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Stereotypes In Spirited Away And Beauty And The Beast

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Stereotypes In Spirited Away And Beauty And The Beast
I do not want to admit this; my favorite Disney move of all time was Beauty and the Beast. You are correct, I said ‘was.’ I would have to say, for the moment, my favorite animated film is Hayao Miyazaki’s cinematic masterpiece Spirited Away. Compared to Beauty and the Beast, Spirited Away is a complex film that exposes children to a complex storyline where character growth and conflict resolution are progressively showcased. Whereas, the Beauty and the Beast storyline a simplistic representation of the hegemonic sphere: a female protagonist falls in love with the male antagonist, and of course, he is a prince. Reinforcement of these stereotypes can affect the way young humans feel about themselves and those around them.
The Disney approved female and male stereotypes have influenced my personal life more than I would care to admit. At one point in my life, I actually did believe that one day I would meet my prince and we would live happily
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The construction of the concept of love is influenced not only by the character development throughout the film; however it is explicitly connected to masculine or feminine gender roles. For example, in Beauty and the Beast, the protagonist Belle, is beautiful (long hair, full red lips, doe eyes), selfless, nurturing and obedient. The antagonists, the Beast and Gaston are hypermasculized: exaggerated muscles, violent actions and self-serving. Additionally, the Beast and Gaston spend the majority of the film trying to coerce Belle (an object) into loving them, or at the very least, marrying them. Western culture’s prescriptive love between two people is outlined: an attractive women who has no known interest in men, can be coerced through violence and aggression to come to love men with violent tempers and disproportionate

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