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Femininity In The Little Mermaid

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The Little Mermaid: Hegemonic Femininity
The transition from a girl to a woman is created by the socially constructed ideals of femininity often depicted in commercials, books, and mainly films. One of the famous animated princess Disney films, The Little Mermaid can be easily added to yet another Disney film portraying hegemonic femininity. In the 1989 film The Little Mermaid, (Ron Clements, John Musker) a beautiful, young mermaid is willing to make a risky deal with an evil sea-witch because she yearns to walk on land and fall in love with a Prince, while secretly the sea-witch wishes for the mermaid to lose the deal. Ultimately, the mermaid ends up achieving her dream of marrying the Prince, although the evil sea-witch tries to destroy …show more content…

Provided that, this film caters to the ideal western image of beauty. Ariel along with her sisters are presented having very slim hourglass figures. These characters conform to the ideologies of beauty also by having doe-eyes, a button nose, big smiles, symmetrical faces and luscious long, voluminous hair. All essential features that can be described as “beautiful” by society’s gender norms or what is expected from women. Ariel is submissive to the code of physical beauty. At only sixteen years old, she is shown in the film wearing a sexy shell bra. This demonstrates how at a very young age teenagers want to look more womanlike for men. Ariel’s sisters are also portrayed in the beginning of the film as “high maintenance gals,” since they are applying makeup to always look appealing. Femininity includes the code of beauty and sexuality, which is well reinscribed in The Little Mermaid. Therefore, the flawless body images represented in the film are telling girls how they should look in order to be considered beautiful and therefore loved. It gives them a sense of self-worth because if they look great then everything else will go as planned; they will find the man of their dreams and true happiness. Overall, The Little Mermaid reinforces the hegemonic code of femininity by making all the princesses look unrealistically

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Rhetorical Analysis Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and many other Disney movies all have one thing in common, they feature a female lead who need a male figure to save them. However, things started to change after the release of Mulan 1988. It changed from only having those female leads who always needed to rely on someone, to females who were able to show off their more masculine side. In the article “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Pixar/Disney,” Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden explored the idea that Pixar movies were starting to show male characters who weren 't afraid to show their emotions and feminine attributes, to promote the “New Man” model.

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The article written by Hanes titled “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect”, explains how the fictitous princesses created in Disney movies have caused

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However, the later Disney films have gradually attempted to break away from this stereotype resulting in stronger female characters like Ariel, Mulan, and Elsa among others. Keeping this transition in mind, this paper uses semiotic analysis of four popular Disney films, namely, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Mulan (1998) to depict the influence of societies ' changing perceptions of women on the portrayal of Disney princesses. These films taking into account the earliest film and certain popular characters that have represented a shift from being the coy damsel in distress to a woman who plays an active role in determining her own destiny. The portrayal of the Disney princess has changed in accordance with the development of women in society over time (1937 to 2013) from demure and traditional to

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The topic of self confidence is a subject that is heavily discussed when it comes to girls of all ages. Journalist, Stephanie Hanes, examines the current trend of sexualization amongst young girls. In the article “Little Girls or Little Women: The Disney Princess Effect”, Hanes examines the current trend of sexualization amongst girls. She addresses the issue of desiring to become a women too soon. Hanes develops her article by using the literary techniques of pathos and logos to describe the emotions young girls feel when they see images of women with unattainable features.

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Mija plays a mermaid in a story that could best be compared to Disney's original "The Little Mermaid." She saves a human prince . This prince could be considered

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Mermaids The movie, Mermaids, starts in 1963 about a family who consists of the mother, Mrs. Flax, the two daughters; Charlotte and Kate. When the family moves into a new house in Eastport, they meet Joe. He becomes an enormous part of the movie, and their life in the movie. Some days after moving in, Mrs. Flax meets the shoe seller, Lou. After some time meeting together at different places, they plan to go on a date and later, they become a pair.

