BASIC ISSUES IN INTERCULTURAL STUDIES GROUP PROJECT
MOVIES
DISNEY
SNOW WHITE AND CLASSICAL PRINCESS IMAGE IN DISNEY
I suppose that most of people are quite familiar with the storyline of Snow White, who is one of the classical princesses shaped by Walt Disney Pictures. The story was originally adapted from the Grimm Brother’s Story, narrating a love story between a princess and a hero／prince who saves the girl from a plight or a great trouble. Similarly, other typical princesses created in Disney in fairly early days, including Cinderella, Little Mermaid Ariel, Belle (protagonist of Beauty and the Beast), Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, almost follow the coincidently same life track as Snow White, which definitely constructs an important part of Disney fantasy. It might be concluded briefly that the ultimate dream of a girl should be a pure love with a Prince Charming, with whom her life will be brightened from then on. In Picture I, six ironic arguments are made to further interpret the so-called fantasy.
Picture I:
An ironic explanation of the six classical Disney princesses' mindset.
Besides, the gender performativity indicated here is not limited to the appearance while the mindset of heterosexuality under patriarchal social structures probably comes into effect as well, which is considered more powerful to certain extent. It seems that these princesses are always expecting to be rescued by men. Yet, although in many cases the whole story is not directly related to the male characters, as some movie titles are named after the female roles, like Snow White, Cinderella, Little Mermaid: Ariel, etc., at the end of those stories, it is men characters who are tagged as the role of heroes or rescuers of female. Such conclusion can be drawn that princesses are put in a passive position，or women roles are lack of certain subjectivity.
In the days earlier than 1980s, the division of labor with regard to the gender roles was strict in American society, where the social function of women mainly lied in domestic work and baby-sitting. The mission endowed by that patriarchal society involved waiting for true love and taking care of the family, indicating that women’s value were completely internalized while women could hardly realize the social value of doing such stuffs.
Therefore, Disney’s shaping of such female characters is fairly superficial and with obvious deficiency in focus on their thoughts. To some extent, women were situated in a collective unconsciousness in Disney animation movies, seeing that they merely survived in the aesthetic dream of men who could provide them with a romantic fantasy.
However, this highly symbolic Disney fantasy created on movie screen has gone through quite a lot changes with the increasingly strong impact of feminist activities around the world.
NEW ALLEGORY OF STEREOTYPES
Besides, the gender performativity indicated here is not limited to the appearance while the mindset of heterosexuality under patriarchal social structures probably comes into effect as well, which is considered more powerful to certain extent. It seems that these princesses are always expecting to be rescued by men. Yet, although in many cases the whole story is not directly related to the male characters, as some movie titles are named after the female roles, like Snow White, Cinderella, Little Mermaid: Ariel, etc., at the end of those stories, it is men characters who are tagged as the role of heroes or rescuers of female. Such conclusion can be drawn that princesses are put in a passive position，or women roles are lack of certain subjectivity.
In the days earlier than 1980s, the division of labor with regard to the gender roles was strict in American society, where the social function of women mainly lied in domestic work and baby-sitting. The mission endowed by that patriarchal society involved waiting for true love and taking care of the family, indicating that women’s value were completely internalized while women could hardly realize the social value of doing such stuffs.
Therefore, Disney’s shaping of such female characters is fairly superficial and with obvious deficiency in focus on their thoughts. To some extent, women were situated in a collective unconsciousness in Disney animation movies, seeing that they merely survived in the aesthetic dream of men who could provide them with a romantic fantasy.
However, this highly symbolic Disney fantasy created on movie screen has gone through quite a lot changes with the increasingly strong impact of feminist activities around the world.
NEW ALLEGORY OF STEREOTYPES
Thus we’re going to deconstruct the princess fantasy from the gender perspective.
Despite various character and plot settings, these princesses share their physical appearance in common. To be specific, they all have slim waists, flawless skin and bright pairs of eyes with highly elegant and feminized dressing style. These representation of women character is highly stereotyped, which seemingly becomes the common sense of beauty and sets up the prototype of ideal women in the society. For young girl audiences of these movies, such ideas as “Beauty helps girls get advanced in life” can be easily instilled in their mind and later intensified accompanied by the social “norms” of being an ideal woman.
