Disney and gender: discuss zipes & video clip: the mouse that roared

Running Head: Disney and Gender Biases Disney And Gender Biases Discussed With Respect To The Video “ The Mouse That Roared” In The Light Of Jack Zipes’ Philosophy
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Abstract
This paper aims to discuss the gender biases and dominant gender ideology propagated by Disney in its entertainment works. Small children, who are also Disney’s leading target markets, tend to adopt these projected gender roles and identities. Though some people believed Disney had improved its entertainment works in this regard, some still maintain that Disney continues to project rather unfair and unjustified gender roles and biases. In this paper, the Disney work under investigation is its video clip, “ The mouse that roared” which was released in 1959. In the light of this video clip, this paper holds evidences for the gender-focused nature of Disney’s fairytales. Also, the leading light will be the analysis of Jack Zipes on this subject.
Disney And Gender Biases Discussed With Respect To The Video
“ The Mouse That Roared” In The Light Of Jack Zipes’ Philosophy
Disney films have been a source of entertainment for children and adults alike for more than half a century now. Masses have loved Disney works since the time when it first launched its film in 1927 entitled “ Alice in the Wonderland”. The forthcoming productions were regarded as ingenious masterpieces which were whole-heartedly welcomed. However, Disney has faced serious controversies since its bloom. One of these controversies is gender-focusing with respect to gender roles and identities. Jack Zipes, in this composition, “ Breaking the Magic Spell”, analyzed these gender biases with keen and critical views. The rest of this paper concentrates on the Disney Film “ The Mouse that Roared” assessed in Zipes’ leading light of criticism.
I second Zipes’ views regarding the gender biases. Indeed, several of Disney films depict women in well defined roles of poor princesses desperately waiting for their heroes, who are always men, to save the day. Not only this, Disney projects the women and men both in preset traditional backdrop acting only in accordance with the predefined responsibilities not daring to deviate even slightly. The film, “ The mouse that roared” also has numerous evidences in support of this claim.
Firstly, as Jack Zipes claimed, Disney often portrays women as powerless, awaiting for a savior. In the clip, we saw the queen fulfill this role. Not only was the queen merely a figurehead, powerless and aging, but also the decisions of the state were not taken by her – they were taken by the advisory ministers, who were all men. This reinforces the Disney’s gender bias against women, since it portrays her merely as a symbol of power which actually possesses no power at all.
Furthermore, Zipes states that Disney, in its reproduction of the ancient fairy tales, have changed the characters and their roles in entirety, preserving almost negligible portion of the original folklore. In its attempt to integrate the “ he” element in its stories, Disney has deliberately weakened the position of women, who were the real saviors in original folklore (Jones). In this clip, the persona of the Queen has deliberately been portrayed as old, weak and ugly, with a distinct manly look to her face (apart from the fact that the role has been played by a male artist). Not only this, the character of Dr. Kokintz’s daughter has also been portrayed as secondary, even though Tully Bascombe initially instantly falls for this extraordinary and beautiful lady, she is eventually sidelined with her last appearance resembling nothing more than a screaming and helpless patriot.
Moreover, in its attempt to make the men superior in all regards, Disney has showed the dumbest of men also being able to achieve great success, incomparable to women. In the clip, the character of Tully Bascombe reflects the same. He is portrayed as the most ill-fit, unskilled and idiotic man on earth, but eventually, he is the one who brings his army of 20 men back home safely, having captured notable people and being victorious in the war against the United States of America. Men, even the dumbest of all, are a blessing in disguise, able to achieve that which the better men would not be able to achieve, but most dumb women can do no better than get into trouble and wait for their liberators.
Also, it is worth noticing that when the men return to their home place, victorious, we see attractive women waving excitedly while the men continue to exchange flirtatious looks and smiles with them. This also demeans the status of women, portraying them as tokens of appreciation awarded for a job well performed. Disney has left no dimensions unexplored in their attempt to portray the image of women as helpless, incomplete and desperate individuals, dying for their dream hero to arrive and save them from their ordeals of loneliness. Jack Zipes’ claims of gender bifurcation practiced by Disney are all proved valid when we analyze the films closely in his light.
Though several critics might not agree with my opinions, I nevertheless stand by my analysis. Disney films have always portrayed the genders in predefined roles and statuses. Be it Snow white, Cinderella or the Little Red Riding Hood, all women are portrayed as handicapped without men, incapable of surviving on their own. Though people can argue that in the movie “ Beauty and the Beast”, a woman is shown in a stronger position, I would like to refute this claim because eventually, Beauty ends up being miserable and waiting for the Beast to come to her rescue. It needs to be indisputably recognized that several of Disney films are built along the same lines, with the original folklore drastically altered to maintain the gender biases.
I would like to conclude by restating the facts; Disney Entertainment Films have employed gender oriented storylines, throwing a rather negative impact on its viewers. Both the genders are distinct with mutually exclusive characteristics, never present in both genders simultaneously. Not only this, Disney has often shown women in dire and needy states, unable to help themselves, waiting to be saved. Moreover, Disney has altered the original folklores to an extent that the modern representations of those folklores are hardly comparable. Also, Disney has changed the characters and their roles in contrast with the original folklore in its attempt to reproduce a male dominating environment in their stories. Jack Zipes and other such critics are justified in their claims against Disney’s sexism. Indeed, Disney has replicated immense gender biases. The audiences of these Disney movies, who are mostly children, are being greatly influenced by these gender biases propagated to them. Our youth grows up with preset minds with respect to their strengths and the weaknesses of the opposite gender.
References
Jones, M. (2007). How Disney Damages Fairytales and Historical Folklores. Zipes was right: The Importance of Oral Tradition. Retrieved from http://www. associatedcontent. com/article/417740/how_disney_damages_fairy_tales_and_pg4. html? cat= 23
Zipes, J. (1979). Breaking the Magic Spells: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales. Austin TX: University of Texas Press. Retrieved from http://www. surlalunefairytales. com/bookstore/jackzipes. html