For this assignment I chose to watch Cinderella. This movie seems to give a subtle but fairly clear message that is it conveying to its younger viewers. The movie shows women to be maids, mothers, and objects of the prince’s affection, and nothing more. While men in the film are shown to be kings, princes, people who make all the decisions for the greater good of everyone who follows or looks up to them in a respectful and honoring way.
Look at the beginning of this cartoon when it is mentioning her family life and background of her and her father. It says that Cinderella’s father remarried so that there would be someone to take care of the children. This somewhat implies that this is supposed to be a woman’s job.
A man could not possibly take care of children! Oh no! He was seen as the bread winner nothing more. Most children and even adults accept this fact because so much media reinforces this idea as a norm.
Men are generally seen to be the leaders and decision makers of the family who are masculine and seek to provide for their family and throw caution to the wind. While women are supposed to be gentle creatures that seek to please their husbands and follow his every will while also raising the children, cleaning, and cooking.
It goes hand in hand with West and Zimmeman’s theory of “doing gender” and “contributes to, reaffirms, and reproduces masculine dominance and feminine submissiveness” The idea behind the Cinderella story is also objectifies women in a certain sense.
The bare bones of the story go as follows; Cinderella was saved from her terrible living conditions and slave-ish work by and beautiful charmin: ce. He did not save her because he knew her or because she was such a hard worker, but because she was beautiful and attractive to the eye. This just tells girls that they must seek to be pretty and feminine to get anything they desire in today’s world and in Cinderella’s.
One of the main messages that Cinderella sends to its young audience is that getting a wealthy, successful and powerful man to fall in love with you will result in true happiness. However, in order to achieve this, you have to be beautiful, and if you are not beautiful, men won’t pay attention to you and will never love you. In the film, Cinderella goes through a transformation from being a poor, mistreated maid to a glamorous princess. She gains the Prince’s attention with the help of a little magic to make her appear more beautiful. In the end, Prince Charming fell in love with Cinderella’s beauty, not necessarily Cinderella’s personality and what she stood for or loved. Not only does the film represent and show these ideas throughout most of the movie but it also seems like Cinderella is being “rescued” by the man.
It shows that women are supposed to, or generally rely on others, specifically men, to save them from the tragedies of everyday life. It also instills hope through some of the musicals, specifically “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes.” This song basically says that if you dream or wish hard enough, that all your wishes will come true and your life will be changed.Overall, Cinderella shows women as a weak, fragile object that must find a man if they seek to be happy or successful in life.
The young girls that believe this and continue to watch these movies only continue the conformity in believing in these ideas as fact. The movies that Disney and Pixar create have a huge impact on children’s lives and shape the ways that they think. If parents are not well educated in what ideas the movie is trying to instill in their child they are hurting future generations by having to deal with the same gender based issues we have today.
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