In Gender Trouble written by Judith Butler, she argues that the performativity of gender is a stylized repetition of acts, an imitation or miming of the dominant conventions of gender. (1990; 129) Thus, certain physical signs of these princess such as their clothing, their hairstyle, and their way of behaving, etc. are constantly repeated in the series of Disney animation films, where we see the and are even more widely mimicked by young female fans of Disney (as is shown in the following two pictures taken by our group members in Hong Kong Disneyland). It is quite obvious that it’s their way to respond to the recognition of gender performances created by Disney princess fantasy, and with the continuous repetition of such princess-dressing behaviors by others or themselves, such style of female performances can be deeply established in little girl’s minds.
Picture II:
Two of little female visitors we met in our field trip to Hong Kong Disneyland are in costumes of Princess figures in Disney.
Besides, the gender performativity indicated here is not limited to the appearance while the mindset of heterosexuality under patriarchal social structures probably comes into effect as well, which is considered more powerful to certain extent. It seems that these princesses are always expecting to be rescued by men. Yet, although in many cases the whole story is not directly related to the male characters, as some movie titles are named after the female roles, like Snow White, Cinderella, Little Mermaid: Ariel, etc., at the end of those stories, it is men characters who are tagged as the role of heroes or rescuers of female. Such conclusion can be drawn that princesses are put in a passive position，or women roles are lack of certain subjectivity.
In the days earlier than 1980s, the division of labor with regard to the gender roles was strict in American society, where the social function of women mainly lied in domestic work and baby-sitting. The mission endowed by that patriarchal society involved waiting for true love and taking care of the family, indicating that women’s value were completely internalized while women could hardly realize the social value of doing such stuffs.
Pictures III:
Scenes, such as doing housework, waiting for true love, are repeated frecuentely in Disney Princess Series.
Therefore, Disney’s shaping of such female characters is fairly superficial and with obvious deficiency in focus on their thoughts. To some extent, women were situated in a collective unconsciousness in Disney animation movies, seeing that they merely survived in the aesthetic dream of men who could provide them with a romantic fantasy.
However, this highly symbolic Disney fantasy created on movie screen has gone through quite a lot changes with the increasingly strong impact of feminist activities around the world. (Written by Adela Tang )
References:
Butler, Judith. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. routledge, 2011.
England, Dawn Elizabeth, Lara Descartes, and Melissa A. Collier-Meek. "Gender role portrayal and the Disney princesses." Sex roles 64.7-8 (2011): 555-567.
QUEER READING OF FROZEN
In comparison with the former princess series, Frozen has absolutely went through a vital challenge of heteronormativity supposed to back up most of the Disney stories. That is to say, Prince Charming or related male character is no longer the fundamental hero of the storyline; whereas, the sisterhood between Elsa and Anna has been emphasized and becomes the main theme.
Anna is still endowed with the traditional princess personality, including pretty, smart, sometimes a little awkward, positive, etc. However, in spite of her expectation about true love, she is not passively waiting for being loved and being rescued. For the audience, a sense of empowerment for female role in Disney movie is strongly felt. Instead, her bravery and out-going characteristics deeply affects the iceman Kristoff, who is merely an ordinary person compared with other prince settings. Meanwhile, the real prince Hans is unexpectedly settled as a negative role.
The other significant female role, Queen Elsa, is more controversial. Some commentators even regard her as a queer character, since she is not engaged in any romantic relationship with man, and throughout her life, she has to live under the suppression from her parents in order to conceal the abnormal inherent ability, which imply several metaphors for possible queer interpretation. The attitudes of her parents towards her special power share certain similarity with the conventional attitudes towards LGBT groups, which builds a “closet” to restrict their free expression and to stay in a so-called comfort zone.
Here I don’t regard the queer reading as an over-interpretation of this movie; instead, there’re even academic writing to support it. The Queer Art of Failure written by Judith Halberstam lays emphasis on products of “low” theory and animation movie on behalf of other popular culture to create alternative ways from the binary discourse and the heteronormative ideas in the society. In the case of Frozen, the audiences are exposed to a fight of Elsa against special binary based on gender relationship. That is, Elsa is trying to escape the feminized, repressive but “safe” sphere in pursuit of masculinized, unconventional but threatening and uncertain outside world.
Considering the key word “failure” of Halberstam’s work, it’s a vital process for queer individual, as it is the driving force of alternative possibilities. Elsa’s failure lies in the bad experience of controlling her special ability, that encourages her to leave the princess castle and to release her power without hindrance.
