With the Gender and media study assignment approaching I decided to create an assignment similar to that by analyzing the movies we have all watched and loved as a child; Disney movies. As children we may not have reached that deeply into the Disney films but looking back on them now the male and female roles becomes apparent. For this project I went through and watched a couple of Disney movies that, looking back on, I could remember witnessing distinct gender roles. The first movie I watched was Mulan. In case you’re not familiar with the story, it was about a girl in China who was expected to bring honor to her family by following the traditional Chinese traditions of becoming a bride. However, her vibrant spirit and independence hindered her from following traditional ideals. One day her fathered was served to go to war even though he was still injured from the last war and he didn’t have a son to take his place so she dressed as a man
and went to fight the war for her father and become a renowned hero and earns honor for her family. Throughout the movie there were quotes and scenes that demonstrated the role women were expected to play. When Mulan pleas to the emperor’s adviser to keep her father out of war, he interrupts her and says “Silence! You should teach your daughter to hold her tongue in a man’s presence!” Quotes and scenes such as these are just one of the many examples of how women were considered inferior to men. Mulan is one of the movies that was had more emphasis on independence and a woman’s ability to think for herself, due to the fact that she was forced to decide between her desire for independence and her expectation to bring her family honor. (Until the sequel came out where she gets married and settles down).
This relates to the texts we have been analyzing during the Victorian era demonstrating a man’s superior role in family life and society as a whole. Other examples of Disney suggesting gender roles in society would be a majority of the Disney princess movies that has been marketed to girls for years. Each of the Disney princesses emphasizes the importance of marriage and a domesticated lifestyle. By watching each of these movies you rarely see the female roles deciding to break off and start a career or follow an independent lifestyle that doesn’t involve a man. Instead they follow societies gender stereotypes by endorsing the idea of marriage and family life. Just as we have seen in works such as the “Girl of the Period” women were inferior to men and were expected to be a proper housewife and mother and follow societal expectations that is typically derived form a religious component. Another example would be The Little Mermaid, where she dreams of having feet so that she can go on land and find the man of her dreams which demonstrates the romanticized idea that pursuing a man and a domesticated life is the popular ideal to follow.
-Michelle Davis
