Little Mermaid Stereotypes

Words: 430

Pages: 2

Open Document

Fairy tales have been around for over a thousand years. They have morals meant to teach children lessons, such as: be kind and generous in spite of being surrounded by cruel behavior, be cautious whom to trust, actions speak louder than words, and many more. However, they also teach children false ideas about love, gender roles and good versus evil. This can be detrimental to their self-confidence and self-worth: especially for girls. Women in fairy tales are portrayed as dainty and helpless. They tend to fall in love at first sight. “Damsel in Distress” is a well-known term indicating a woman is in trouble and in need of rescuing, typically by a prince. Sirenetta, from The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, is very reliant on the prince for happiness, whereas in Coral by Rosalba Bujanda-Suárez, Tamara Figueroa, and Anya Jimenez, Coral provides her own happiness.
Fairy tales have standardized roles for each gender. For women, they are to be beautiful, gentle, and domestically skilled. For men, they are to be strong, dominant, and charming. These precisely constructed roles are far from realistic and create certain …show more content…
Strength is defined as being courageous, confident, assertive, and trustworthy, which are typical males’ roles. Beauty is defined as being fair, tall, thin, and blond, which are typical European features. The villain of the story is almost always grotesque, which implies that being evil correlates to being ugly, contrary to the hero of the story, who is almost always attractive. In The Little Mermaid, since Sirenetta no longer has her voice, the Prince falls in love with her solely because of her looks. This conveys the message that looks are more important than words. Rather, when Coral flirts with Sofía, they actually talk and get to know each other. Sirenetta waits for the Prince to bring her out of her misery, instead of being independent and saving

The Hidden Gender Stereotypes in the Animations the Little Mermaid and Tangled Essay

The Hidden Gender Stereotypes in the Animations The Little Mermaid and Tangled Erlina EKAWATI ABSTRACT After the success of the feminist movement in the early 1960s, gender stereotypes are considered as not a big issue anymore. Many people tried to break gender stereotypes especially in mass media. However, it is undeniable that gender stereotypes are still imprinted because people have been fed by gender stereotypes from the show that they watch since they are young. It is shown in two animation…

Words 7511 - Pages 31

Jordan Pollock 2107965 Research Paper

Does tokenism in Children’s Media create negative stereotypes? Jordan Pollock 2107965 Token, or minority characters have appeared persistently since the early days of children’s media. There has be no real consistency in the use of Token minority characters in children’s film and television, neither through sex, or race. Females have appeared as minority characters on boy’s television shows, and vice versa. African Americans have appeared as racial minority, yet, a Caucasian character has been…

Words 2757 - Pages 12

Disney Media's Influence On Adolescents

Keeping the previous statements in mind, I believe that realistically, this movie (and the other animated Disney princess films) aren’t solely to blame for the negative and untrue gender ideologies kids learn from media. However, if parents show The Little Mermaid to their kids, I think it’s important for them to point out the positive things in the movie to try counteracting the subliminal messages while they watch. For example, when Ursula is killed, a parent could tell their child that she got what she…

Words 1790 - Pages 8

Gender Stereotypes In Disney

and self-esteem issues along with the lack of confidence. Women are also expected to be compliant and that without a man, they are nothing. They are willing to give up everything just to obtain a husband. An example of this can be seen in The Little Mermaid. Ariel gave up her home, family, and voice just to marry a man who would take another woman to the altar just because she could…

Words 363 - Pages 2

Sexual images in Disney Essay example

messages, but if you were to go back and watch some of these movies and pay close attention to the small details, one might notice the references. This topic interest me because I want to be able to see what I couldn’t see when I was younger. With a little help from others to point out the images, I am shocked to see what I missed. By trying to solve all the hidden images in these movie, it could help you notice other subliminal messages and images in other movies. If one was interested, they could…

Words 1091 - Pages 5

Patriarchy In Fairy Tales

After examining several princess fairy tales it is blatantly obvious that fairytales further perpetuate the tradition of patriarchy. They promote the ideas of stereotypical gender roles, over emphasize the importance and significance of superficial beauty, and culturalize women to idealize “happily ever afters” dependent upon men. These fairytales promote self-immolation and sacrifice amongst women, and cater to the notion that women outside the nuclear family should be ostracized due to their useless…

Words 1374 - Pages 6

Is Disney Good Or Bad For Children Essay

Disney has been around for almost a century now, and people are starting to voice their opinions about the brand. There are several different stances on the topic of whether or not Disney is bad for children. For example, some people think that Disney is bad for their children because it gives them unrealistic expectations about how their life is going to be. While others think that there is nothing wrong with Disney and that it is not bad for their children because they themselves have grown up…

Words 1101 - Pages 5

Stereotypes In Disney Films

they offer quite a few messages themselves, messages such as gender roles, and even morals and racism. With these kind of subliminal messages, should parents be wary of what their children are unconsciously learning? In Disney films like “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast,” poor examples are set for girls to follow. Ariel and Belle are both smart and independent female protagonists, until they enter into relationships, fall head over heels into submissive gender roles, and lose their…

Words 956 - Pages 4

Fairy Tale Essay

the facts that I have found in order to showcase how fairy tales has shaped American society. Without these tales, we would not have some of the great attributes of the well known American dream, but we would not have some of the various negative stereotypes that are found in our everyday lives. In our early years of growing up in America, our parents usually read us fairy tale stories before we fall asleep. We often ask our mom or dad to read them over and over again throughout the week. Most people…

Words 1536 - Pages 7

Semiotic Analysis In To Kill A Mockingbird

1. Understanding a film can be though as "reading a book" because much like books films have signs and relations which are fundamental notions of semiotic analysis. To understand a movie, you must first uncover the signs and theme behind them which is not always obvious and must be elicited from the text. 2. Saussure divided signs into two components called signifier and signified and that both were arbitrary. Peirce, on the other hand, focused on three aspects of signs: their iconic, indexical…

Words 1388 - Pages 6