While I agree with most of what's being said (in the vid and all of what's said in the blog post), I have to note that it's always easy to "blame the media" for society's ills. It's important to understand that the media only reinforces what society already believes (attitudes, norms, etc). Media reinforces status quo...it doesn't shove patriarchal values down our throats unless it already exists. As briefly mentioned in the video, it is a cycle, a feedback loop to be more precise: the media mimics society and society reinforces itself through media. That said, the change in media will not necessarily bring change in society with immediate effects...especially with profit-hungry conglomerates at the wheel.

It's seems kind of cheap to pin these themes on disney. Most of their stories are set in olden times remaking them with modern animation. Adaptations of stories retold for some kind of reason not all princess fantasy. I just recently read a book by william morris called "The Well at the World's end". It's supposed to be one of the foremothers of modern fantasy. And in it he has women kicking some ass. Busting out a sword and taking on three dudes at once and jumping into the fray without a "hey look what I can do" attitude. These women are also the love interests of the story and still embody all kinds of femininity. This book was written in the middle of the nineteenth century right before the industrial revolution put little kids to work in the mines. The Author was making an ode to simpler times when strife was shared along all lines and showed people getting together to fight subjugation and finding love. One of the major themes of the book was "thralldom" which is a fancy word for white slavery. Slavery was a hot button issue in those days and I really liked this book because it spoke not down to thee about humans loving one and other. A prince sought adventure and found an ass-kicking beauty. Disney will never make a movie out of that one.

I think that the society enforced gender role that is the most pervasive and the most damaging to men is that of provider. Men are generally expected to earn enough to provide for others while women are not. The sorts of gender roles presented in Disney films may affect boys up until they are in their late teens, but I doubt the lack of physical prowess or dominance bugs most men as they get older.

I think most men (and most women) feel that feminism is not for them, because it requires women, as a class, to win a sort of suffering olympics when compared to men as a class in order to be coherent as a philosophy. (I.e. feminism assumes that society enforced gender roles harm women more than men.) The belief that male privilege exists without a corresponding and roughly equal female privilege and the use of the term "patriarchy" when discussing society enforced gender roles are examples of this requirement.

Sorry to be a bit off topic. Interesting post.

It's kinda sad when you realize that this is being fed to children. Adults can have a hard enough time working out subtle messages in tv shows and movies, probably mostly because as kids they were fed this kind of stuff and kids are great sponges. And yeah, media can't be blamed for everything but the only way to combat media is for someone to teach you what the poo is going on. And I don't think I ever remember my parents sitting my brother and I down and discussing with us gender stereotypes and how pervasive they were in our favorite movies. I know this kind of stuff (normal kids shows too, not just Disney) affected my childhood growing up, since I was a tomboy and wanted to play with the guys I always had to "prove" myself and was very aware of the masculinity boys were taught when growing up.

On another note, some kids shows are doing things right. I have recently started watching Avatar and I swear that is the best damn show ever. I can't find a single thing to complain about, which is amazing for a kids show since there is almost always some sort of sexist gender stereotyping going on. I can only hope that other kids shows are planning on following suit. Maybe Disney could learn a thing or two from it as well. :)

I feel bad following up the very insightful early posters, but I just needed to say a few things.

Gaston is a dink.

Belle was the first Disney heroine I could actually respect.

Hi--
See, I'm with Paul. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that these issues and images aren't in Disney films, two of the primary examples here -- Gaston and Mulan -- are both from films that interrogate these images. They cut the Mulan song right before she sings about admiring a girl who's smart and brave (true, her companions dismiss her at this point, but they are eventually somewhat persuaded); one of the major points of B&B is that Gaston is a dink. He transforms from a buffoon to a villan, and the only people in the film who admire him (besides himself) are the bubbleheaded villagers whose opinion is clearly discounted.
I do have problems with restrictive images of masculinity, and I do think that they harm boys and men -- I've been teaching "A Doll's House" so long that I've started to pity Torvald, who doesn't even realize the degree to which his behavior is externally determined -- but let's take care to consider the whole text in our analysis.

Beauty and the Beast is a poor choice since Gaston is the villain and it's implicit throughout the whole thing that his behaviour, and the way he objectifies Belle, is not acceptable. Hercules falls a little weak on the strength angle too since the body-building and feats of strength aren't what 'wins' it for him, which is also made obvious in the narrative. But it's an interesting look at Disney (and really most typical Hollywood films) that masculine strength and the ideal figure is the thing for boys to aim for although that goes back as far as the ancient Greeks.

I'm sorry, but this video is very selectively choosing which bits of information it's pulling from these Disney film sources. I can see that when taken out of context like many of the "examples" shown in the clip are, one can draw the conclusions that the narrator has, but in doing so he's completely missed a number of major points about these films.

