Gender Representation In Disney Animation

By Hannah Marks 21/10/15

In this article I shall be covering how the representation of gender in Disney has changed over the last 80 years.

Let’s start with the representation of the males. If we look at classic animated feature films by Disney such as Snow White and Cinderella; the male characters are shown as brave, strong and charming. Even though this isn’t a bad way to be represented, its not initially truthful. Even if you move on to the films from the 50’s to 70’s the good guys are still charming, strong and brave, but if you look at the bad guys, they are weedy, evil and/or stupid. Not much changes once you move into the 80’s and 90’s. Good guys are shown as still strong, brave and charming and the bad guys are shown as narcissistic, self-centered, some are cunning and smart, while others as stupid and ignorant.

When we start to look at specific characters in more detail from different production generations, such as Prince Philip from Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin; we can see slight differences in their

characteristics but not enough to see them as completely different.If we closely look at three similar characters, The Prince from Snow White, Prince Charming from Cinderella and Prince Philip from Sleeping Beauty. They are very similarly built and have similar facial features. All 3 of them have broad shoulders, thick legs, strong jaw lines, they are dashing and have thick hair. Also all 3 of them save the princesses, one from death, one from sleep and the other from slavery. These play up to the traditional image of a male hero and a weaker female.

When we look at most of the animated movies from the 50’s to 70’s, they are mostly anthropomorphic characters, such as The Aristocats and the animals from the Jungle book. Although they are animals, the same characteristics as we have seen in the Princes examples are shown such as bravery. If we look at Baloo from jungle book, he may be big, but he is also caring and friendly, then look at Shere Khan, he is cunning, manipulative and fierce, who uses traditionally viewed bullying tactics, even to the other unsavory characters such as a sly serpent, who has himself had tried to eat Mowgli.

Then we have the 80’s and 90’s. These are the characters like Prince Adam and Aladdin. If you don’t know who Prince Adam is, he is also known as Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Now when Adam is the Beast, you can’t say he is handsome but once he becomes human again you can see how handsome he becomes. In Beauty and the Beast, it starts to show that love is more than skin deep, because of the fact Belle starts to love him in his beast form. This shows no matter how you look, you can find love. His representation as beast is to show that the beauty that lies within is greater than the beauty on the outside. This is all well and good, however he does lock Belle up at first, which may have caused her to develop a form of Stockholm syndrome which I will cover later when I discuss Belles side of the story.

Then there’s Aladdin, a personal favourite, he too transforms but not because the Princess had fallen in love with him, but so he could win over her heart. This teaches if you to overcome your flaws you can do whatever you want; however this film also says to win a girls heart, pretend to be something you’re not, especially the stereotype of a woman only liking men with money. Luckily Princess Jasmine doesn’t fall for it.

If we look at Hercules, at the beginning of the film, he may be freakishly strong still but he is very thin and with very little

muscle mass. Once he trains with Phil he becomes extremely muscly, in a classic representation of strength and power, although still quite dumb.

Being masculine means being hot and buff (and white, obviously). ('Hercules') ‘Two of the best examples of this stereotype can be found in Hercules and Beauty and the Beast with Hercules and Gaston (there's no man in town half as manly). This representation of masculinity as an attractive man with big muscles and nice hair (who is usually white) is often paired with a foil played by a small and/or fat male character that plays comic relief implying that their size and characteristics are considerably less "masculine." While Gaston doesn't woo Belle with his hairy, manly chest, it's clear he is meant to represent a man's man. Disney may not be making the judgment that these forms of masculinity seen in Gaston or Hercules are desirable, but the corporation is making a statement on what masculinity looks like, and in doing so presenting an unattainable standard and alienating a large demographic of men.’

Let’s move on to the naughties. There are characters like Flynn Rider and Prince Naveen. Now Flynn Rider is also one of my favourite male characters. He too transforms, but not physically like Prince Adam, Flynn is even a pseudonym his actual name Eugene Fitzherbert, which is revealed in Tangled, goes from a selfish and greedy character, to a loving and sharing person, because of his love for Rapunzel. Once we learn of Eugene’s back story, we understand why he started off as he did, then by the end of the film he shows his true nature, despite of his troubled upbringing. So Flynn’s character is far more rounded than previous male representations.

Prince Naveen, from Princess and the Frog, also transforms. The Prince changes to a Frog then back again. He starts off as a very self-centered modern stereotype of a spoilt Prince. As the film goes on, he is turned into a frog and he has to kiss a princess to become human again. This is when he meets Tiana. She helps Naveen to become loving and to think about other people’s well-being and not just his own. Like Rapunzel helped

Eugene to become a better man.

