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In another thread the subject of Disney came up somehow. There was a quote vortex and I was prompted to "go there." Actually, this post is the result of nearly 20 years of problems I've noticed with Disney but was never able to discuss without some one saying "But it's Disneeeyyy gonk ." and acting like I'm the nutcase. So yeah, I got about halfway through and got too tired to think clearly. Without further delay-

Gender
Females
The obvious deal with gender is that the female characters pretty much lack any control of their lives. Mulan, Helen Parr, and Lilo clearly excluded and to some extent Pocahontas. What I mean is they have no agency. There is a set track that most of their lives are on and they do not deviate, except the exceptions. This is the track:

Be pretty and sing -> get harmed by the villian -> man saves you -> bow chika wow woo -> her worth as a person has been validated the end

It punches we the viewer in the face. Notice how even though the females are the main characters the princes are the one that get the glory. They pretty much waltz up in there in the end and commandeers the story. The girl is completely helpless and we know absolutely nothing about him, but it doesn't matter because he's the man and the stupid little bimbo is helpless without him anyway. And what's worse is sometimes you'll have girls, like Ariel, who get SOME leeway as to what she can do, and what does she do? Use it to force herself on track, even if it costs her her voice (how accurate rolleyes ). Yet another example of Disney girls who drop the ball on their inkling of agency is Belle. She's sitting there in Medieval France and can read. This means she's intelligent, but she isn't allowed to do anything with it except sitting around being a nerd, because in the end, she is just has helpless as the rest of the Army of Princess Stormtroopers. EVA from Wall-e breaks this monotony with flying colors because she has alot of control of her life, as does Helen part who is able to talk to Bob as a sentient person and Mulan gets to make a kill.

Now let's get into sexualization. Of course they are all sexualized, but have you ever noticed HOW the good girls are sexualized verses the villians. The MCs are all objectified but more in a blushy blush, tee hee hee way that seems innocent at first glance. Like Ariel is the Disney slut, but look at her compared to Ursala who shimmies and her breasts are 2 seperate objects, le Gasp 0oQ! They're both objectified but in different ways that help create a division. More on this good guy-bad guy stuff later.

One thing about Wall-e and Eva's relationship is that it's so sweet. Even though for Wall-e it is love at first sight, he eventually appreciates her. He is sad when she shuts down, meaning that unlike the other Disney guys he is not content with a mindless doll. Why is the best Disney-Pixar relationship between robots? And why are human, cat, and dog girls more objectified than an actual object?

And of course the object of debate from another thread is that the Disney girls all look generic. While I don't think they look EXACTLY the same, it still drives home the point that they are all generic cardboard cut outs. I may be able to tell them apart, but you can't, but it doesn't matter because they're interchangeable any. You'll notice I didn't get into race, that comes later. Gotta keep it organized 3nodding .

Males

Egads, why it's the Disney male species. So much is paid to the ladyfolk but critics ignore some glaring problems of the not-so-well-characterized bretheren. Such as the fact that the Prince Stormtroopers look even more alike, all the prince charmings even have the same hairstyle DX. And alot of them don't have names and we DON'T know anything about them. Let's put this in context.

Society relates to the Princess Stormtroopers and they are the world's darlings. So they get into trouble. Oh noes gonk ! says the world. But just when all hope is lost, Princess Stormtrooper is saved by a guy. A guy she has never seen, doesn't know, we don't know him, if not for the fact that villians HAVE to look evil, we'd be well convinced he's some sort of serial killer or sex fiend taking advantage of a timely situation. Snow white has just taken a sinister turn.

On a less creepy note, let's talk about masculinity now. People are always complaining about boys being spoon-fed the idea of being hyper masculine with GI Joe dolls, but now lets look at this thing. Nearly all the Disney leading males are NOT hypermasculine. Even though Quasimodo is strong and butt ugly he still has a boyish quality. The Prince Stormtroopers are non-threatening, the Beast looks like a smexy bishie, and Aladdin looks like a snot-nose burger-flipper. It wouldn't be so bad if their hyper masculine characters weren't all douchebags. Gaston is the obvious example and when the Beast was a beast, he was emotionally abusive (but that's okay Belle can fix him heart ) Simba goes into the Prince stormtrooper but I'm still not sure since he's pretty well thought out and not just the usual slapped-together males MC's needed to yank the plot in the last 5 minutes. Also he still is pretty non-threatening.

This all goes back to the same problem as the Princess Stormtroopers were the same mold is repeated. Masculinity is the male answer to female sexualization. It's okay to be masculine, but not too much or you'll scare you're delicate little flower. They could solve this by fleshing their characters out and creating some middle ground, but Disney just wouldn't be Disney withouth flat caricatures.

