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Blake Bishop
HDFS 205
Media Reflection
3/28/2018

Gender Stereotyping in Disney Animation

The “princess in distress” is a trope far older than the Walt Disney Company, but it is

nonetheless one that Disney has certainly made its own through its many animated films. From

Disney’s first feature film, Snow White, to Tarzan, its last entry in the twentieth century, not a

single lead female was without need of saving. It is especially interesting that this salvation

came, without exception, at the hands of a man. Even in animal-led films such as The Aristocats,

the lead female, a cat named Duchess, needs the help of a strong, scrappy male cat to help rescue

her and her kittens from certain death. Even in films where the heroine provides assistance to the

male lead, [i.e. Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast] their assistance is always in iconically feminine

form.

For example, in Beauty and the Beast, the heroine Belle is able to save the Beast by

showing him kindness and good manners; of course she also falls in love with him, reversing a

witch’s spell and turning him back into a human. Essentially, Belle, though she is the lead of the

film, is only able to provide help through subservience, positivity, and love. Meanwhile in the

realm of physicality, she is completely helpless. When she tries to escape the Beast’s

confinement, she is quickly set upon by wolves. Of course, the Beast quickly intervenes and

saves precious, powerless Belle’s life, which leads us to a scene of Belle playing Clara Barton

with the Beast’s wounds, as women are expected to be caregivers.

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Men, on the other hand, generally fail to follow any harsh stereotypes aside from that of

playing the savior. Unlike Disney’s female characters, there is quite a lot of diversity in the male

character spectrum. Men play harsh villains, strong and caring do-gooders, gentle giants, witty

detectives, distressed teens, and daring heroes, among many others. They generally show more

character development over the course of their respective movies, increasing their understanding

and empathic tendencies while learning to better provide for others’ needs. Though the idea of

being the “prince” that every girl dreams of can certainly be harmful, the most outright

stereotyping of male tendencies in Disney films is the trope of refusing to ask for directions, as

can be found in the Disney classic, The Rescuers.

In the most basic sense, Disney’s female characters through the end of the twentieth

century were helpless, clueless, and devoid of any true agency separate from their need for “true

love.” Even when women are empowered in films such as Mulan, there is a strong expectation

and delivery of male attention, as if saving and entire country is simply not enough for a heroine

to accomplish. Essentially, she must bring home a man. This is true of most all of Disney’s

films of the 1900s; Ariel leaves her family and marries a prince, Snow White and Sleeping

Beauty both end up with a prince who kissed them when they were basically dead, [out of

gratitude I suppose?] Cinderella marries a man who is unable to remember her face, and Jane

chooses to abandon her family and country, living without shelter in the jungle because a gorilla-

man showed her the ways of nature. Of course, with the high level of Disney’s film output, the

list goes on and on.

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Other Stereotypes

Though the broad topic is addressed in the documentary Mickey Mouse Monopoly, the

ravens in Dumbo are certainly one of the most vivid and outright obvious examples of Disney’s

attitudes towards “popular” racism. Though all the crows spoke as African-American men, the

racist ideologies of the characters go far beyond that easily-noticed detail. Their dress and

actions are explicit mimicry of the African American caricatures of the time, and Disney went as

far as to name the leader of the crows “Jim Crow.” Jim Crow, was, of course, a reference to both

the racist policies of de jure segregation in the early twentieth century and a popular blackface

character, known universally as “Jim Crow.”

This blatantly negative and stereotypical portrayal of a minority race is sadly, not

uncommon when revising the works of Disney’s animation studios. This is especially true when

revisiting Disney’s shorter cartoons, as they were generally intended to be humorous rather than

plot driven. One excellent example of Disney’s stereotyping of “the other” can be found in the

wartime cartoon Der Führer’s Face, in which Donald Duck is trapped in a nightmare in Nazi

Germany. This brief cartoon provides a bouquet of wartime racism, both in its immediate

character illustrations and general portrayal of Germany. The single Japanese character has a

pallid yellow-green tint to his skin, slanted eyes obscured by round classes, and is comically

dwarfish. The Italian is illustrated as overweight and simple-minded The representation of the

