Impact of Disney Culture on Body Images, Gender and Racialized Groups

This essay analyzes the impact of Disney shows on children and human society in the context of body images, gender and racialized groups. It highlights the negative impact of Disney culture on young generation and the need for reorientation and modification.

Running head: IMPACT OF DISNEY CULTURE
Impact of Disney Culture
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IMPACT OF DISNEY CULTURE
The nature of human beings is such that they get easily influenced by other people and
situations. The extent to which they get influenced, however, depends upon their level of
emotional maturity. Such emotional maturity comes from the gaining of experiences and from
dealing with real life problems (Bispo, 2014). As a consequence, the level of emotional maturity
is quite low, if not entirely negligible in the case of young children. They are yet to understand
the way the world works and all that is available to them are the activities of their parents and
people in their environment and from the shows they watch in the virtual platform. Disney is one
of the favorite shows of children and it can be accepted that the shows aired by Disney will have
negative impact on most of the children (Johnson, 2015). This essay seeks to analyze the impact
of Disney shows on the children and human society in the context of body images, gender and
racialized groups.
The concept of ‘gender’ is taught to the young children from a very early age. This
‘teaching’ takes the different forms of reinforcement, such as lectures from parents, influences
from peer groups and the role of the teachers in their schools (Meredith, Erin & James, 2005).
Moreover, one of the most influential reinforcement is the shows that they watch on the
television such as that of Disney. Research has found out that by the time children attain the age
of two years old, they already become conscious of their gender identity (Meredith, Erin &
James, 2005). By the time they attain the age of seven and eight, they are completely aware of
the existing gender binary in the society which is considered to be synonymous with their
biological identity (Meredith, Erin & James, 2005). Such learning has been found to be
unintentional in nature, which is often communicated to the children via other means. In the
Disney animated movies, it has been shown that even though most of the shows are named after
the women characters, they play a very passive role in the shows (Muljani, & Wulandari, 2018).

2IMPACT OF DISNEY CULTURE
Moreover, they are given the ‘typical’ appearance of a damsel in distress where they have to
depend upon the men to save them. For instance, the princess Aurora, in the movie ‘Sleeping
Beauty’ was saved by a man who kissed her awake. After waking up from her sleep, she
immediately fell in love with her. Over here, not only the concerning issue of ‘gender’
discrimination is noticed but the issue of consent and passivity among the female gender has also
come to the forefront. Even in the case of ‘Cinderella’, the movie showed that marrying a rich
prince helped to solve the plight of Cinderella who was living in a very forlorn environment
(Lind, 2016). It was the prince who came and saved her from her distress. Another gender issue
which can be noticed in the Disney shows is the amount of dialogue given to the male characters
and the female characters. According to a survey, it has been found out that men speak most of
the time such as around sixty eight percent in ‘The Little Mermaid’ and seventy six percent in
‘Pocahontas’ (Meredith, Erin & James, 2005).
The Disney movies also have an impact on the body images of the people. The female
characters that are portrayed in the shows are shown to be having the ideal body structure of
same proportions such as that of negligible waist size, small limbs and usually long hair.
Moreover, it is shown that the male characters most often, choose the females with a perfect
body alignment. For instance, in the case of ‘Cinderella’ the character of Cinderella was shown
to have an ideal body structure (Golden & Jacoby, 2018). It was her beauty which attracted her
to the eyes of the Prince. In the case of ‘Hercules’, the female protagonist known as Megara is
considered to be the most outrageously shaped Disney women. All of these has a serious
negative impact on the young generation who wants to be gain such body types, believing that
this would increase their chances of getting the ‘prince of their dreams’ (Sandlin & Garlen,
2016).

3IMPACT OF DISNEY CULTURE
The issue of racial discrimination has also been highlighted in Disney movies. ‘Aladdin’
was released in the year of 1992 and this movie has many underlying notions of racial
discrimination (Mallory, 2017). The introductory song of the movie carries a subtle hint towards
racialism and the region of Arab was shown to be one where people engage in violence and in
theft. This has an adverse impact on the ‘white’ people who continue to think of the people from
the Middle East region to be very violent in nature and underdeveloped in their orientation. The
issue of racial discrimination is further reinforced through the visual representation of the Disney
movies. Moreover, in the other Disney movies, such as in ‘Cinderella’ and in ‘Sleeping Beauty’,
the characters are shown to have a ‘white’ skin tone and they are portrayed to be virtuous and
refined in their mannerism.
In conclusion, it is observed that the Disney ‘culture’ is n severe need of reorientation and
modification to order to impart the correct values to the people, especially to the children. The
new movies that have been directed by Disney such as that of ‘Frozen’ has managed to break out
of the stereotypical notions of gender discrimination. The women in the show are the main actors
and no men were needed to save them. Similarly, the show of “Brave’ showed Merida to be a
woman with an average body type and disheveled hair, with enough courage to challenge the
forces of nature and overcome them by herself. However, Disney managed to change this
appearance of Merida by making her body type of slim built, slimming down her limbs and
putting enough make up on her face in order to make her look more matured. All of this
reinforces the concepts of gender discrimination and ideal body image and racial discrimination
among the children. They then grow up to be the generation who further reinforces such ideas.

4IMPACT OF DISNEY CULTURE
References:
Bispo, A. (2014). „Fairy Tale Dreams: Disney Princesses' Effect on Young Girls' Self-
Images.“. Dialogues Journal, 9.
Golden, J. C., & Jacoby, J. W. (2018). Playing princess: preschool girls’ interpretations of gender
stereotypes in Disney princess media. Sex Roles, 79(5-6), 299-313.
Johnson, R. M. (2015). The Evolution of Disney Princesses and their Effect on Body Image,
Gender Roles, and the Portrayal of Love. Educational Specialist, (6).
Lind, A. D. (2016). Learn to Adapt: Depictions of Female Protagonists in Disney Fairy Tale
Adaptations (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon).
Mallory, M. (2017). The Power of a Princess: Examining the Role of the Disney Princess in the
Lives of Adolescent Girls (Doctoral dissertation, Regent University).
Meredith C., Erin G. & James G., (2005). Death in Disney Films: Implications For Children’s
Understanding Of Death. Omega, Vol. 50(4) 267-280
Muljani, R., & Wulandari, M. (2018). Gender Sensitive Messages Delivered In the Disney
Movie FROZEN. SINTESIS, 12(1), 16-29.
Sandlin, J. A., & Garlen, J. C. (Eds.). (2016). Disney, culture, and curriculum. Routledge.