"Once upon a time ..."

Here's a post from Shari:

When I think of animated Disney movies, I always think of “once upon a time…” and “happily ever after.” But I have never stopped to think about the way that gender is portrayed in these movies, and what kind of messages these movies send. In the context of what we have learned about the decades, it is extremely interesting to compare the animated Disney features of each decade with the social norms of that decade.

The 1950’s was a decade centered on the importance of family. As a post-war decade, women were returning home from the workforce and men were returning to work. Women were encouraged to return to home-making as men were transitioning back into being the sole breadwinners. Traditional gender roles were apparent in the 1950’s, as little girls played with Barbies and boys played with Roy Rogers and Davy Crockett dolls. These gender roles were not only enforced through the toys that children played with but also by the movies they watched. Cinderella was released in 1950 and essentially shows Cinderella moving from house chores to being someone’s wife. Her life goes from the hell of essentially being a slave in her own home to being ecstatically married off to the prince at the end of the movie. Throughout the entire movie, Cinderella sings songs and daydreams about escaping from her home, yet not surprisingly, her escape is right into the arms of a man. In 1953, Peter Pan was released by Disney. Although the gender roles in this movie are not as blatant as in
Cinderella, there are many examples of traditional gender roles. In the
beginning of the movie, Mr. Darling is shown getting upset and scolding Wendy, not allowing Mrs. Darling to get a word in about the situation. Mrs. Darling is extremely submissive to her husband, which their daughter Wendy seems to imitate as she does not try to explain her behavior but rather, just takes his punishment. In addition, their housekeeper, albeit a dog, is a female dog. I view this as a statement that the only acceptable housekeepers are female. Throughout the movie, Wendy and her brothers learn to fly and fend for themselves, yet as expected, Peter Pan comes to their rescue when they are captured, and leads them home, reinforcing the incapability of females to fend for themselves.

The 1960’s was an era of feminism and movements for equality. This is somewhat reflected in the animated features of the decade, most notably, 101 Dalmations portrayed Perdita (the mother of the dalmations) as a strong-willed female character, who stops at nothing to rescue her puppies. She stays right alongside Pongo in the harsh weather and scary situations, showing her dedication and willpower. However, the humans in the movie, Roger and Anita, show a typical marriage, in which Anita says she wants to quit her job to have a family. In addition, Roger and Anita have a female housekeeper. I think that the portrayal of family life in 101 Dalmations shows that although there were radical movements for change in the 1960’s, the traditional family was still considered the norm. However, the portrayal of Perdita showed that women were on the verge of equality with men, and that women were not scared to take a stand.

The 1970’s saw an increase in participation in the women’s movement. There was a rising divorce rate and the end of the Vietnam War left Americans disheartened. The animated features of this decade pose an interesting conflict to what was happening in society at the time. The Aristocats from 1970 depicts a desperate mother cat trying to find her three kidnapped kittens. Although at first it shows her taking initiative and being fearless in her attempt to find them, it quickly shifts to her needing the help of a male cat to find her kittens. The movie ends with her “marrying” the male cat who reunited her with her kittens. My opinion is that this simply reinforces women’s inferiority to men, by showing the mother cat’s dependence on a male to achieve her goal. Interestingly though, The Rescuers, of 1977, portrays a male mouse and a female mouse who are essentially detectives trying to find a missing orphan. This movie shows the female mouse, Bianca, as the assertive and fearless character, while the male, Bernard, is more tame. In addition, there is a love story involved in the movie, but this love story focuses predominantly on Bernard doting over Bianca. The fact that Bianca does not get distracted by love, but instead focuses on her duty to save the orphan, mirrors the growing strength of women in the 1970’s.

The 1980’s was a decade centered on egoism and the need for individuals to care for themselves before they cared for anyone else. The Little Mermaid, released in 1989 emphasizes this idea in that Ariel selfishly puts her life in danger to satisfy her need for exploration, despite her father’s warning and worry. Although there were major milestones for women in the 1980’s, including the first woman Supreme Court Justice, the portrayal of women in animated movies featured women searching for a “happily ever after.” Ariel trades her voice for a chance to be human, all to get the attention of a man. In the end, she leaves her family behind for a man she’s known for a total of three days. The message this sends to children is horrendous. Essentially, it is saying that it is okay to change yourself and abandon your family for a relationship which I wholeheartedly disagree with.

