Disney

As someone who grew up around Disney movies, I can say that it definitely changes one's view of gender relations. Even without text, all the Disney princess characters have a distinct look: huge doe-eyes, long eyelashes, small colored lips, perfect skin, and a body that would make even Playboy bunnies jealous. I agree with everyone in discussion who noted that the Disney stories all have the same hook: princess waiting for prince to save her from some horrible outcome. In hindsight, these movies showed us from an early age how to act as girls and boys, and we sold ourselves to it because they were glamorous and the story always ended with a happy ending. Who doesn't want that?

Although I don't contest that Disney made a lot of movies that portrayed women in a certain way that deepened gender stereotypes, I argue that perhaps this is said in hindsight. Hindsight is 20/20 and we are obviously a lot more along in our understanding of gender relations than we were 10-20 years ago. I don't know to what extent people understood gender stereotypes at the time these movies came out 15 years ago, but I think it's important to entertain the possibility that Disney was a part of a progression, a moment in time, during the transformation of gender roles. The reason why so many of us looked to these Disney princesses as role models were because some of them were spunky, some of them did break the rules, and many were not conventional in the way that society wanted them to be. Yes, they may have perpetuated some gender stereotypes, but they also broke some. Perhaps they weren't the most avante garde and modern portrayal of gender and certainly they may not be the best thing to show to kids now, but it spoke to girls at the time because to some extent, it made it okay to go against the grain of society.