Disney Movies, Gender Stereotypes, and a Mongolian Sample

In a survey carried out in 2020 at the National University of Mongolia, 500 Mongolian people aged 18 to 33 were asked questions to see how Disney films influenced "the personal view of modern nomads on images of gender". One of the questions was how Elsa (main character of Frozen) can turn her life into a perfect one. About 60% answered that Elsa would have to find true love, 33% thought a new adventure and challenges would be the right choice and 8.3% said that Elsa would need to govern her kingdom and make progress as a queen. 

According to the answers of the people, females’ stereotyped desire is to find true love and happy marriage disregarding individual’s talent and capacity. Disney films may have shown that the solution for young females to overcome difficulties is in finding a man as her protector. Seemingly, most of the Disney films such as the fairy-tales illustrated that the one and only aspiration and dream for females is finding a perfect man to marry. And for this, a feminine personality and attractive physical features (more often than not represented by White women) are conducive.

Another question regarded The Little Mermaid and its character Ursula. Almost 60% said they found her appearance unpleasant, 16.7% thought she was "super ugly". 74.8% agreed that her appearance made her more hateful. 

Different shapes and sizes of female roles in films maybe dedicated to highlight the contrast between evil and good by their looks. While Ariel is small, thin, and white, in contrast, Ursula is overweight, bigger, and purple. Thus, their appearances could express radical differences between the characterisation of Ariel and Ursula to the audience. Accordingly, Disney films may have been giving the message that unpleasant appearance is equal to an unpleasant personality thus reconfirming the existing stereotypes around the constructs of perfect beauty and body image. (Tergel Bold Erdene)

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photograph (Darhad Valley Nomadic Family by Jun Hwan Sung) via

Evil, Sophisticated, British: The British Accent in Animated Films

"So a disturbing pattern begins to emerge. In the casting of big budget Hollywood movies the rule is clear: bad guys British, good guys anything but. (...) British actors have turned up regularly, predictably, even inevitably, as sophisticated bad guys in Hollywood movies" (Barry Norman), symbolising an "evil genius that can charm your mother over dinner then blow up the world after dessert" (Arwa Mahdawi).

It is a depiction or representation of language, not a sample of it. It is a depiction of what the director/write/producer ‘thinks' about language use in the real world, Hollywood view of the linguistic world.
Schiffman (1998)

Accents establish settings and convey elements of characterisation. They are, in fact, a tool for constructing characters (Azad, 2009), stereotypical characters:

Accent is a potent cue to social categorization and stereotyping. An important agent of accent-based stereotype socialization is the media. (...) Results provide clear evidence that American media’s portrayals of different accents are biased, reflecting pervasive societal stereotypes.
Dragojevic, Giles & Sink (2016)

According to Lippi-Green, "animated features teach children to ethnocentrically discriminate by portraying bad characters with foreign accents" (Wenke, 1998). More than in live-action, animated films show the tendency to use language "as a quick way to build character and reaffirm stereotype" (Lippi-Green, 1997). In children's animated television, villains consistently use non-American accents (Dobrow & Gidney, 1998); there has been an "explosion" in the use of British accents in a stereotypcial way (Wenke, 1998).

It is first observably true that somehow, children learn not only how to use variation in their own language, but also how to interpret social variation in their own language, but also how to interpret social variation in the language of others. They do this with or without exposure to television and film, but in the current day, few children grow up without this exposure.
Lippi-Green (1997)

A specific example of a Disney character who portrays an accent obvious to the viewing public through the use of markers and stereotypes is Scar in the movie The Lion King. Scar is the brother to Mufasa, the strong and noble Lion King. Scar's character stands in direct contrast to that of Mufasa's noble character as he is an envious, scheming lion who plans the murder of his brother and exile of his nephew Simba, the heir to the throne. Scar is drawn to be skinnier and darker than his brother. Differences in animation are thus our first clue into the nature of the two characters. The story takes place in Africa, and the lions are brothers. It would appear then that both brothers should speak with the same accent, and that it should be derived from some African dialect, but this is distinctly not the case. The voice over for Mufasa is provided by James Earl Jones, who speaks with what Lippi-Green calls a mainstream US English (MUSE) accent. In contrast, Jeremy Irons voice over for Scar character speaks with a distinctly British accent. This British accent is very different from the standard English accents of the other characters in the movies, and helps children to distinguish his character.
Wenke (1998)

Based on Lippi-Green's analysis of 24 animated Disney films (i.e. all availabe full-length films available at the time) and their 371 characters, general/standardised American has increased at the expense of British accents, and Received Pronunciation has decreased clearly (from 22% to 14.2%), so has regional British accent (from 11% to 3.5%). In other words, "General American has gained a significantly (sic) amount of ground, whereas the other accent groups have decreased accordingly" leading to a reduction of diversity of accents and enhancing US-American standardisation. Correlations between the traits of the characters and the accents they speak can be observed. Heroes speak general American (even Robin Hood spoke American English in Disney's animated film), Received Pronunciation - which as "a long history of being used with sinister characters" -  is used by characters playing a peripheral role, a villain, an aide to a villain or an unsympathetic character. The very reason may be that Received Pronunciation is associated with posh, cold, distant persons and hence seen as "suitable to sophisticated villainous characters". Interestingly, Americans at the same time see British English positively (Sønnesyn, 2011).