By the time the 90’s came around, women were being portrayed more equally in the media with men, and there were many more prominent women in society than ever before. Although the 90’s were home to some classic “happily ever afters,” like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, it is more interesting to note the exceptions to this. Most notably, Mulan focuses on a female who is brave enough to join the army to protect her father. What’s conflicting is that in order to be in the army, she has to pretend that she is a man. But the fact that she has the fearlessness and the courage to join the army mirrors the strides that women have made in the recent decades. Similarly, in Toy Story 2, released in 1999, Jessie, a new friend of Woody’s is a natural leader, showing fearlessness in standing up to the Prospector and being
assertive to Woody throughout the movie. However, despite her courage, she still
ends up getting rescued by Woody and Buzz at the end of the movie.

Although over the decades, Disney animated features have somewhat shown the progress that women have made throughout the years, they have also reverted back to traditional gender roles as well. Even the movies that have made strides for women, such as Mulan and Toy Story 2, still portray women as the weaker sex. I am not sure if it is realistic to expect these animated movies to mirror the ever-changing status of gender, but one thing is certain, these movies have more of an impact of gender roles than what first meets the eye.

Continuing to Explore Gender and Popular Culture

These next entries are posted by Professor Burke's Fall 2009 students in WGS 220, "Gender and Popular Culture." Join the discussion!

Rocking Without the Girls?

Whether or not you happen to enjoy the music genre of rock (which almost any sane person does), you must by now have come to the realization that the overwhelming majority of the band members are male. In fact nearly all the major bands are all male. The female presence in Rock music is surprisingly lacking.

The gender mixed rock groups came around during the British invasion of the mid 1960’s with Jefferson Airplane, but who did not become widely recognized until the late sixties. The first all female rock band was Joan Jett’s The Runaways in 1975. As for the Runaways, interestingly they are a rather hard rock band. This may have been done to give the new raw edge of an “all girl” band in the music scene. If they are breaking into a formerly male only field, they may as well make a name for themselves. It wasn’t until the 19980’s that all female bands we able to reach the Billboard charts such as The Go-Go’s and The Bangles. At this time female bands were becoming less of a novelty and being taken more seriously as they should have been.

In the modern day there is only one all girl band that I can think of, The Donnas. There are quite a few that are of mixed gender, and just to name a few; Evanescence, No Doubt, and The White Stripes. The presence of women in rock music has been expanding, but is far below anything more than a handful. While just four named here doesn’t cover all of them, just think of all of the all male bands that are out there. Do Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Rolling Stones, or The Beatles come to mind? It appears that the all male bands are really the ones that attain lasting success. Mixed gender groups like Blondie can also have long lasting implications, but the female bands just kind of fall by the wayside for the most part.

Could it be that rock music is not “feminine” enough to be an accepted practice for Western women to take part in the industry? Pop music and country music have quite a proliferation of female artists, and if you remember what I said Joan Jett’s The Runaways were a hard rock band, possibly it is so because the girls needed to be just like the boys or more so to fit in. I believe that this trend of rock music not being feminine is changing. If we look a The Donnas we can see that they do not have a forced image of who they are, they are women who enjoy creating and playing rock music. If anything The Donnas use their femininity as a marketing tool for themselves.

Even today I think most people feel that all girl bands are a novelty, and not taken too seriously. With the changing nature of the industry, hopefully more of these all girl bands will make it to the main stream media, as well as the continuing expansion of mixed gender bands.

Eating Disorders vs. Pop Culture

Statistics say that eating disorders affect 90-95% of females in the Western society. According to the Massachusetts Eating Disorders Association approximately 40% of female college students have an eating disorder in this country. I find this to be quite shocking statistics because I am in college and I hang out with various females, yet I’ve never come across someone suffering from such a disorder. But it’s probably not that I haven’t come across a person suffering from an eating disorder, I just haven’t encountered someone who has come open to me about their problem.

