Disney /Sexism

[amiheartless]

Isis just fun in a childs film, or harmful to their basis of gender roles from a young age.

alot of vids on youtube concerning this, my sishappend upon one, I found them interesting. By the amount of videos talking about the evils of disney alot of people must have their concerns

do you feel this?

do you think its an over reaction?

how do you feel about kids watching it??

[LadyBiscuit]

Princess and the Frog is blatantly sexist (it isn't until she gives up her dream of having a restaurant for love that she is 'allowed' to have both) whereas Toy Story is more obtuse. The messages are still there though. I love Studio Ghibli but my DS is a bit small for it. I found him sobbing at the end of Ponyo the other day (perhaps I shouldn't have left the room :o)

I know what you mean about HTTYD zikes but it's probably the best you're going to get with mainstream animation.

Are there any really good alternatives? I can't think of any

[Takver]

I did like the film of How to Train Your Dragon, but I thought that it was a real shame that they dumped the character Camicazi and replaced it with Astrid, who isn't a patch on her. (And of course thus dumped Camicazi's mother as well, the chief of the Bog Burglar tribe).

[Indelible]

Kiki's Delivery Service looks good - it's the same director as Spirited Away, isn't it?

[noblegiraffe]

I went into the Disney shop the other day and saw a display of pink washing machines, pink hoovers and pink shopping trolleys.

No blue ones, of course.

[SardineQueen]

Just marking my place so can come back later and hit amazon

[Chaotica]

I know it's off topic, but race is even less well represented in disney. I know one mother who 'lost' the princess and the frog on finding out that the first black disney princess was surrounded by ridiculous stereotypes.



- pink kitchen...

[SardineQueen]

The whole thing is dire really isn't it.

Look at how many women die their hair blonde... Why? Cobblers like this.

(Yes I know some of them have other colour hair but YKWIM)

[melpomene]

These satirical clips sum it up well:

I think that Beauty and the Beast sounds particularly awful, with its theme of falling in love with a beast who has taken you prisoner. (never seen it, never want to)

Tangled wasn't perfect, but I did like the way they made Rapunzel a bit feistier and loved the way that she used her hair and a frying pan as weapons.

[Adair]

Gawd, Belle is awful. Good points: she loves reading (and the Beast opens his library for her, which is sweet I guess), she won't marry Gaston 'the catch' in the village and she dreams of adventures 'there must be more than this provincial life!'...

Shame she gives up all her ideas to live in a castle with her bloke, eh?

I like Mulan but lots o 'girls shouldn't be like xyz' that she obv overcomes (but only by acting as a man). I don't like putting these thoughts into my kids heads tbh though we will have to explain in historical context I suppose. Mulan 2 is ok.

[SardineQueen]

FIL bought DD a beauty and the beast storybook the other day and he did it for her bedtime story. Next day she asked me to read it and I was really horrified TBH

• Man who is in fear of his life from terrifying beast offers to give him his daughter instead What kind of father would do that???
  
• Beauty (emphasis on how beautiful she is) goes to live in the castle where she is kept prisoner which strangely doesn't seem to bother her much
  
• Beast lets her go back to see family
  
• Then when she doesn't go back he throws some massive attention seeking "oh but I'm dying" thing to force her hand
  
• His attention seeking death-throes make her realise that she can't leave (how often does that happen in real life (all the time) is it something we want to be pointing our daughters at as a good thing?!!!
  
  TBH it wasn't quite how I remembered it - it was a really cheap book which managed to just get the whole thing dreadful.
  
  FIL always gets books for her like that. All princesses and prettiness and cheap fairytale books which miss any positive messages and just bang on about how pretty everyone is. GAH!!!

[zikes]

'Lilo and Stitch' is a pretty good one.

[steamedtreaclesponge]

Yep, definitely agree about Lilo & Stitch, it's a nice contrast to the other Disney stuff. The main characters are a) women, b) strong and c) not massively thin. I really like the way that Lilo's sister has such a strong figure (not really a figure that you might see in real life, perhaps, but way better than Jasmin et al)

My Friend Totoro is great too.

[queenofthecapitalwasteland]

I'm a bit about PowerPuff Girls. When I was younger I thought they were quite strong and feminist but now I'm not so sure.

I saw an episode called 'Equal Fights', the first time I saw it I thought 'yey! a cartoon giving a feminist lesson to little girls' and when I watched it again, it seemed to be belittling feminists.
Could I get an opinion from someone on this, or have I over thought it?