Some notable exceptions are Mr. Incredible, because as usual Pixar has to pick up the ball. He is hypermasculine, but not in a meat-head kind of way. He does workout and have his wife, home, and 3 kids, but he's a man of many dimensions. Out of alot of the movies, his character is a good mix of vulnerable without being a wuss, and masculine while still having some sort of personality. Also the cool thing about Bob is that he is strong and he has since. He's smart enough to figure out that the only way to destroy Syndrome's robot is to make it hit itself and he uses his strength intelligently to follow through. Also, his family is also dynamic, complete with character growth, so like our mechanical friend Wall-e, a paperdoll of a wife is not good enough. Similarly Li Shang from Mulan is also brawny but not to the point of being, flat. The thing Bob and Li Shang have in common is that they are masculine and it's okay. It's almost like society pushes the idea that males have to be masculine but when some one is than some Cpt. Buzzkill starts whining about it being scary and threatening.

Gender + Race
LOl, see we're getting back to that. You've already talked about Jasmin so I won't say much more other than she's like the only Princess Stormtrooper who's anatomy is so realistic. Oh, and of course Esmeralda who does a pole dance at the beginning. These to are clear exemptions to the rule of female leads being as chaste as possible. And they are brown and exotic, interesting.

And these 2 canNOT seem to stay out of compromising situations and in some case Esmeralda. It's also worth noting that Esmeralda's character is developed into somewhat of a two timer since she leads Quasimodo on, seemingly just to get his help. Granted he was the one jumping to conclusion, which gets into men always thinking "S-E-X" even when the woman is just being nice, so in the event I'm fishing, it leads to another issue.

And notice how sexulity is pushed on them. Jasmine has to get all up on Jafar and Frollo gets way over friendly with Esmeralda. And they get the most unexposed, except for mulan in the bath, the lake, and soldier's tents, but those are for the progression of the story since the lake leads to her nearly getting her cover blown and her having nothing but bandages leads to her cover actually getting blown.

In Peter Pan, there's apart were the cast is with Native Americans. There's this whole song about why the "red man is red" The first problem is that this explains why they aren't the default color of white. Secondly they are aparently red because they beautiful promiscious women keep them blushing. However the beautiful women are brown rather than white. This creates a difference between the chaste fair Wendy and the brown little whores. And if the men are supposed to be the red ones, why are the unattractive women red too? That creates a dual message of masculinizing the women who do not adhere to proper standards of beauty and putting the Native American women into two categories; slut and ugly. And this is all confirmed by Tiger Lilly dancing immodestly and seduce Peter Pan. These brown women cannot seem to set their fast little behinds down.


Race
In jungle book, you have a group of jive-talking swingin' apes wanting to be like the boy who is supposed to be Indian but is portrayed as white bread for all practical purposes. Even though all the other animals are proper and behave themselves. In Dumbo you have the crow called "Jim Crow" and again the personas are based off stereotypes. Scat cat (the hat-wearing black cat) makes advaces at the prim lady-like duchess.

Aristocats is choked full of um' Italian, Chinese, Russian, and British. Scatcat, the hatwearing black cat that plays the trumpet, makes advances at the prim lady-like Duchess. He's modeled after a black musician who voiced him. The point were Shun Gon, the Chinese siamese(breed) cat, does the whole chinaman Engrish bit is cringe worthy no matter how many times I watch it. Also Tolouse the black kitten is the mischievous one but to be fair Marie is kind of irritating.

The whole bit with Aladdin where barbarism is normalized and the culture is made out to be less than ours.

Song of the South

Nationalism

Why is it that the villians have accents, like Jafar, and at best Scar sounds creepy. Meanwhile they are up against such white-bread folk as Aladdin and Simba.
In Mulan it always irked me that she subscribes to Western ideals even though she lives in China and America didn't even exist then. Seriously, her character is very out of context. And in the 2nd movie she's whining about the 3 princesses being shipped of to marry a Mongolian kid.

Crappy characterization
One of my biggest grievances toward Disney.

Everyone is so flat, especially considering all that stuff up there I just said. The heroes always look "nice" except Quasimodo. The bad guys always have to look, sound, act creepy. This creates the message of being able to tell someone is good or bad because they look it.

And there is never room for grey areas. The good guys are perfect and anything bad that results in their actions, like Scar's death, are excused. But the Villians are always going "mwahaha, I am evil." To be evil is to be wrong and people don't like to be wrong, therefore they wouldn't call themselves evil. Or if they do, they justify it as being for the greater good. The whole bit just creates an us-vs-them thing. The only time there's shades of grey is the white-haired woman in the Incredibles, from Pixar, who has to pick up the slack AGAIN.

Side characters, like the ones in most Disney movies are silly. Only Wall-e deviates from this with awsome looking machines. It's like the creators made the MC's and didn't feel like giving anyone else serious consideration. And everyone is flat except for some Pixar people and Wall-e and EVA. At this rate, Terminator doesn't seem too bad if AI can do better in than real humans.

Whew, -_Q it's too bad I started running out of steam by the time I got to nationalism. I'm pretty sure there's more to talk about. Also this post is 4 pages long.

Every notice that the bad guys are always "Black" or live in dark shadowy places from the evil step-mother onward?

When the Lion King was coming out PBS did a special about Lions and they said that the Black haired lions usually become the "King" of the tribes as their sperm is stronger and are able to breed for many, many years with many, many different women. They are usually bulkier than the "fair" headed ones as well.

