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

Women in Animation Just Need a Ballsy, Single Parent, Militant Feminist, Lesbian Mother to Succeed

According to "Women in Animation", 60% of animation students are women but only 20 to 40% of professional roles in the industry are held by women. The industry seems to be a "boys' club" with "macho energy flying around". Usually, producers are women, men are directors and when a woman is a director she might "want to be more macho, speak louder or lower and make sure you’re not ‘screechy’ (...) behaving in ways that lose you energy because you’re trying to be something you’re not.”

“It is of course a matter of the total male domination in all powerful positions, that’s been going on forever.” Niki Lindroth von Bahr

Typically, “men are the creative leads and women are the jobbing crew animators or producers. Women are there to facilitate and enable the creative voice and vision of men because self-doubt is the patriarchy’s most insidious weapon.” Moving from education to career, women have “their more feminine qualities praised – nurturing, a willingness to please. It’s a restrictive pattern that upholds the status quo.” Kitty Turley

Technical roles (e.g. FX artists) are hugely male dominated: “It goes back to a time when boys were encouraged to like things such as technology and football, and girls to art and ballet dancing. These projected expectations have possibly fed into later interests and career choices. Gender roles and expectations are becoming more fluid though, which is an exciting shift.” Rosanna Morley

But there is hope since the right mother can give women the confidence they need to succeed in the animation industry. Anna Ginsburg says her upbringing by a “ballsy mother, a single parent, lesbian, militant feminist and lawyer" was quite helpful (via). Solution found.

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photograph (Disney, ca. 1969) via

In a Heartbeat

"In a Heartbeat" is an animated short film that went viral in summer 2017. It had about 12 million views in just 72 hours and has more than 32 million now. The film was produced by Esteban Bravo and Beth David, two computer animation majors at Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida. It tells the story of a boy named Sherwin who has fallen in love with his classmate Jonathan and his risk of being outed by his own heart (via).



"From a business standpoint, it makes sense why studios are afraid to portray LGBT characters, just because there’s still part of the population that’s not accepting. But as leaders of children’s content, it’s really important for them to represent these people because not showing LGBT characters leads to a lot of internalized confusion as kids grow up."
Esteban David

"There was a part of us that was aware this could potentially be a baby-step towards normalizing LGBT romance and, hopefully, toward larger productions and studios doing something like this. I do think this kind of entertainment is wanted on a pretty broad scale."
Beth David



image via