Walt Disney Cartoons - Essay Example

Walt Disney Cartoons Cartoons and animated movies have taken the center stage in the current entertainment industry. Children and teens spend much of their time watching these movies and are likely to develop negative traits and attitudes due to the message contained in them. Sexism is evident in the way women and girls are portrayed. Cartoon creators portray women as unhappy and have to seek the right man in order to find happiness. Their dressing is usually scanty exposing significant amount of skin (Lacroix, 2004). Disney cartoons have racial bias towards some races such as the Chinese. Asians, African Americans, Native Americans, and people from the Middle East are portrayed along racial lines. Some characters have hatred towards lesbians and gay men. The homosexuals are secluded and experience violence and hostility from other characters. This has a negative impact on homosexuals in the society watching these cartoons and other children develop negative attitudes towards homosexuals. Sexism is evident in several Disney cartoons, which portrays girls negatively. Girls and women are grossly underrepresented in films and cartoons, which represents a missed opportunity to present them in non-sexualized roles. The cartoons derive their values from the sexual appeal or behavior portrayed by their sexual attractiveness. Majority of the children’s programs contain animations and cartoons. These cartoons contain sexualizing images of girls and women. Disney portrays female characters with more cleavage, fewer clothes and are presented as sexier than those of former years. An example is The Little Mermaid where the female characters expose their cleavage and are scantily dressed. These characters are depicted as sexier than those in Cinderella or Snow White. These animations have great potential to influence girls and young teens paying every detail to the characters. Girls are primarily portrayed as domestic, concerned with their appearance and interested in boys. This overemphasizes their own self as romantic objects (Lacroix, 2004). In The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Disney has constructed the heroines in extreme idealized forms of white femininity. The heroines are characterized as assertive and intelligent figures who take on adventures. The heroines are empowered in their actions, and idealized beauty is affirmed by their dressing. In this light, the texts form part of the popular discourse of femininity which encourages women to internalize gendered body norms. Women want to expose themselves in order to achieve the feminine character contained in the movies. These body styles are privileged since they adhere to the contemporary norms of feminism contained in the films. The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast introduce oppressive power structures which produce the desires claimed in the movies. In The Little Mermaid, the girls are constantly posing and preening themselves, and their main function is to entertain the king. This can be considered an oppressive and objectifying presentation of women (Baker and Raney, 2007). The male characters are presented in a possessive form in these movies. In The Little Mermaid, King Triton is portrayed as portrayed as an authority figure that has to be entertained by the girls through song and dance. Ariel is chastised and forbidden to make outside contracts by the king. Triton acts as a patriarchic figure and has confined Ariel from her aspirations. Gaston tells Belle that women should be banned from reading or having ideas (Budd, 2005). Gaston consider Belle an accessory that he should have and does not chase her out of love. The heroines are dominated by the male figures portraying their qualities of authenticity and self-determination. The male characters have objectifying gazes of sexual desires towards the heroines. These characters portray female characters as dependent people dominated by the male figures in the society (Budd, 2005). Female figures in the cartoons such as Ariel pose with their breasts thrust forward with attractive backgrounds such as the sea. They usually move with erect ceremonial postures that overemphasize their slender body figures. This makes the female figures sexually attractive and youthful. They have wide eyes and slender bodies that give them child-like women or girls on the cusp of womanhood. This is in accordance with the Disney motto that encourages animators to keep the characters cute. The animators maintain this cuteness by producing sexually attractive female figures. The female characters are paired with older daddy figures that form a socially acceptable form of sexuality. The erotic gazes from the male figures in the cartoons have spilled over to the society, which affects the child-like women. These scenes can have the implications of child pornography by sanctioning adult romance portrayed by the young women. The women have to submit to the gazes of the male figures in order to win them over. Research by Baker and Raney (2007) examined the number of male and female characters in cartoon programs as well as their physical, personality and communicative behaviors. Male characters were present in 65.7 percent of the time, and female characters appeared in 34.4 percent. This demonstrates that males have more leading roles than female characters in the screening time. The male characters were more emotionally controlled than their female counterparts. These trends are also present in Disney animated movies where the male characters are given more important roles than female characters. The male figures are older than the women giving them more social responsibility and portraying women as dependent characters. This indicates that the animation creators give male figures higher values than their female counterparts. Male characters are more likely to work in areas outside the home than women whose main role is working within the household. Racism is also evident in several animated cartoons produced by Disney. In the movie Aladdin, Disney coded racial traits by presenting good and bad characters. The positive characters have Aryan features while the negative traits are coded in characters with Arabic physical features (Artz, 2002). The company had announced the beginning of a multicultural phase in its production, but the central perspective remained white, middle class, and American. The white American culture is presented as the normal culture with all nonwestern cultural perspectives lumped together in an exotic heap. The white American youths in the movie are placed at the top of the social structure and have more freedom and opportunities than the non-white youths. Aladdin introduces a social hierarchy with characters serving the social order portrayed as positive and those trying to reverse it portrayed as negative. Majority of the characters in Disney cartoons are whites, and the minority groups represented have supportive roles that are usually odd. In The Lion King, the main characters are whites while the hyenas living in the dark lands represent the urban blacks. Ethnicity is evident in these productions where the minorities rely on the whites for assistance and salvation. Minority characters usually have odd roles while the whites have the most powerful and important roles. According