In all these versions, readers or viewers find a common thread to all. The wicked stepmother and siblings are either punished or forgiven, while the sweet, gracious, and beautiful Cinderella marries the prince, and as such escapes her miserable life. According to this tale, marriage is the ultimate goal in life especially for the woman. In Cinderella, all the maidens in town go to the ball just to marry the prince. Even Cinderella desires to go because she sees marriage to the prince as the solution to her problem. “The ideological and psychological pattern and message of either Perrault’s or the Grimms’ Cinderella do nothing more than reinforce sexist values and a Puritan ethos that serves a society which fosters competition and achievement for survival” (Breaking the Magic 195). And this applies to the other two versions in this analysis. Women are typecast as incomplete and invisible without the prince, who obviously is a wealthy archetype. There is a certain important message in Cinderella that is most profitable to marry a rich man, because it earns the woman respect and dignity.…
“Cinderella In The Classroom Children’s Responses To Gender” is an article. This article targets parents, those who have children, and who are interested in this topic. The article begins by introducing the topic and the background of Westland’s study. Westland set out to discover if children may be more resistant to fairytales. The study consisted of over 100 boys and girls. The students were asked to draw their favorite character from Snow White, Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty. The girls stuck to the usual norms and created a beautiful princess. The girls remarked on how they would like to be princesses and be kissed by a prince. Meanwhile, the boys chose to draw a prince. The boys associated the prince to having money, fast cars, and being…
In conclusion, portraying gender stereotypes in occupational roles, behaviors, and gendered clothing throughout Berenstain Bears picture books can potentially lead to negative development in young children. With this in mind, in an article “Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Books: Their Prevalence and Influence on Cognitive and Affective Development” by Sharyl Peterson, they discuss the effects of gender stereotypes on affective development and cognitive development that are present in children. In fact, Peterson mentions in his work that “picture-books provide children with role models and clear images that prescribe for the children what they can and should be like when they grow up” (Weitzman et al., 19). Comparatively, Berenstain Bears picture…
In The Woman in Fairy Tales, Marie-Louise von Franz studies the feminine representations in fairy tales. She bases her study on collective symbols assumed to be present in these stories to shed light on the various facets of the anima. This book points at the fact that even if fairy tales are generally seen as a form of distraction, these stories have also a psychological function which expresses the psychic processes of the collective unconscious. This is of a capital interest to analyze the instrumentalization of the princesses in the advertising campaigns.…
Transitioning on from the perspective of a communications graduate, we move on to see how gendered roles are portrayed in Disney Princess movies and how they affect young children, from the perspective of a psychology graduate. Katie Lopreore, the psychology graduate from Middle Tennessee State University, writes about how the influences of the Disney Princess films shape children through their gendered characteristics, in her journal Gender roles portrayals of modern Disney royalty: stereotypical or androgynous? Lopreore starts off with an evaluation on how many children are exposed to the Disney Princess culture, she writes “Disney brand, found that 97% of children they surveyed between ages 2-11 years old were familiar with Cinderella, one…
Samara Green in the article, Fairy tales and Gender Stereotypes, written on February 14, 2014 claims that people are taught gender stereotypes when they read or listen to certain texts. Green supports her claim by providing examples of gender stereotypes such as: The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Twilight. The author’s purpose is to inform the readers that gender stereotypes are taught through texts in order to show people that if they want to change gender stereotypes, then they need to change the readings people are surrounded by. The author writes in a contemptuous tone for adults to change what types of readings they are surrounding younger adults and children…