Axis powers, who play in a pitiful and poorly organized marching band, are shown as a literal

band of misfits, with the Germans physically lacking in prowess and exuding femininity. The

background of the cartoon is nothing but a smattering of absurdly placed swastikas, Führer-

saluting machines, and smoky factories, devoid of any culture or humanistic representation.
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Of course, the most important aspect in understanding these portrayals, along with their

many counterparts, is that each served a purpose. They were a reflection of their time, playing

on either popular opinion or acting as simple wartime propaganda. Even with its blatant racism,

Der Führer’s Face won an Academy Award in 1943 for Best Short Subject Cartoon. Of course,

it is easy to look back on the painful representations of the “other” in Disney’s works, especially

as they occur in much more recent movies. However, even these recent faux pas can easily be

understood, though not approved, when considering that the medium has served to mirror

society’s expectations.

The Evolution of Gender

As the norms surrounding gender and gender roles have shifted over the past century, so

have their portrayal in Disney films. We have come a long way from the blind subservience of

Disney princesses like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Over time, the female

characters in Disney’s animation have become increasingly independent and strong-minded,

even if this change has been made through small steps. In fact, some of the most recent additions

to the Disney canon, Moana and Frozen, have not even featured a love interest for the lead

character, both of which are independent females. Another recent Disney film, Big Hero 6,

showed both male and female characters engaged in scientific inquiry and general heroism, again

devoid of any Disney love for our lead characters. Even Disney’s adaptation of the fairy tale

Rapunzel, Tangled, gives Rapunzel a very twenty-first level of agency and power. She

overpowers the male lead as soon as they are introduced and repeatedly proves herself a worthy

physical adversary, making her own decisions through her journey to find her parents.
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Embracing Diversity

Though it certainly has a long way to go, Disney has certainly improved both the

frequency of inclusion and quality of of its minority characters. Disney provided its first non-

white hero and heroine in its (still problematic) 1992 release of Aladdin, shortly followed by the

introduction of two more nonwhite lead characters, Pocahontas and Esmeralda, in 1995 and

1996, respectively. The trend continued with the release of Mulan in 1998 and the Emperor’s

New Groove in 200, both introducing ethnic characters in a fairly non-biased way. Of course,

the biggest step towards inclusion was in 2009, when Disney introduced its first African

American princess in The Princess in the Frog. The trend has continued with the inclusion of

Japanese and Pacific Islander lead characters as Disney comes to understand the importance of

embracing diversity in the twenty-first century.

The Mickey Mouse Monopoly

When dissecting the timeline of Disney’s history in animation, as with any history, it is

enormously important to take the context of popular culture into account. Though it has

certainly not always been as positive and innocent as Disney may have us believe, the films of

Disney were just as vulnerable to common stereotypes as any other media. When American

culture was widely guilty of African American stereotyping, Disney followed the leash to make

popular, relatable content. The same can be said of Disney’s portrayal of females. Their on-

screen representation has, throughout the past century, been a near-mirror reflection of society’s

implicit expectations. In the past, women have been expected to be subservient caregivers whose

sole purpose in living was to find and please a husband. As a result, Disney films portray the

same expectations.
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As culture shifts occurred, Disney reframed and literally rewrote their narratives to,

again, provide popular and entertaining content. As women were given more societal agency, so

were their animated counterparts. As racism became increasingly unpopular, Disney was quick

to abandon harsh stereotypes and introduce more characters of color. Though many blame

Disney for their portrayal of gender and racial stereotypes, the truth is that their cartoons are

nothing but a mirror image of American society. However, problems occur when Disney’s films

are not viewed with that understanding. While a newspaper article outlining the horrors of Jim

Crow in America is easy to understand as a historical artifact, its representation in cartoon form

serves not to educate, but to entertain, even as it is similarly historically representative. As

society continues to advance in terms of gender, racial, and ethnic acceptance, the question we

should ask is not whether Disney is evil or racist, but whether we should continue to show our

children socially outdated films and expect them to follow and understand current social norms.
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Citations
Our Films. (n.d.). Retrieved March 30, 2018, from https://www.disneyanimation.com/studio/our-
films