Disney

Posted on by frankieraff

Although we may not realize it, Disney films impact our lives daily. Sure, they may be fairytales told to children, but sometimes the impact they make lasts longer than just a few years. Males are made to be dominant, women will always be the damsel in distress, there is no straying from the norm in a Disney movie. And even when the film does, it most likely means it won’t be a box-office hit. Take the movie “Brave” for example. This Disney film depicted a strong, female main character who wanted nothing more than to be a huntsman. There wasn’t any type of romance, the main character was powerful and fearless, yet “Brave” is probably the least remembered Disney movie of all time. Powerful women unaccompanied by romance do not sell tickets (sadly) even to a younger audience. This norm engraves itself into our heads at an early age so that it almost feels backwards when a woman takes charge or a man appears less masculine. Even now, even when people say with pride, “look at how far we’ve come,” it was still totally outrages to most to have a female president because a role of power is seen as a mans role. No, I’m not saying the Disney is the root of all misogynistic evil, but it definitely does not help.

6 thoughts on “Disney”

  1. I agree with you that Disney does have an impact on people, especially younger people in society. I remember I tried to watch the movie, “Brave”, when it first came out although if I am being honest I could not make it through the whole movie. I think it was great for Disney to make a princess who displayed more masculine traits and did not focus on a man the entire film. Although, society is not attracted to movies like this. Little kids want to see movies with happily ever afters and where the princess and the prince fall in love because that is what sells and where Disney can make the biggest profit. People like to see movies to escape from reality and see unrealistic love on the screens because they cannot have this in real life. So where I do agree that it was a good idea for Disney to create a new type of princess movie, I think that it is also important for Disney movies to be entertaining and magical so they can appeal to their audience.

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  2. I also agree with the significance of the impact Disney production have on the general public. It’s quite well-known, However, there is one tick I’m not sure I quite agree with. I don’t think the feature “Brave” was forgettable. In fact, I think it to be quite the stepping stone for Disney’s market and moral values. We witnessed Disney branch off from the stereotypical patriarchal and damsel-ridden fairytales to internal and kinship conflict being solved through a youth’s journey to find the answer. Just as with “Frozen” and “Moana”, we’re viewing quite a pivot from traditional Disney. Granted, I do agree on the fact that some of the more complex situations Disney incorporates into their films may not captivate it’s entire audience however, that further proves to me that the mark made by “Brave ” has quite the significance. This is not to say that they we’re expecting a sales dip from incorporating other elements into their productions but to acknowledge that they have made efforts to be, in a general aspect, more inclusive of different parallels.

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  3. After reading this comment, you couldn’t be anymore correct about the movie ‘Brave’. Now that I think about it, after recently being in Disney World, I don’t even think that Brave has any major section. Meanwhile it is said that they are trying to build a whole castle for ‘Frozen’. Notice how Frozen ends with a love story and Brave is about a strong independent woman. This is crazy to me and haven’t realized how much of an impact Disney has on our every day expectations.

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  4. How I remember it Brave was pretty popular, at least around where I was. I thought it was a success. However I do agree with the fact that Disney princess tories are always the same with the whole heterosexual romance, sexist standards bull. Which I am recently upset over because it wasn’t really until this class that I realized how there hasn’t been one lead non-hetero person in a disney film. I think thats pretty absurd, here I’ve been telling myself “oh look at disney, their doing better I guess, they have a black, asian, native american, and indian princess now.” Little to realize I’ve been brain washed by disney into not even realizing how exclusive they sill are…

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  5. Engines of media production such as Disney reinforce cultural expectations in a profound way by providing a socially-acceptable ideal towards which to aspire. As a capitalist corporation, Disney must generally pursue the most widely acceptable and thus profitable story ideas, although as a near monopoly on popular children’s movies, it has more leeway to experiment with new ideas than most corporations. Ultimately, Disney movies reflect the dominant societal currents, which still trend toward a heterosexual, male-dominated norm, and in doing so, they reproduce the dominant culture onto the next generation of children, who will grow up with fond memories of the damsel in distress being saved by and falling in love with her dashing prince. If “Brave” failed to reach as large an audience due simply to the lack of heterosexual romance, how poorly would a movie explicitly including homosexual romance, which a not-insignificant portion of the American population considers to be abhorrent, do at the box office? As long as media production is governed by the economy of the majority, minority characters will nearly always take a back seat.

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  6. While I understand that Disney tended to have misogynistic roots, especially in its earlier works, I think that films like Brave are more effective than they seem. Disney, now especially, is building more individual females role models who young girls (and some boys, hey if it works, it works.) Moreover, Disney’s Frozen, had no love plot for Elsa besides the love that she had for her sister, which in the end saved the day. Older flicks, like Cinderella and Snow White tended to depict women as helpless creatures who could do no more than lift a finger. But now I feel like Disney has begun to pave the way for better female role models. They’re by no means perfect, but in the past 6-8 years Disney has certainly taken their new female roles for a spin in a new direction.

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