1. Gaston is the Villain in Beauty and the Beast. He is shown to be arrogant, narcissistic and foolish. His violent ways are what eventually lead to his downfall. The Beast, on the other hand, is shown to be soft, sensitive and caring. Gaston views Belle as an object for his pleasure only, the Beast respects Belle for her mind and who she is as a person. Who does she choose? The whole underlying message of this film is that violence and arrogance are bad, while lookng past a person's outward appearance and seeing who they truly are inside is what leads to real love and happiness.

2. In Mulan, she is regularly shown time and time again to be smarter and an all around better soldier than the men in her company. Yes, that song is totally sexist, but the point of the song is to show how stupid and narrow minded the men are at the beginning of the film. By the end of the film the men grow and learn to embrace femininity. Hell, they even dress as women near the end of the film. Mulan, a girl, even defeats the main villain who is a man who is twice her size in combat by being smarter and more capable than he is. Again, violence and Arrogance and aggression are shown to be bad things while friendship, trust and broadening one's mind are praised as good things.

3. Are you really going to tell me that the main character in Aladdin really conforms to the huge armed, barrell chested hero that they describe in this video? What about Peter Pan? Or the lead from the Jungle Book?

4. The Emperor's New Groove clip is from the very beginning of the film when Kuzco is a total douchebag. The whole point of that film is that he realizes that he's a total tool and starts to treat people better. It's a film about him growing to be a better person who doesn't act like he does in that scene.

This video is so completely false. It looks at only what it wants to see, but fails entirely to notice that in every film included in it, the overall message of the films are completely the opposite of what the video is espousing.

Almost all Disney films, especially the more modern ones, are films that praise caring and sensitivity while showing violence and aggression to be evil traits that only lead to destruction. Yes, there are villians, and yes there is violence, but you can't blame Disney films for including the same things that every other story has had since the beginning of time. Hell, the Lion King is basically just a version of Hamlet with animals.

I'm sorry, but this video is very selectively choosing which bits of information it's pulling from these Disney film sources. I can see that when taken out of context like many of the "examples" shown in the clip are, one can draw the conclusions that the narrator has, but in doing so he's completely missed a number of major points about these films.

1. Gaston is the Villain in Beauty and the Beast. He is shown to be arrogant, narcissistic and foolish. His violent ways are what eventually lead to his downfall. The Beast, on the other hand, is shown to be soft, sensitive and caring. Gaston views Belle as an object for his pleasure only, the Beast respects Belle for her mind and who she is as a person. Who does she choose? The whole underlying message of this film is that violence and arrogance are bad, while lookng past a person's outward appearance and seeing who they truly are inside is what leads to real love and happiness.

2. In Mulan, she is regularly shown time and time again to be smarter and an all around better soldier than the men in her company. Yes, that song is totally sexist, but the point of the song is to show how stupid and narrow minded the men are at the beginning of the film. By the end of the film the men grow and learn to embrace femininity. Hell, they even dress as women near the end of the film. Mulan, a girl, even defeats the main villain who is a man who is twice her size in combat by being smarter and more capable than he is. Again, violence and Arrogance and aggression are shown to be bad things while friendship, trust and broadening one's mind are praised as good things.

3. Are you really going to tell me that the main character in Aladdin really conforms to the huge armed, barrell chested hero that they describe in this video? What about Peter Pan? Or the lead from the Jungle Book?

4. The Emperor's New Groove clip is from the very beginning of the film when Kuzco is a total douchebag. The whole point of that film is that he realizes that he's a total tool and starts to treat people better. It's a film about him growing to be a better person who doesn't act like he does in that scene.

This video is so completely false. It looks at only what it wants to see, but fails entirely to notice that in every film included in it, the overall message of the films are completely the opposite of what the video is espousing.

Almost all Disney films, especially the more modern ones, are films that praise caring and sensitivity while showing violence and aggression to be evil traits that only lead to destruction. Yes, there are villians, and yes there is violence, but you can't blame Disney films for including the same things that every other story has had since the beginning of time. Hell, the Lion King is basically just a version of Hamlet with animals.

Hey Andrea,

I like to read your column from time to time, and was really interested to stumble across this story. While I generally agree with Patrick, who put it pretty accurately, I think that there are still some pretty interesting things to learn from looking at male archetypes in the films, TV, and stories we all watched growing up. I wrote my thesis in Sociology on this back at NYU, and posted it on my blog for kicks (I know its way too long to be on a blog, just wanted it to be searchable). http://www.michaelmuse.com/2008/07/changing-paradigms-of-masculinity.html

The main point I was making in the paper, and wanted to add to this thread, is that boys increasingly face a lot of really confusing role models in determining how to 'be a man', and that this is to the detriment of gender equality as a whole and not just specifically 'boys'.

Comic books are a better case study, as these Disney movies are more classic prefemenist male/female archetypes and comic book characters are much more postmodern and troubled.