Disney Gender Roles From Sexpot to Soldier: The Mixture of Stereotypes in Disney's Heroines

Gender roles in Disney films have changed throughout the decades from Snow White (1937) to Brave (2012). Each film has presented female characters either typical of that generation or else possessing idealized personas projected by that generation's particular trends in gender awareness. In most cases, Disney films have succeeded at doing both simultaneously. Fans of Disney have stated that Disney movies present good gender role models while critics have argued that the standard Disney hero or heroine is a composite of generational stereotypes mixed with idealized qualities that are, in turn, identified as bad models for gender role behavior. This paper will examine the negative aspects of these claims and give the positive counter arguments to them.

The Image of Pin-Up Perfection

The first negative claim that can be made against Disney is that it has always projected false, idealized representations of womanhood. The first "perfect" woman presented by Disney was in the 1959 film Sleeping Beauty. She was the equivalent of the European pin-up Brigitte Bardot. She was, in other words, a fantasy drawn to attract the male gaze. She was slender, tall, and beautiful. She was the first real Disney Princess. And she set up the standard for all future Disney Princesses -- and even for young girls who desired to model themselves after these Disney Princesses, as Wohlwend (2009) has noted. The Disney Princess image has never gone away, even as newer models have replaced it -- for instance the tomboyish character of Merida in Brave (2012). Unlike other Disney Princesses, Merida is a soldier-type: she carries and uses a longbow and fights for what she believes in. She is pro-active, assertive and strong. She is still beautiful but not in the same pin-up way. And she is a far cry from the familiar Disney Princess model equated for years with the unreal features of the Barbie doll. The Disney Princess now lives in the Princess dolls that are still marketed for girls, who play with them and follow the narratives of the Disney Princess home movie DVDs, games, and story books. They use these narratives as stepping stones for their own games and stories that they construct when they play Disney Princesses in their own homes (Wohlwend, 2009). This is the first problem for critics of Disney.

The second problem is that the Disney Princess idealizes the woman as an object. Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Tinkerbell are just a few of the Disney heroines who have exuded sexuality as a means of attracting the male gaze. Feminists have denounced this objectifying of women, especially famed Feminist Betty Friedan. In 1963, Betty Friedan would publish The Feminine Mystique, a critique of the "perfect" woman, idealized in the Disney movie and on popular sitcoms of the time. Disney's Beauty was, without doubt, a sexpot in the sense that she reflected the sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s, typified by starlets like Brigitte Bardot, whose "perfect" hourglass figure is represented by Sleeping Beauty. In terms of sex appeal, Beauty was an idol. Yet, in terms of 1950s standards of womanly expectations, she was the sexy, graceful, "Suzy homemaker" idealized by American women in virtually all television sitcoms. She dances, she sings, she sews, she cooks, she cleans, she chastely waits for her "prince charming" to find her, sweep her off her feet and carry her away to a castle in the clouds. However, the evil witch, who resents Beauty's charms, beauty, and virtue, casts a spell on her, thus reducing Beauty to a passive role in her own fate. The prince must break the spell, defeat the forces of evil, and save Beauty. His role is the active one -- the one in which power is asserted. Friedan, in 1963, rejects this role and demands that women be allowed to play a more significant part in their own destinies. Rather than be seen as passive recipients of male love, or as representatives of the male fantasy, Friedan set about developing a new gender role -- one that would ultimately turn "Beauty" in the heroine depicted in Disney's Brave -- a strong female lead who is no longer the passive actor, but...

Mulan, for example, is an Asian who does not fit the mold of the other Disney Princesses, yet she is a very Westernized Asian, whose appearances only mask the Western Princess beneath. Jasmine is supposedly a Middle Eastern princess, but her ideals, behavior and dress are very revealing of Western attitudes. These heroines are meant to show diversity but all they show are the same stereotypes dressed up in new appearances.
The response to the first negative claim is that Disney films are just that -- films: Part of the reason for the controversy is found in the very nature of the film medium itself, the allure of which is based on the projection of beautiful or attractive images that will catch and hold a viewer's interest. Because Disney films are just that -- films -- they depend upon portraying gender roles that both reflect societal pretensions and/or norms and heighten them to a fantastical or idealized degree -- the reason being, of course, that films (like advertisements) depend upon a "perfect" image in order to be marketable. Thus, gender in Disney films may be said to be "perfectly" imperfect. These films have through time presented "perfect" imperfections with respect to female gender models, often blurring the line between generational female gender norms and expectations and harmful generational stereotypes.

In fact, several strong female leads appear in Disney films beginning with 1989's The Little Mermaid. However, as that film and subsequent films show, the gender role depicted was still highly idealized, stereotypically geared towards the "male fantasy," even as it the female lead began to assert a growing sense of autonomy. Sex became not something to suppress, but rather something to utilize. Ariel was "sex" personified -- a fantasy (a red-haired, big-bosomed mermaid who turns human), a rebel (she disobeys her father, thus rejecting masculine restraint), and yet still traditional (she runs from one male, her father, into the arms of another -- the charming, dashing, handsome Prince Eric). There is an obvious mixture of intentions at work in the gender role filled by Ariel. She is at once meant to attract with her features, which are even more idealized than Beauty's of some thirty years earlier. (This particular quality of Ariel suggests that in spite of the Women's Movement led by women like Friedan, an opposite current still catered to the "male gaze" and Disney, like a successful advertising agency, gave the male viewer what he could be expected to want. The problem is that for young girls who flocked to the film, this presented an unreal role model in the form of the "sexy" Ariel who, like Beauty exists in the realm of the fantastical, the virtuous, and the chaste -- these characters never engage in anything like sexual intercourse before marriage. The sense that Ariel is a liberated woman because she flees her home and embarks on an adventure outside the confines with which she is used to combats with the sense that Ariel is still confined by "sex-kitten" stereotypes which reduces her to the level of an object and encourage young girls to see themselves as objects of the male gaze.

That these narratives were being picked up by little girls are formed into their own fantasies has been thoroughly shown by researchers like Wohlwend (2009), who has noted that when "girls played with Disney Princess dolls…they animated identities sedimented into toys and texts" -- in other words, they reenacted the roles given them by Disney films such as Beauty and the Beast. However, that is the nature of children's games and it is natural for them to mimic what they see. Films and shows are not the only thing that forms young girls' consciousness.

The second negative is countered thus: although Disney's heroines exude sexuality and may seem to be objects of the male gaze, there is more depth to them than one may realize. Merida in Brave is what one might call a modern Feminist, who insists on her own way, on marrying whom she chooses, and speaking her voice. She is admired for her actions as much as for her beauty. The same may be said of Mulan. The Disney Princess of former ages is no longer the mold, but a relic. She is a plaything. For older audiences, Disney's heroines are reflecting deeper societal currents and trends. They are reflecting more complex women. By 1998, for example, Disney began to address some of the stereotypes it had spent years reinforcing. Mulan portrayed a strong female lead, who did not possess the sexpot figure of former Disney heroines. In fact, she spends most of the movie disguised as a boy. That she was also…