This image manipulates the Disney audience to believe that women need men to be successful creating an ideology that women cannot excel in life. This self-esteem impacting violation can be looked at as a neglected for of media violence. The aggression towards the self-esteem of young girls can fundamentally be explained in the article “Could Playing with Disney Princesses Harm Your Child? Researchers Warn They Enhance Potentially Damaging Stereotypes" by Stacy Liberatore. In this article, the analysis that women are supposed to be less intelligent than men is studied. This ideology may cause Disney’s female audience to intentionally not succeed in academics due to the stereotype that women are dependent upon the intellect of men. Researchers watched 36 G-rated Disney movies which grossed more than $100 million as of January 1, 2014 and discovered that 38 of the 67 main characters were considered upper or upper-middle class. While looking at the Disney princess franchise we must note that jobs are dominantly occupied by men while women are typically portrayed as housewives as seen in a classic Disney film Snow White. This argument leads to the idea that these women are typically only upper or upper-middle class due to the support of men. This ideology contributes to my argument that Disney portrays its princess characters to be dependent upon the wealth and skills of men to succeed in life. This type of characterization can potentially discourage young women viewers to proceed in academics which should be looked at as a type of media…
Also, Stefan Babich’s article throws more light to the devastating issue of gender gap. She considers the role of female protagonists in animated children’s films. Using Disney and Pixar as a case study, she fairly criticizes Disney films for being sexist and mentions that “A pretty big percentage of the female leads in Disney musicals seem to have only one goal- to get…
It only takes a second to attach a strong feeling or idea to a character in a movie, advertisement, or video game. Many characterization used are based on the assumed stereotypes, and are usually one-dimensional characters. Typically, these characterizations usually come from inherited family values, education, and the media. While stereotypes existed long before mass media, the media machine certainly helped to accelerate the cultural growth of all kinds of stereotypes. It is beyond this paper to answer why magazines employ these gender stereotypes, instead this research is designed to analyze whether the content (writing, pictures, and advertising) in magazines employs the use of stereotypes in their depiction of gender.…
The story chosen is Snow White that has become the most popular princess among young girls. Snow White and similar fairy tales are playing bad with young minds by showing male characters stronger and powerful, which is also causing gender discrimination. Whether the fairy tales have significant impact on folks’ lives has been the most discussed phenomenon of the time. Many people agree to the notion that fairy tales and their myths do have an impact in young children’ life while the other rejects this. Scientifically and psychologically, it has been proven that children tend to adopt the habits they see around and that they play a vital role in shaping a child's mind and controlling his/her thoughts. “Two close readings of this version, one psychoanalytic and the other feminist, suggest that because Snow White is part of a literally as well as folkloric tradition, it may be studied as a cultural artifact and text valid in itself” (Shuli Barzilai, 515).…
Gender stereotypes are exaggerated generalizations that are based purely on gender. The area of study for this investigation is sociocultural influences. This is a contemporary issue as it is becoming an excessive thing in modern society due to companies increasingly gender marketing their products towards children. The toy sections at shopping centers are divided into two categories: girl’s and boy’s toys. Aisles are filled with either pink, frilly princesses or blue, aggressive action figures. Toy marketing has changed dramatically in the past 50 years. As a matter of fact, it was not until the 1990s that toys were exceedingly targeting specific genders…
Stereotype. Stereotypical. Stereotyping. All are words I’m sure we all have heard. A question I have asked myself is “Why do stereotypes exist and more importantly, why do they matter?” A stereotype is an oversimplified image of a person, place, or object. George Takei, a Japanese actor, once said “If we allow ourselves to judge another based on a stereotype, we have allowed a generalization to replace our own thinking.” So why do we allow ourselves, as people, to judge one another based on a stereotype? The answer is we shouldn’t.…
Young girls and marginalized groups are especially vulnerable in society because of the culture they’re raised in and what they are taught to believe is acceptable and normal in relationships and society. Right from childhood young girls are taught that they are objects that are chosen by men. Fairy tales send misleading messages to young girls about love and relationships. I think the media socializes people, and shows them certain social scripts on how to behave and how their expected to behave in society. Disney fairy tales are a good example of this because they depict how the media thinks romance and gender roles should be played out.…
Society’s constructed perspectives about gender are influenced by characters presented in film and television illustrations.…
Fairy-tales are fictional stories created to give a moral lesson to the readers. They could be, and most likely are, filled with excitement and adventure. These stories also contain mythological creatures that will boost the child’s imagination. Even though fairy-tales contain all of these amazing features some parents still doubt them. Some parents could argue stories similar to Cinderella stereotype females.…