Since early as 1959, sociolinguists have tended to regard as almost a truism the notion that speaker of a perceived prestige dialect such as Received Pronunciation in Great Britain are judged by nonprestige dialect speakers to be on the one hand educated, intelligent, competent, industrious, and of a higher class socioeconomically yet on the other hand less trustworthy and kind, as well as less socially attractive, sincere, and good-humored.
Davis & Houck (1992)

Scar using a British accent, for instance, highlights "his snobbish mannerism and his feelings of intellectual superiority", representing intelligence, breeding and refinement, but also class-envy on the part of US-Americans towards the British or English. Similarly, Jaffar (in Aladdin) speaks with a British accent (Wenke, 1998).

"speakers of British English are portrayed dichotomously as either the epitome of refinement and elegance or as the embodiment of effete evil." This crystallizes the love-hate part of the two nations’ special relationship. Considering other studies have shown that American speakers might have a mild inferiority complex about their own dialects compared to British English, this is telling. (via)

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- Azad, S. B. (2009). Lights, Camera, Accent. Examining Dialect Performance in Recent Children's Animated Films. Washington: Thesis, link
- Davis, L. M. & Houch, C. (1992). Can She Be Prestigious and Nice at the Same Time? Perceptions of Female Speech in Hoosierdom. American Speech, 67(2), 115-122.
- Dobrow, J. R. & Gidney, C. L. (1998). The Good, the Bad, and the Foreign: The Use of Dialect in Children's Animated Television. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 557, Children and Television, 105-119.
- Dragojevic, M., Mastro, D., Giles, H. & Sink, A. (2016). Silencing nonstandard speakers: A content analysis of accent portrayals on American primetime television. Language in Society, 45, 59-85.
- Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London & New York: Routledge, link
- Reinacher, L. (2016). Discrimination in a Land Far, Far Away - Stereotyped Dialects in Animated Children's Films. Kiel: Thesis, link
- Sønnesyn, J. (2011). The use of accents in Disney's animated feature films 1995-2009: a sociolinguistic study of the good, the bad and the foreign. Thesis: University of Bergen, link
- Wenke, E. (1998). Accents in children's animated featiures (sic) as a device for teaching children to ethnocentrically discriminate. Language and Popular Culture, link
- photographs of Jeremy Irons by Michel Comte, 1990 via and via

Applying for a job at Disney in the Golden Age of Animation

"He [Walt Disney] didn't trust women or cats."
Ward Kimball

In 1938, Walt Disney Productions wrote a letter to a female applicant and turned down her request to enroll in the training programme because she was a woman. This letter received some attention in the past years. Meryl Streep, for instance, held a "nine-minute tour-de-force" speech at the National Board of Review dinner in 2014. In her speech, she read the letter and called Disney a "gender bigot" (via and via).



The same year, The Walt Disney Family Museum reacted by putting the letter into historical context and stating that the limited role of women in the workplace in the 1930s was culturally accepted, i.e. "normal".

"At that time, most companies in America were mostly male-dominated with women providing smaller support roles. There were several prominent women within Walt Disney Productions, well before WWII made women the backbone of the American workforce. In speeches made to his employees on February 10 and 11, 1941, Walt observed that women artists could fully equal their male counterparts, and were being included in his studio animation training program. (...) Hazel Sewell served as an art director on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was released in 1937—a year before the letter mentioned above was dated." (The Walt Disney Family Museum)

In the 1930s and 1940s, "men and women were relegated to very specific roles in the animated film process". Creative men worked in the Animation Department while creative women worked in the Ink and Paint Department. About 100 women mostly under the age of 25 worked in this department, the inkers were called the "queens" of the department (via).



"The extent of Walt’s narrow casting—and prejudices—from political beliefs to religion to gender has been the subject of much conjecture. Rae, an outstanding high-school artist, like many of the girls, heard that “each time they were beginning to get good they’ve quit to get married or something. So now he’s thumbs down on girl animators.” “The consensus was that a man has a better feel for action, personality and caricature,” said a later story about Disney female employees in a Hollywood newspaper. But Ruthie knew better. “It was a man’s world all over the place,” she said with typically wry candor. “The stars were the beauties who sang and wiggled their fannies around—that’s all girls were useful for.”"
Patricia Zohn, Vanity Fair



June 7, 1938

Miss Mary V. Ford
Searcy,
Arkansas

Dear Miss Ford:

Your letter of recent date has been received in the Inking and Painting Department for reply.

Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason girls are not considered for the training school.

The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink and filling in the tracings on the reverse side with paint according to directions.

In order to apply for a position as "Inker" or "Painter" it is necessary that one appear at the Studio, bringing samples of pen and ink and water color work. It would not be advisable to come to Hollywood with the above specifically in view, as there are really very few openings in comparison with the number of girls who apply.

Yours very truly,
Walt Disney Productions, Ltd.
Mary Cleave

Here is another rejection letter from 1939: LINK

“If a woman can do the work as well, she is worth as much as a man. The girl artists have the right to expect the same chances for advancement as men, and I honestly believe they may eventually contribute something to this business that men never would or could.”
Walt Disney

Today, the Walt Disney Company is one of DiversityInc Top 50 companies for diversity (via). The company has launched a great many diversity and inclusion initiatives (e.g. the annual Women's Leadership Conference), has 32 Diversity & Inclusion full time staff members (via) and earned 100% on the Diversity Index a few years ago (via).

:: Related posting: Mickey Mouse & Jim Crow

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images via and via and via and via

Tomorrowland & The Cultural Lag Theory

Disneyland's Tomorrowland reflected "a nostalgic vision of the future as imagined by dreamers and scientists in the 1920s and 1930s". This "Future That Never Was" (Sehlinger et al., 2014) was highly influenced by the space theme hype of the 1950s.



While space was "the" symbol of future and future technology in the 1950s, in the meantime, not all of us seem to have arrived in the future when it comes to space and gender roles. At a recent press conference, the female cosmonaut Yelena Olegovna Serova - the fourth Soviet/Russian woman in space - was asked (again) how she would style her hair aboard the International Space Station - a question that had never been addressed to her male colleagues around her. Her answer: "Can I ask you a question, too: aren't you interested in the hair styles of my colleagues?" (via).



We no longer envision the future the way we did back in the 1950s, no more retro-future primarily influenced by space technology. But technological progress is probably still one of the first things that come into our minds when we think about the future.



According to William F. Ogburn's Cultural Lag Theory from 1922, changes take place with different speeds. While material culture, such as factories or machines, changes more rapidly, non-material culture such as custom, beliefs, philosphies or laws, needs more time to change. In other words, progress of moral and emotional domains lag far behind techno-scientific and economic progress (Smolens, 2003).



We managed to build a space station and to send people there, both men and women. Technically, we are advanced. And when we send a woman to the ISS in 2014, we ask her about her hair problems in space ... a question that could have made a nice headline in the 1950s. Culturally, we are surely lagging behind our technical progress. Culturally, we are still surrounded by a persistent "retro nostalgia"...



- Sehlinger, B., Kubersky, S. & Testa, L. (2004) Disneyland 2014. Birmingham: Keen Communications
- Smolens, R. W. (2003) Cultural Lag: Applying Time to Culture. (online)
- photos via and via and via and via and via

Mickey Mouse & Jim Crow

Before civil rights were expanded in recreational spaces, a great many amusement parks used to be segregated in the U.S. They were "white spaces that signaled their purity and safety through racial exclusion." (Wolcott, 2012). Their target group was the white middle-class family, an ideal many minority families were excluded from (Hawk, 2004).



Nevertheless, when Disneyland opened in Anaheim in 1955, it was "notable for the absence of hot spots of racial conflict - swimming pools, dance halls, and roller rinks. There were no rock 'n' roll dance parties in 1950s Disneyland. Disney chose the park's location, inland from the beautiful Pacific coast, because he recognized the dangers of racial mixing at bathing beaches. Within the park there were no spaces where men and women could dance or swim together, eliminating concerns about interracial sexuality that sparked internal park segregation throughout the North. (...) The Disney example demonstrates the extent to which segregation was never simply about the law. Walt Disney's greatest accomplishment may have been creating a regulated, controlled, and clean space without conflict" (Wolcott, 2012) at a time most of the amusement parks had a clear "whites-only" policy (Nathan, 2011).

::: Related posting: Sharon's First Merry-Go-Round Ride



- Hawk, A. (2004) "Disney-fying" Mother Nature in the Atomic Era: How Disneyland's Portrayals of Nature Reflected Post-War Ideals of Family, Child-Rearing, and the Home, 1955-1966. Explorations: An Undergraduate Research Journal, 7-28.
- Nathan, A. (2011). Round and Round Together: Taking a Merry-Go-Round Ride into the Civil Rights Movement. Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books.
- Wolcott, V. W. (2012) Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle Over Segregated Recreation in America. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- photos via and via