I have always loved Disney. I’ve
seen almost all of their movies and can sing along to most of the songs. My
husband and I got Disneyland passes as soon as we moved to Southern California;
we had no children yet, we just loved to go together and experience the magical
place where everyone smiles and wears silly hats and lets themselves have a
blast with out feeling self conscious. When we had our first son, we couldn’t
wait to take him there, although he slept through most of the magic for the
first year.
Now that he is older, I have been
watching the Disney movies with him and I find myself seeing them quite
differently. Instead of sitting back with some popcorn and singing along, I
find myself questioning the lessons he is learning from these movies, and I
find myself glad I don’t have a daughter to explain them to. What’s the big
deal, you ask?
From my observations thus far, the
Disney movies largely have a very negative way of representing women, even
though superficially they seem to honor women for their beauty, they have the
potential to set young girls up for a value system that will steer them poorly
in romance and self esteem for the rest of their lives. These negative messages
may also influence the way young boys understand women.
The princess movies are by far the
most damaging for young girls and potentially young boys who believe women want
to relive these movies. Consider Beauty and the Beast, which superficially has
the message to love people for their inner beauty, and don’t judge them by
their looks. Great, huh? Let’s look more deeply. First, the opening song sings about how everyone thinks Bell
is very odd and they cannot relate to her at all. Why is she so strange and
off-putting? Because she likes to read!!! Her nerdiness is thankfully saved by
her extraordinary beauty, and we soon find out that the most popular man in
town, Gaston, is determined to marry her because of her unmatched beauty, he
says , “The most beautiful girl in town. That makes her the best! And don't I
deserve the best?” So what is the message here? Girls, reading will only make
people think you are weird, and it doesn’t matter how strange you are or
whether people like your personality, as long as you are physically beautiful the
popular guys will want you. Hmm, that doesn’t seem right. Well let’s examine
the male lead, that of the Beast. Bell quickly falls in love with him in spite
of how scary and horrifying he looks, because he is good on the inside. No,
wait, he is not good on the inside at all, he is angry, merciless and cruel,
and takes Bell hostage because she trades her life for that of her sick
father’s life after her father was imprisoned by the Beast for having the
audacity to come onto his property. Not only does the Beast make Bell swear to
stay in his castle for her entire life, he is cruel and domineering and makes
her cry repeatedly. In spite of all of this, Bell falls in love with him. Her
love changes him for the better, and he transforms into a beautiful prince and
marries her. Wow, now this is a
messed up but familiar story I see women reliving in therapy all the time: they
find a man who is cruel and vicious and yet they believe their love will
transform him into a better person.
Does it sound familiar to you?
Boys get the lesson that the way to win over a beautiful woman is to
have a huge mansion and treat her like crap.
So now you may be thinking, okay
that is not the best choice for my kids, but the other ones seem more harmless,
right? What about The Little Mermaid? Okay The Little Mermaid is about a 16
year old Mermaid who falls in love with a prince based solely on how handsome
he is, She disobeys her father, sells her voice to a witch for some legs,
causes her father to almost be killed, puts all the mermaids and mermen in
danger repeatedly, and then gets the prince to fall in love with her and they
get married and live happily every after. She can never return home because she
is no longer a mermaid. What is
the message here? One of them is surely that teenagers know better than their
parents. Another one is that teenage girls will marry the first handsome guy
they see and he is the right one for her no matter what her parents say. Oh and
don’t forget that a women should give up everything and everyone in her life
for a guy. Let’s also note that you are not good enough exactly as you are, you
must change yourself to be right for the man you are after. I could go on but I
think you’ve got the point. How
about the message for the boys? How about if you are rich and handsome, you
should expect a women to sacrifice everything to be with you.
Oy, this is getting rough. I loved
those two movies when I didn’t have children!
How about Cinderella? Other women
will hate you if you are beautiful and will try to ruin your life. Also, marry
the first man who pays attention to you so can get out of your parent’s house. Oh, and does anyone else wonder why she
would accept a marriage proposal from a man who didn’t even remember what she
looked like? That’s some desperation.
Ok. Snow White then, that seems
harmless enough. Lesson 1) (again) other women will hate you if you are
beautiful and will try to bring you down, lesson 2) If you are beautiful
enough, a prince of a man will want to marry you on sight, even if you are dead
(or have no personality, nothing else to offer) 3) If you are a rich prince,
beautiful women will want to marry you without knowing anything else about you.
Oh no! How about The Princess and
the Frog? Surely that is a love
story that has value? Shall we talk about the blonde friend who will marry any
prince sight unseen just so she can be a princess? How about the main character
who actually believes that she is going to be the one to change a player who
carelessly spends his parents money to the point that they cut him off,
describes his joys in life to be blondes, brunettes and redheads, and wanders
aimlessly with no job trying to find a wife to support him. Again, we see this
magical idea that a woman can change a man just by loving him. Sigh.
We see these themes over and over
again, how Jasmine falls for Aladdin, a thief and a liar, as does Rapunzel. And
now that I’ve mentioned Rapunzel, they went over the top with the “love changes
a man“ theme in this one. Poor sheltered, innocent Rapunzel falls in love with
an arrogant womanizing (they point out that women always fall for his
“smolder”) thief and a liar. He is
extremely handsome and he falls for her innocence and charm. Their love changes him and they get
married and live happily every after. However, it seems to me the con man won
after all: early in the movie he says that he wants a castle and he accidently
ends up meeting the kidnapped princess and saves her, putting him right into
position to be accepted into the royal family, which he is. Did he change or
did he con us all? Only time will tell. Even if he really is transformed, the
problem is, you child won’t understand that this is a highly unusual scenario
where a criminal becomes the hero, and she will look towards handsome charming
bad boys as potential future princes. Don’t we see this all the time?
I was horrified last year when I
saw my otherwise intelligent amazing girlfriends going gaga for the Fifty
Shades of Grey books, where a young innocent girl is emotionally and physically
abused by a domineering, angry, man who is rich and handsome. This guy was rich, handsome AND a bad
boy, that’s a keeper according to Disney!
Sure enough, her love changes him and they live happily ever after.
Sigh, ladies, we need to do better than this!
You are probably as alarmed as I
was the first time I actually started going through these movies in my head and
kept shaking my head “no, no” every time I realized the messages of the movies.
Does this mean you should boycott Disney movies? Not necessarily. I think it’s
okay to watch them with your kids as long as you discuss the movie afterwards
and find out what your child is taking away from it. This is a good idea to do after any movie. Notice I encourage you to watch with
your kids. Some parents use movies as a way to park their kids in front of the
TV so they can get some things done.
Believe me I understand this, and if you feel like you need to do this,
pick something you already know well and feel comfortable with them watching. I
also encourage you to find a variety of different types of movies and stories,
ones that show women in strong roles, families who listen to each other and
support each other, and definitely ones where girls want more than to be
crowned princesses and boys are not taught that girls just go after bad boys
and rich guys.
Brooke Goldner, M.D. is a
board-certified physician specialized in Psychiatry. She exclusively treats
patients using telepsychiatry, seeing them on Skype in the comfort of their own
homes. To hear more about her free tips for healthy and happy living, check out
her facebook page, facebook.com/DoctorGMD. Check out her website at
SkypePsychiatrist.com
