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Mean Ladies Transgendered Villains In Disney Films Analysis

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Amanda Putnam’s essay, “Mean Ladies: Transgendered Villains in Disney Films”, is a compelling piece on gender portrayal and views in Disney films. Putnam opened the essay with a personal anecdote about her daughter. Her daughter wanted a Disney movie without a “mean lady”, as in most Disney films the villains are scary, evil women. The real life evidence strengthened her claim that children are noticing the characterization of female villains in Disney films. The antidote was brought fill circle when she referred back to her daughter in the final paragraphs of her essay. Putnam explains that when her daughter asks questions about gender norms (boys having long hair, etc...), she knows that this is because of influences like Disney that establish and reestablish ‘correct’ gender standards in many of their films. …show more content…

She explains that some heroines/princesses are considered heterosexual because they are beautiful and wear “form-fitting clothes”. I think that those points reaffirm their femininity but I do not see how they link to their heterosexuality. Homosexual women can be ‘sexy’ and wear revealing clothes just as much as heterosexual women can. She also wrote about Disney royalty being characterized as hyper-heterosexual and provided the example of Mufasa’s family: his wife, Sarabi and son, Simba. To me, that does not seem hyper-heterosexual; It seems like a regular heterosexual relationship and therefore I do not see the justification for picking on The Lion King when talking about hyper-heterosexuality. I liked the way that Putnam put detail into each example that she wrote about. In other essays we have read, some authors write one line about a character and provide little textual/film evidence. Putnam goes into depth and provides several different examples from each character in her

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