More gendered lessons from Disney
Posted at 12:00 PM Oct 28, 2009
By Andrea Grimes
A couple weeks ago, I linked to a YouTube project on masculinity in Disney films that was shown in the anthropology class I TA for. Then, there was the "Disney Princess Feminist Fail" image explaining, in tiny nutshells, how Disney princesses are mainly sexy and saved by princes. Today, then, I was Twitter-directed (Twitterected?) to the "What Disney Films Teach Men About Attracting Women" diagram:
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When I re-Tweeted the photo, one guy Tweeted back that a better question to ask is what do Transformers teach boys about similar, but I seem to remember plenty of my boy-friends watching Disney films as kids, particularly the Lion King and Aladdin. (Why those two in particular ... well, it's a whole other blog entry. What boy in his right mind would ever care about a story starring a girl? Unthinkable.)
The point about not knowing the guys' names is interesting. I have near-instant recall of Princess names--even for films I don't like or didn't see--but the guys' names definitely take a little more mental work.
The point about not knowing the guys' names is interesting. I have near-instant recall of Princess names--even for films I don't like or didn't see--but the guys' names definitely take a little more mental work.
Comments
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Aren't two of them Prince Charming?
Posted 10/28/2009 at 01:30:16 PMI know that Little Mermaid dude was named Eric. Wasn't the Snow White guy just Prince Charming?
Well, anyway Jasmine didn't even like Aladdin when he appeared to be rich, famous and charming.
Posted 10/28/2009 at 01:35:39 PMDid a quick internet search on Beast and he didn't officially have a name. The Broadway production named him Prince Adam.
Posted 10/28/2009 at 01:39:11 PMReally, with the notable exception of Aladdin, the guy's names don't matter. They're just wish-fulfillment objects, literal incarnations of "happy endings". Look at Prince Charming; he doesn't even have a name, just a descriptor. Disney movies are trash, through and through, especially the Katzenberg-era animations.
Posted 10/28/2009 at 01:56:51 PMThis may be my boner for Transformers talking, but I liked Scott Brown's characterization of what Transformers (and Optimus Prime in particular) brought to boys, in a 2007 Wired article:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/15-07/trans_movie
"Prime practically step-parented the latchkey kids of the mid-'80s. He was our Allfather at a time when flesh-and-blood role models were increasingly few and far between: Stallone had begun his long sag. Arnold was already more credible as machine than man. So when Prime declared, 'One shall stand, one shall fall!' in that seismic, tear-down-this-wall timbre of his (or, more accurately, voice actor Peter Cullen), you believed him. Thus began the cyber-outsourcing of masculine heroism, a process that would eventually, inextricably, link Y chromosome to Xbox."
Posted 10/28/2009 at 02:10:31 PMI also only knew Aladdin, Ariel's Prince Eric, and Cinderella's Prince Charming. Apparently, Sleeping Beauty is saved by Prince Phillip, an IMDB summary does reference the Beast as Prince Adam, and Snow White's seems to just be the Prince.
Posted 10/28/2009 at 05:51:52 PMSTARTING CLOCKWISE FROM THE WINDOW
PRINCE CHARMING (Cinderella edition}
PRINCE PHILIP
PRINCE ADAM
PRINCE ALI! (Aladdin)
PRINCE CHARMING(Snow White Edition)
PRINCE ERIC
Shut up, I grew up with these dudes.
Posted 10/28/2009 at 08:16:01 PMTo everyone saying the guy's names don't matter, that's SORT OF THE WHOLE POINT.
They don't matter. They have no character. The only reason the women are drawn to them is because they are rich, charming, famous, and good looking. The princesses don't marry for love, they marry for the social status and money.
Posted 10/29/2009 at 12:28:40 AMThe Broadway production named him Prince Adam.
...you mean Belle married He-Man?
Posted 10/29/2009 at 06:03:31 AMI always liked Prince Philip since he had more personality than the previous Prince Charmings. He had to, Sleeping Beauty was asleep for half the film so we had to watch someone. Men suffer from social traps as much as women do. It just seems to me like they just don't talk about as much as women do.
Posted 10/29/2009 at 09:35:27 AMOh, no, Disney is poisoning little girl brains. Right. Much the same way I never tried to drop an anvil on anyone I also never waited around for Prince Charming to pay for the house I bought this year.
Posted 10/29/2009 at 11:22:08 AMStep aside, Disney Cast Member coming into the room!
*ahem*
Posted 10/29/2009 at 03:40:51 PMPrince Charming is Cinderella's. Snow White's prince is officially named.... Prince.
Yes, believe it or not, his name is Prince.
I visited your blog for the first time and just been your fan. Keep posting as I am gonna come to read it everyday. Well you performed nice job dude. I appreciate it. Thanks for this great post. I love disney cartoons.
Posted 10/29/2009 at 11:23:31 PMI wonder if we could make the argument that this goes beyond Disney though -- can we look at how these princes differ from the characterization of princes or heroes in older fairytales, maybe even the ones these are based on? Or in myths of various sorts that kids still read? We always talk about current pop culture being hegemonic, but I wonder how much it differs from the source material.
Posted 10/30/2009 at 04:20:45 AM