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The central idea of Symbolic interactionism is symbols are the key to understanding how we view the world and communicate with one another (page 13). In The Little Mermaid, the human artifacts that Ariel collects are symbols of how she views their world. Scuttle is symbol of how she communicates with the world above her. The Disney movie also helps children establish an explanation about relationships. This guides kids to discover how society defines relationships.

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The movie “The Princess and the Frog” is not your typical “boy saves girl” movie. Instead, this Disney movie presents us with a strong female lead who doesn’t need a man to achieve her goals. In many previous Disney movies, it is demonstrated that a girl needs a man in order to get her happily ever after. Without a prince, she is nothing. In “The Princess and the Frog” the gender roles are presented to us as equal, even reverse at times.

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The Little Mermaid which was produced in 1989, was the first Disney movie to challenge the traditional gender roles, for the fact that Ariel wanted to explore, and was more independent and assertive in her desires than the earlier princesses of the 1930’s and 50s films. Also the prince in The Little Mermaid went against traditional gender roles as well, simply because he was more affectionate and loving than his prince counterparts in other Disney films. “Both the male and female roles have changed over time, but overall the male characters evinced less change then the female characters and were more androgynous throughout.” (Descartes & England, pg.566). Disney movies have been for a long time a strong media target for children, and can serve as a way to address stereotypical gender roles (Leaper, 2000).

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Roberta Trites explains this excellently, “Much of Disney's imagery focuses on demonstrating Ariel's malleability. This is especially apparent in her decision to become human. No beguiling temptress entices the Andersen mer-maid; her decision to become human is self-determined” (Trites). As seen in this quote, Disney’s little mermaid chooses to become human because of the sea witch, whereas Andersen’s mermaid makes this decision freely on her own. This is appropriate for children because it shows them that they can create their own dreams and determine their own path.

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Before she is able to meet with the Matchmaker, she must dress up and apply makeup on herself to make herself look beautiful and strong-willed. Critic, Nandini Maity, states in her article, Damsels in Distress: A Textual Analysis of Gender roles in Disney Princess Films, that Disney uses the princesses or heroines in each princess movie to demonstrate how women should act, dignified and beautiful. By doing so, it portrays how Disney has a set purpose to make society understand that women should always act this way in society, that they should be helped out by men. While Mulan is being washed and dressed, the women helping her “sing to Mulan a song called Honour us all, a song that imposes the traditional roles onto Mulan. They say that women should have tiny waists, be calm, and obedient.

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Ariel is an impulsive passionate mermaid princess that feel like she wants more out of life. She however, also falls victim to the judgmental eyes of many viewers. For those unfamiliar with the story, Ariel trades her mermaid form for human legs to pursue her love interest on land at the price of her voice. It might be clear where this is going, a beautiful princess now only has her body and actions to impress her prince. Not exactly something that many people would want their children trying in their own lives.

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Numerous schools of criticisms have attempted to find the meaning behind most of our favorite childhood stories. From Marxist who pursue the idea of social classes portrayed in literary works, to Psychoanalysts who depict the sexual tensions and desires that are subconsciously embedded behind characters’ motives and actions, to Historicists who try to show the preservation of tradition in stories, many different concepts exist for each fairy tale. The Feminist school of criticism greatly focuses on unveiling the patriarchal system and sexist roles that are displayed in stories, and more specifically, fairytales. Four versions of the well-known fairytale of The Little Mermaid will be compared and discussed while focusing on many distinctive

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Released in 1992, Aladdin is the first Disney prince to have the title of the film named after him, which is a major step in the image of masculinity represented in Disney movies. The story of Aladdin continues to convey the message which was imprinted in the Beauty and the Beast about the subordinate position of physical traits over the dominant personality characteristics. The movie starts with the story about the lamp and the narrator suggests that “like many other things, it 's not what 's outside but what 's inside that matters. “ The speculated concerns about who is really the center of the story in Beauty and the Beast (Davis, 2013, 157), is now completely unambiguous. Aladdin is the only character in the movie who seeks to reveal his

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