I think it’s quite unfortunate that there are so many young ladies out there that are dealing with this problem. Eating disorders seem to be very silent. Silent in the sense that sometimes you can’t judge or tell by a person’s appearance that they are dealing with an eating disorder. And even if one was to know or sense that their classmate or friend is suffering from an eating disorder, the person can easily deny the accusation and take personal offense to your thought of it.

My main question is why are eating disorders so common? Why do a majority of eating disorder cases occur among females? Why are eating disorder rates increasing? In my opinion, the chief reason lies within popular culture and societies’ norm of what is “beautiful” and not so “beautiful”. Thinness is commonly associated with health and beauty. If you are an overweight, young female, then you are not considered to be the ideal woman because you don’t fit society’s norms of beauty. Now, who wouldn’t want to be considered beautiful, especially in the eyes of male counterparts? Everyone, especially females, rely so much on their outer beauty to get what they want in life and that includes being desirable to men, attention, advantages in work places, etc. It’s no wonder why so many women feel the outward pressure of keeping the ideal thin figure, even if it means depriving oneself of food or throwing up forcefully.

In addition, one of the other reasons that lie behind the motives of those who deal with eating disorders, I think, depends on their self image. The way we perceives ourselves, greatly influence what we do in response to fixing any problem we see or enhancing ourselves. I think it would be correct to say that people, who suffer from an eating disorder, don’t have positive views about themselves and pretty much have self esteem issues. I feel this way because many times, they are not as “big” as they perceive themselves to be and they tend to seek other people’s acceptance.

As society has evolved over the years, more and more people are becoming self conscious about their image. We are constantly reminded of society’s non acceptance of people who are overweight through movies and television that make overweight people the source of humor. It’s sad to see the damage that popular culture has made around the world and now we have to deal with it until the day that everyone can be accepted the way that they are and when the definition of beauty is more than skin deep.

Body Disorder in Pop Culture

In society, body dysmorphic disorder is a continuous problem. Body dysmorphic disorder also known as dysmorphophobia is a condition in which people become deeply concerned about some imagined or minor defect in their appearance. These concerns are usually focused on things like wrinkles, spots on the skin, excessive facial hair, swelling of the face, or misshapen nose, jaw, mouth, or eyebrows.

My first thought to this definition is that many people has this disorder, especially us females because the majority of the world is concerned with their appearance. Most people that I know, including myself has had either acne, long arms, small breast, a big forehead, thin lips, unmanageable hair, or some other kind of unsatisfactory feature that we absolutely hate. But looking further into the aspects of dysmorphophobia, I realized that this disorder is more serious than I had originally thought that is was.

A person with dysmorphophobia may avoid public places and some may go to any extent to rid them of the defect that they have through procedures like plastic surgery. Interestingly, I have a friend who has undergone surgery for a breast augmentation. In her case she felt inferior to other women, especially women who were well endowed. She would always say to me, “You’re so lucky, what do you eat, I wish I had your genes”. I hated when she said these things to me, one because she constantly stared at my breasts and two, because I hated the fact that she wasn’t happy with her outward appearance and always had to compare herself to others. Because of the “defect” she believed she had, she lacked major self esteem in everything else she did. When we would get dressed and prepare for an outing, many times she would not attend. She also hated dates in fear of the guy’s first impression of her. I would always tell her that not every guy drools over women with large breast because some men rather date ladies with brains and beauty. And fortunately enough, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. My words of encouragement seemed to justice. Why is it that so many people focus so much on beauty?

Do Television Shows Such as “Gossip Girl” Promote the Concept of Being a “Mean Girl”?