So really Mufasa and Simba should have had a Black manes not Scar and Kufu. Who was by far weaker in strength and intelligence IMO. Yeah serious work with your natural enemies and eat more than a lion share of all the natural resource.

Same thing with any Princess movies which you so wonderful gut open like a 3 day old fish. All of their enemies are either dark, live in the dark, or wear something dark. How do you think this affect minorities especially BLACK kids?

Case in point: When I have a kid the only Disney related products are the dub versions of Hayao Miyazaki's works and a few Pixar films like Cars. It's a shame that Disney pretty much

However I remember reading a bio of Walt Disney himself and yeah he didn't like Jews (or any colored groups). So that explains a lot right there. Plus he once said that the company MAIN GOAL IS TO MAKE MONEY! Period. Disney is not here to teach morals, educated, or liberal. (I really should have brought that book as I have been unable to find it since)

Which is why the Disney company has little children in under-developed countries making all the products (material and labor total about 3.00 to 5.00 USD at the most) that we pay 20.99 and above for.

So no. Nothing you said is shocking or untrue. I think anyone with a brain can see all the bad affect that Disney can have for Children in general.

@ blakjapaneseangl-chan - Yes, why do the hyper-sexualized character's have to be so dang young. I have nothing against young characters in general but if there is something disturbing about a 16-yearold doing a pole-dance.

But it's because it is how the world see's teenagers.
You cant turn without seeing "The secret lives of teenagers" or "Secret life of the american teen" or the hills or melrose place depicting teens as over sexualized and deciving.

As much as the stories thatdisney picks to redo and show has it's wrong points. Not every woman can be the Wonder woman we like to see. Especially with teenagers.

and I know alot of people have been affected by disney because you see the same thing happen in certain cartoons. After a while even Wonderwoman became dependent on batman even though she was so much stronger and better than him. Anime magical girls always depend on a guy to do the same.

Even as I roleplay. People depict their girls like that alot.

Well not all magical girls. Sailor moon didn't rely on Tuxy too much. Well not in the comics. That's messed up about Wonder Woman. Good thing I never really been into her or that would have irked me. (I didn't like when Storm and Wolverine hooked up either)

Does anyone know if Gossip Girl did the whole 3some thing? I missed it. (I don't watch it but rumor has it parents and a couple Christian based group wrote angry letters and made a big deal about it) *shrugs* Just wondering.

and now back on the Disney topic.......

Anti-Homosexuality subliminal message....

Maybe I am the only one that notices but doesn't it seem like nearly ever Disney film (rather live action or animated) have a questionable guy or two? I started to notice this when I saw Pocahontas. There's always this male couple (usually on the bad guy side hence it's anti-Homosexual) that have a questionable relationship.

Like in Pocahontas the fat greedy dude, Ratcliffe and the skinny, servant Wiggins. Wiggins was dressing him, shaving him, and pretty much living with the guy. Now, I studied European culture a bit and it can get a little dicey but the way Wiggins was fawning over the dude and ran like a woman.

Beauty and the Beast: Nearly mirrors this. You have Gaston and Marice. (In fact during that song about Gaston. It sounds like Disney was jabbing at the whole "French people are gay" joke. With the line: I want a guy like Gaston) rolleyes Actually thinking about it now, I think Beauty and the Beast was pretty anti-French.

Peter Pan, Oliver and Company, Hunchback, and a lot of others have this pattern. You always have this over the top girlie dude who's usually with the bad guy.

However, people have questioned Timon and Pumbaa relationship though. So it's not always the bad guy.

Just a thinkin'

Boys do kind of have it bad because they get looked at strange if they aren't whore-mongers by the age of 13. But if a girl is promiscuous then people get on her about it. So if kids go by the social standard then who would the boys have sex with? It does suck about how rape and domestic abuse don't get taken seriously with men. You see it on tv all the time, not directly though, insinuations. In sitcoms the infantilization and emasculination of the sitcom husband is rampant(it's also a device played for kicks on commercials). Women talk to the men like they're children. And when a man gets physically abused by his wife he can't even come out with it or people will life at him and go "Hahaha you can't fight off that little woman?" No, because if he hit her behind back then SHE'LL report HIM, and if he tells people why he hit her then it's back to the same problem. And of course people don't think men can get raped and would find it funny because men "always want sex anyway."



Letting kids watch those shows too much actually makes kids dumber. Their constantly being bombarded with information overload so overtime their brains learn to dump information and shorten their attention spans. And the time spent watching tv should be spent playing and being read to. The sooner people stop using Sony as a babysitter the better off we'll all be.

Yeah sucks. That why I always have to ask and I try to study it. However, because it's so grossly under-reported. (Especially if the young man been in juvie or foster home where I feel it's more likely to happen)

Yeah and even in children's commercial. Like if it's a toy marketed towards both genders (which is of course very rare but still)



That's why I asked over on the extended discussion once: If Riahanna hauls off and smacks Chris Brown at the next BET awards, how many people would feel that was A OKAY?




Preaching to the Choir on that one.