Sandy Claws. However, in the end, it is all for Jack. Many people love Sally as a character: she is strong, self-reliant, and willing to sacrifice herself to save others. These are all characteristics men are taught to strive to be from a very young age (Pollack, 2005). Could this be Tim Burton’s way of trying to break gender stereotypes, by creating a ‘strong female lead’? Hypothetically, yes, but it is soon revealed that she has done many of these things for Jack, whether it be to impress him or save him. For someone who appears to be trying to break gender stereotypes, the writers and directors of this movie just ended up enforcing them further, creating this message that women can be strong, but only for men. We, as a society, have created these gender roles that everyone must fit into, including fictional characters. While we cannot know the writer’s and director’s thought process while creating Sally as a character, one can assume that reverting to these gender roles was not a conscious decision, rather one that has been sociologically implanted in our thoughts and actions, to the point where it is natural. We do not consciously “do gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987), but we enforce these stereotypes out of habit