In searching for ways to preserve my sanity during the school year, I have found a number of solutions. One of them consists of watching mind-numbing fluff television such as “Gossip Girl,” which airs on Monday nights on the CW. Gossip Girl’s premise centers on an anonymous Internet blogger whom posts gossip blogs about the scandalous lives of New York City’s Upper East Side teenagers. She also sends text messages to the phones of those whom subscribe to her site. At the focal point of Gossip Girl’s blogs is Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), and her wealthy socialite friends Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), and Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick). Oh, and their “poor” friends/classmates from Brooklyn, siblings Dan and Jenny Humphrey (Penn Badgley and Taylor Momsen). Now what is important to understand is how Gossip Girl receives her information: From the same people that she is posting gossip about. Gossip Girl’s site is a major source of conflict that ultimately drives the show’s plotlines forward.

But underneath the fluff of teenage high school drama, is one underlying theme. Many of the characters on this show are mean (and not just the female characters either), with few redeeming qualities to justify their cruel actions. But with this being said, would it be fair to say that television shows such as “Gossip Girl,” endorse and glamorize the idea of girls being ruthlessly nasty? Society portrays women as catty, vindictive, and manipulative. In my opinion, shows like “Gossip Girl,” only perpetuate and enforce this notion. For example, in one episode earlier this season, Blair uses Gossip Girl to falsely accuse a new teacher of having inappropriate relations with a student. Why? Blair played a trick on the teacher because she was given a bad grade, and then was subsequently given detention. So for receiving detention, Blair decides that this justifies destroying the teacher’s career, and uses Gossip Girl to do so. She knows that Gossip Girl’s site has the potential to reach a large number of people, and exploits this to her advantage. In my opinion, this type of behavior is not justified at all.

The CW markets its programming to a predominantly young female audience in their teens and twenties. Blackmail and deception are recurrent themes that run throughout this show. While older audience members may realize how completely unacceptable this behavior is, younger audiences may not. And while it is just a television show, consumers may be influenced nonetheless. “Gossip Girl” has caught a lot heat from its racy commercial and print ads to the very topic I am discussing right now. America Ferrera, Blake Lively’s co-star in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie series and star of ABC’s “Ugly Betty,”, gave an interview last fall in which she stated that she felt that shows such as “Gossip Girl,” condition girls to be mean. If you even watch only a single episode of this show, you could understand her point of view.

This show also perfectly demonstrates the exclusivity aspect of cliques common amongst girls, especially high school girls. Cliques are used to create a sense of empowerment and worth. If you are not in the clique deemed to be cool, somehow that makes you less worthy. For example, for most of the first season, Jenny tries desperately to fit in with Blair and the rest of her mean girl clones. Labeled as “poor” by Blair and her friends for being simply from Brooklyn, this obviously means that Jenny is beneath them, giving them free reign to exclude her and treat her like dirt. These girls seek out ways to embarrass Jenny, utilizing Gossip Girl’s website in order to do so. Later on, Jenny replaces Blair at the top of the social ladder, and not surprisingly begins to behave just as nastily to others as she herself was once treated. Is behavior like this really necessary? Does the media really need to continuously perpetuate the idea that this type of behavior is commonplace and therefore acceptable amongst the female gender?

That brings me to another point. The world we live in today is very different from the world that existed before the boom of the Internet, cell phones, instant messaging and social networking websites. Today, girls can be just as mean, if not meaner, through the use of technology than they can be in person. Many schools now include “cyber bullying” as a component of its harassment policy. I remember seeing an Oprah Winfrey episode back in high school that explored the ways that girls bully one another. One incident was highlighted in this episode about a girl whom was being bullied through instant messaging. A as result of this ruthless behavior, the girl eventually hung herself. And this Oprah episode aired way before “Gossip Girl,” began airing on television. “Gossip Girl” without a doubt showcases how girls can use technology in order to humiliate and harass their peers. Whenever something even remotely embarrassing occurs, someone will pull out their phone and send a text or picture to Gossip Girl’s site so that everyone will find out about it, regardless of the subject content.

In my opinion, there are enough problems with “girl on girl crime” that exist within real life without its glamorization by the pretty faced stars of “Gossip Girl,” and other television shows. Yes, it may only be for entertainment value, but its message that it sends to girls is negative, with possible detrimental consequences.