Disney and Gender Equality
Think about some of the movies you have recently watched. Now, think of the main characters in these movies. There are probably a few of those movies that have female actresses as the protagonist. What are the qualities of these women? They are probably quite different from movies that were made a couple of decades ago. Many of Disney’s animated films that are made today mirror a cultural shift of breaking traditional gender roles in society by creating more dominant female protagonists with equal qualities and abilities to that of old traditional male protagonists.
Disney films represent this shift in more of their movies than any other. Two movies that show this contrast are the movies Cinderella (1950) and Brave (2012). Cinderella represents the many restrictions on women of that time period. The movie shows that a woman’s value is based on how she looks. It shows that women are restricted to doing household chores: the cooking, cleaning, laundering, shopping, and sewing. Brave is about Merida and how she breaks all of those stereotypes. In a particular scene Merida is watching a contest between men and how well they can shoot an arrow. She decides to prove that she can do better than all of those men. Merida takes her hood off and shows her messy red hair; contrary to Cinderella’s smooth blonde hair. She then, literally and figuratively, rips through the constraints of her formal and traditional dress. After breaking a few gender stereotypes, she proceeds to shoot 3 bulls eyes with her bow and arrow while also walking at the same time. In this very scene, Disney shows that they support gender equality, and believe that it is important to recognize everyone as equal. Many new Disney films follow this cultural trend such as Moana, Frozen, Finding Dory and many more.
Finding Dory is a clear and obvious attempt by Disney to try and further their use of the active female protagonist. Everyone remembers Finding Nemo and loved it, so why not make a sequel with Dory as the main focus to not only make more money, but also make a social statement of the importance of women. The film still incorporates Marlin and Nemo — as well as many of characters from the original movie — but the focus is on Dory and her story. While Dory does have problems with her memory, it is she that solves her own problems. This contributes to modern gender equality movements — women can think, and do, for themselves. When she is all on her own, she remembers the seashells her parents taught her to follow so she could find home.
Not only is the movie focused on Dory, but the movie even shows a lesbian couple with the child in the scene where Hank and Dory are riding around in a stroller. Again, Disney is showing more and more effort in trying to break gender roles in society.
One way of classifying these types of movies is by using the Bechdel Test. This test was thought of by an American cartoonist, Allison Bechdel. It is a way to indicate the whether there is an active female character in a film or not — it draws attention to gender equality. A movie has to answer “yes” to three questions: Does it have at least two named women? Do they talk to each other? And do they talk to each other about something other than a man?
Surprisingly, many of Disney’s new movies do not pass the Bechdel Test: The Jungle Book (2016), Monster University, and Up. On the contrary, all of the early princess movies made by Disney pass the Bechdel test, even though they portray rigidly traditional gender roles. This brings up the question of whether the Bechdel Test is a good way of measuring the role of active women in film.
While Monster University may not satisfy the gender equality portion of society, it explores a different aspect of the culture in America. They hit hard on the diversity of universities and positives of hard work. Mike Wazowski was not a gifted scary monster, but when teamed up with his buddy, they were able to break records of scary-ness that had never been seen before. The advertisements of this film before it came out were criticized for the lack of female characters. The movie itself is even a story about the rivalry between fraternities. That single aspect there can even be related to the rape culture on college campuses and anti-feminism.
Not all movies that Disney creates has to be a statement about feminism. Monster University does nothing to involve itself in that category. It tackles the idea of how everyone is different from each other. Everyone has their own combinations of strengths and weaknesses. It is when hard work is put in and people work together that great things can happen.
This movie shouldn’t be viewed through the lens of gender equality, and many other movies shouldn’t either. It is easy to compare two movies like Finding Dory and Monster University, but the concept each movie is trying to portray is also important to consider.
Many Disney films today are tackling the concept of gender equality, but it is always important to consider other aspects of these films before making judgments. Disney shows a trend in recent films that they are hitting hard on the importance of women and gender equality in Society. Disney isn’t perfect and is still producing movies that completely ignore the role of women, but in these films, gender equality isn’t the main focus as in films like Finding Dory. Disney has a way of over emphasizing their point by going over the top of their ultimate message. Finding Dory shows obvious attempts at gender equality, and is based on that idea. Monster University focuses solely on diversity and hard work. Disney is still creating more movies than ever that surround the importance of gender equality.