Then we move on to the twenty-tens. There are characters like Kristoff and Hiro. Kristoff from Frozen is different from the others, but not by much. He is more of a ruggedly handsome compared to his counterparts, his also a bit dim but with a massive caring heart. Throughout the film he is kind and cares about

Anna, but he still shows the same basic characteristics of being strong, brave and handsome.

Then let’s talk about Hiro Hamada from Big Hero 6. From the off we are shown him to be delinquent but a genius, but as the film goes, on he gains friends and he becomes a leader at a young age of 14. He teaches young children

that no matter your age you should strive for greatness.All these characters so far are good guys, but what about the bad Guys. Let’s cover both male and female baddies at the same time. Most baddies are put into three main categories, strong/powerful, henchmen or misguided. Strong and powerful characters like Jafar from Aladdin and the Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. Henchmen are characters like Shenzi, Banzai and Ed from The Lion King and lastly the miss guided like Lawrence from Princess and the Frog and Meg in Hercules. There are characters that cross over into two of the categories like most henchmen are misguided, but not all misguided are henchmen.

Let’s look at strong and powerful. The sub-genres of this category are magic, physical strength and position in society. Magic is Ursula from Little Mermaid and Doctor Facilier from Princess and the Frog. Physical strength is Gaston from Beauty and The Beast and Clayton from Tarzan. And those who are high up in society like Scar from the Lion King and King John from Robin Hood. The sub-genre of henchmen are weedy and insignificant, like Lefou from Beauty and The Beast and Pain and

Panic from Hercules. Then there’s blind loyalty like Darth Vader from Star Wars, and then you have the doing it to get personal gain, like Iago from Aladdin. Then there’s the misguided sub-genre like idiots following orders like Horace and Jasper Badun from 101 Dalmatians.

I think that some of the bad guys are actually more well-rounded than the good guys. Let’s take Meg for instance, she may be a henchman of Hades, but you get her backstory and why her soul is owned by him. She is also classed as a Disney princess which classes her as a good guy too. Her character has a depth to it, she might have sold her soul to the ruler of the underworld, but it was for love and then that love leaves her so she stays with Hades to spite men, until she meets Hercules and finds love again.

Now it’s time for the girls. I’m not going to go through all of them as you’d be reading for hours. So let’s start off with Belle as she’s a more complex Disney Princess. Taking Beauty and the Beast at face value is problematic; it’s the story of a girl who quickly succumbs to Stockholm syndrome, spurns the rescue efforts of an entire town that mobilized to help her, and ultimately decides to live with her captors. And it’s set in a world where powerful spell casters mutilate hundreds of people at a time for entertainment without suffering any sort of consequences.‘The Stockholm syndrome is a human defense mechanism in life-threatening situations. Medical dictionaries define Stockholm syndrome as an extraordinary phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to their captor, essentially mistaking a lack of abuse as an act of kindness.’The fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast is a romanticized hostage situation, where the Beast is a narcissistic sociopath, while the Beauty is his vulnerable hostage who is losing touch with reality and falling in love with her captor to survive a deeply traumatizing ordeal.

Now let’s talk about Ariel. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel starts out as a brave, curious, and adventurous young mermaid. But when she transforms into a human she loses her voice and her boldness, curiousness and her sense of adventure. She becomes a submissive and almost the complete opposite of what she used to be. She teaches girls that you should change if you want your love interest.

This is the message of most Disney films, such as in Cinderella, where the basic plot of the story is that a prince sees her all dressed up, and falls in love with her on the spot. Sleeping Beauty also says that being beautiful on the outside is all that counts as Aurora and Prince Phillip instantly fall in love upon meeting spend absolutely no time getting to know anything about each other, and then live happily ever after. Being thin and white is what makes women beautiful and valuable. (Everything pre 'Mulan')

The idea that outward beauty is most important is the message that this beauty has a specific look:

thin and white. While the Disney princess list now includes a handful of non-white women — Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, notably — the "major" Disney princesses are pretty, white and very thin. Meg from Hercules has the most impossibly tiny waist you will ever see.

The figures haven’t changed much if you look at the modern Princesses, pretty, thin and mainly white. However the more modern Princesses are strong and more independent, and Queen Elsa even has magic powers that could in fact kill someone. Of cause she doesn’t but she has the ability to.

In conclusion, Disney has mainly used gender stereotypes instead of showing a rounded representation of each character, partly as a way of pushing the story on as quickly as possible, showing who is good and who is evil, with good looking being good, ugly as bad and other characters who may be overweight as either jolly or stupid or both, in the most obvious way as possible.

Although later films have started to show more rounded characters, they are still liable to fall into these age old stereotypes to move the stories on as quickly as possible, and it appears without thought of any influence they might have on

impressionable young children who are their target audience.

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