to Disney, the creation of characters is based on the trends in the society. The social hierarchy in America places the whites at the highest rank with the minorities forming the low class society. However, this representation in the animations seems to extend the boundaries of racial segregation into the entertainment industry. Aladdin and Jasmine speak with an American accent and young and good looking. The sultan of Agrabah has a British accent and is presented as a jovial and benevolent character resembling Santa Claus. Jafar speaks with an Arabic accent, an aquiline nose, and it tall, dark and threatening. The racial representation of characters is common in Disney productions such as Tarzan, Mulan, and The Lion King. The negative and positive presentation of these races contradicts the multicultural claim upheld by the organization. A multicultural society promotes social coercion by giving the races equal presentation in the social class. The whites are considered to be more superior to the minorities such as the African Americans, Asians, and Latinos. Giving the Arabs the negative features and bad character traits presents them as stereotypes unable to integrate well in the American society. Arabs seem violent and barbaric while Americans seem decent and loving (Semmerling, 2006). The film Pocahontas is based on a real historical figure and has departed from the ordinary Disney films. The Powhatan girl befriends an English colonist John Smith. This improves the racial relationships between the Native Americans and the colonists. Native Americans have been given positive traits while the colonialists have negative character traits (Bird, 2008). This reverses the cultural dichotomy contained in Aladdin where whites are considered superior to other races. The neocolonialist text in Pocahontas aims at improving the hierarchical order between the natives and the colonialists. However, colonial supremacy over natives is evident when John Smith intends to civilize Pocahontas and save Powhatan. Secondary characters assist the hero are cute and friendly while those supporting the villain are presented as passive and emotionless. The superiority contained in this film can be interpreted along racial lines since the superior characters are white colonists and the inferior ones are Native Americans. This promotes the racial differences between the whites and Native Americans. Homophobia is also evident in Disney movies such as the Lion King. Parents, psychologists and pundits watching the movie have identified violence and stereotyping scenes and gestures. The hyenas are urban blacks with effeminate gestures and speak in suggestive gay clichés. Uncle Scar is portrayed as a treacherous and gay villain in the movie (Booker, 2009). Scar is presented as a cunning and sinister character that has a cold trait. Scar is an evil and greedy lion that kills the Lion King Mustafa and blames Simba. The negative and inhuman character given to scar can be linked to his sexuality. Disney seems to dislike the gay characters by giving them negative traits in the movie. The gay hyenas are ugly beasts and represent the urban blacks. This can also act as a racist trait by giving black Americans the role of gay hyenas. The kingdom plunges into disaster after scar takes over signifying the leadership deficiencies among homosexuals. The hyenas in The Lion King are depraved hermaphrodites with the female species having male genitalia. The hyenas are unnatural and form an alliance with Scar that makes all kinds of nature to suffer. This shows that the homosexuals have the inability to lead and are portrayed as cruel creatures. The male genital on the female hyenas is the same size as that of the male counterparts. This representation is discriminatory and offensive to the gay people. The hyenas rule the dark and poor areas in the pride lands and plot to overthrow the monarchy. This excludes he gays from ruling or leading prominent and well developed areas. Scar has a British accent and is alienated from the rest of his family. He has effeminate mannerisms that associate homosexuality with evil. The British accent portrays him as a foreigner, which associates homosexuality with foreignness. When Scar becomes the king, he becomes a dictator with an army of marching hyenas. This introduces images of Nazism from Hitler. Dictators from all over the world have had received criticism from democratic nations, and their kingdoms always experience severe problems. The inability of dictators to lead effectively is transferred to the character of Scar. The nation is saved when Simba reclaims power after overthrowing Scar. Simba is in love with Nala indicating that he is not a homosexual. His ability to lead and the failure of Scar indicate the presumed differences between gay and heterosexual people in the society. Disney has portrayed gay people as incapable and discriminative by possessing unwanted qualities and engaging in socially unacceptable activities (Hawkins, 2006). Children watching these cartoons are likely to develop the same hatred against gay people in the society. Cases of homophobia in the society are on the rise and the animated cartoons expose children at an early stages. Walt Disney has existed in the entertainment industry since the 1930s and has produced several animated cartoon movies. These movies are based on the activities evident in the society. The female characters are presented as sexist by dressing them scantily in order to expose their bodies. They are given less important roles in the movies than their male counterparts. Their presentation in these movies portrays them as sexual objects that have to depend on men. Male characters are given administrative roles and work in the cities while women perform household duties. Whites are usually given good traits and are at the highest point in the social structure. Minorities such as African Americans and Arabs have negative traits and participate in activities that are cruel or inhuman. Homophobia exists where homosexual characters have negative roles and have leadership inabilities. Therefore, Disney cartoons can classified as racist, sexist and homophobic. References Artz, L. 2002. Animating Hierarchy: Disney and the Globalization of Capitalism. Global Media Journal, 1(1). Baker, K. & Raney, A. 2007. Equally super?: Gender-role stereotyping of superheroes in children’s animated programs. Mass Communication and Society, 10(1), 25-41. Bird, S. E. 2008. The Burden of History: Representations of American Indian Women in Popular Media. In M. Meyers (Ed.). Women in popular culture: representation and meaning. Cresskill, N.J: Hampton. Booker, M. K. 2009. Disney, Pixar, and the hidden messages of children's films. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger. Budd, M. 2005. Rethinking Disney: private control, public dimensions. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. Hawkins, L. 2006. New generation storytellers: An animated approach. Screen Education, 98- 101. Lacroix, C. 2004. Images of animated others: The Orientalization of Disney’s cartoon heroines from the Little Mermaid to the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Popular Communication, 2,213-229. Semmerling, T. J. 2006. “Evil” Arabs in American Popular Film: Orientalist Fear, Austin: University of Texas Press. Read More