Gender Norms In Disneyland

Who does not love Disney, with movies for all boys and girls alike? From Cars and Big Hero 6 to Cinderella and Mulan people love these types of movies and want more and more of Disney. On the other hand, people also criticize these movies endlessly. Peggy Orenstein argues that Disney is a huge influence on young girls. She believes that it pushed her daughter to want to play dress up and to be fragile or to like the color pink like every other girl because that is how girls are, they like to follow the example in front of them, but is that true? Can a girl not make up her own mind and decided to like what she wants to? Orenstein begins to argue that gender norms are an evil and that they are the root cause of self image issues, anorexia, and

On the other hand, Orenstein contradicts herself and discredits herself she starts talking about how she angry she was about simple things that just triggered her. She begins to to rant about how the companies use children and mold them to their will in order to make money. She uses stories about how “When Mulan does appear, she typically is in the kimonolike hanfu, which makes her miserable”(328). She criticizes how the Disney has warped kids into only wanting what has become gender specific and shows that is they want the princesses to give off a certain princess look which is more frail and weak instead of mulan 's battle gear they show her in a dress that never made her feel like herself. Furthermore, Orenstein continues to complain about how even in the shows where the girls are supposed to be more of a tomboy, they find ways to bring in the princess culture. She says that they undermine the girls and how they will grow up. Then Orenstein goes on to point out some other facts like how, “girls can embrace their predilection for pink without compromising strength or ambition.” (Orenstein 328). After this realization she begins to believe differently contradicting her former belief that pink and princess culture is all bad. Although she doesn’t confirm her change until the very end. In between those statements she goes on to criticise Disney and how they seemingly hide their more confident and more liberated way. She contradicts herself which begins to make her argument seem invalid due to the difficulty to follow her ideas. She chose poor evidence that contradicted her views and caused her opinion to shift. when she changes her opinion seemingly at the last minute of her paper it causes the audience to question her credibility and make them believe that she might have used in accurate