In addition, other details made in the movie Frozen can be regarded as a challenge towards conventional dualist existence in gender issues. For example, the cute creature made by Elsa, Olaf, simply confounds the boundaries between men and women, even between the living and the non-living, however I suppose that no one will consider Olaf as a risky role. At the end, a happy ending is presented as usual, however it involves a more diverse scopes of the possible coexistence of different identities in the same kingdom. Thus, Frozen’s success is not unilateral, limited to praising the non-normativity’s efforts blindly, yet the more important value is that every identity is supposed to exist without unnecessary or partial restrictions.
“Let the storm rage on.” I definitely hope that Disney will continue producing such fantasy with notable progress, arousing more consciousness towards our political and social life. (Written by Adela Tang)
Reference:
Butler, Judith. "Acting in Concert." Introduction. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge (2004): 1-16.
Halberstam, Judith. The queer art of failure. Duke University Press, 2011.
More related queer reading of Frozen :
Conceal, Don’t Feel: A Queer Reading of Disney’s Frozen
My Ice Gown is in the Closet: Disney’s Frozen Will Surprise You
Is Disney Frozen in Time, or moving forward?
Pictures IV:
Elsa in Frozen
ZOOTOPIA AND
REVOLUTIONARY FANTASY
This recently released animation Disney movie has received high reputation among global audiences of different ages. Different from most fantasies constructed in the early Disney animated films, Zootopia not only makes full use of a creative animal allegory to allude the real life, but also continues challenging audience’s fixed way of thinking and ethics towards daily routine, which, from my perspective, is on its way to overturn the old definition of fantasy in Disney movie. Probably this is a revolution in process of Disney fantasy.
To begin with, attention needs paying to the title Zootopia, which refers to the term utopia raised by Thomas More in 16 Century. And later, George Orwell wrote Animal Farm as an allegory towards the politics under certain historic period, that is, Soviet Union adopted a grand socialism experiment in a national scale, substitute planning economy for market economy while the idea of dystopia began to emerge. In Animal Farm, the leader pigs get entire hold of power, thus the equality-oriented farm descends to a birth of new class hierarchy, alluding to the tendency of bureaucratization of the political administration of Soviet Union.
Zootopia is also an idealized city where animals of diverse races are supposed to live together in harmony; however, the movie also clearly shows that the utopia city cannot exist both in the film plot and in our real life. For example, seeing the laggard sloth, adult audiences tend to associate this character with the inefficient operation of the government administrative agencies in life. Besides, the prejudice represented in the very beginning of Zootopia – rabbits are not qualified for being a cop, or foxes are equivalent of frauds -- alludes to the long-existing racial discrimination in American society.
If the majority of the past fantasies brought by Disney movies are in relation with utopia kingdom, this movie has offered an alternative version in the field of race based on the cruel reality at present. Stuart Hall once considers race as a floating signifier, stating that race issues are always attached to sociological, political and cultural meaning and context instead of biology. Yet the signifier keeps changing with contexts. Normally people easily identify black people with the history of fights and oppression, even making casual assumptions that black people behave in a certain way due to their race. In the visual representation on screen, the villains are usually endowed with colored physical appearance, not only black skin; thus, considering the previous well-known badass roles in Disney movies, such as Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, Scar in The Lion King, Ursula in the Little Mermaid, their negative characteristics are wrapped up with colored skin, which remains a stereotyped way of dealing with such roles.
Nevertheless, the breakthrough of Zootopia lies in cutting off from the interpretation of traditional animal allegory. With the development of storyline, the true characteristics of different animals are getting further away from the accustomed understanding of the representative meaning of animals, among which the ultimate badass is unexpectedly settled as a purely white and seemingly innocent sheep, while the rabbit Judy with a quite effeminate physical appearance struggles for being an excellent cop. There’re far more acts of the overthrow of the gender／race stereotype in the whole movie, responding to the current movements and attempts of anti-racism and feminist paces.
(Written by Adela Tang)
Reference:
Hall, Stuart. Race: The floating signifier. Ed. Sut Jhally. Media Education Foundation, 1996.
Orwell, George. Animal farm. Random House, 2010.
To see other critics about this newly-released movie, the following links are quite inspiring and hold distinct critical perspectives towards the same entertaining Disney movie:
ZOOTOPIA Review: A Muddled Mess of Racial Messaging… And Cute Animals
Zootopia review – Disney's furry fable gets its claws out for the bigots
Pictures V:
Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, Scar in Lion King, Ursula in Little Mermaid. All of them are famous villians in Disney movies.