This is a YouTube video that was created about Disney movies and how they can portray some negative aspects for boys and girls. It was made to create dicussion about the effects these movies have on children, or if any. This video talks about Masculinity, Violence, Body Image for Males, Treatment of Women, Femininity, Body Image for Females, and Submissive Behavior.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw98_2rtbH0&feature=related
Any thoughts about if children are getting any messages from these movies? If its more or less like the research about violence in television or videogames?
I don't know if children are cognitively able enough to pick up on some of these issues, at least from Disney movies. They're a bit more subtle than say, violent video games and cartoons.
It's interesting that you bring up Disney however. Many people have accused Walt Disney of racisim and anti-semitism. The most glaring example is the Jungle Book. All of the monkeys/chimps in that film have characteristics that are considered to be African American, such as speaking "Jive" for instance.
I typed "Disney racism" into the youtube search engine and found this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LibK0SCpIkk
It has a ton of examples of extremely racist portrayals of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians.
I'd have to agree that children probably aren't cognitively able to pick up on these issues. I know I didn't pick up on them when I watched Disney movies as a kid. It's now looking back that we can analyze these films for these possible issues.
But are we reading too much into it? I think it is something that needs to be considered. Children may not be able to consciously pick up on these issues, but I would argue that they probably are still affected by them. These movies are what they are being exposed to, so it is likely that the portrayals do affect them on a certain level, similar to portrayals of the "perfect" woman in magazines.
I also found a link to The 9 Most Racist Disney characters: http://www.cracked.com/article_15833_the-9-most-racist-disney-characters.html
It has links to youtube videos of Disney movies. I'm not sure how reputable the source is though, so keep that in mind, as well.
Kids might not pick up on all of the things that are put in the movies, but they are good a picking things up when they are repeated over and over again. Body image is one of the major things in Disney movies that can be a problem. In most of the movies the good guys are skinny, and attractive and the bad guys are over weight and ugly (or just ugly) it is rarely different. The exception that comes to mind is the hunchback, but they couldn't change a lot of that movie.
I do think that it needs to be said that the women being subservient is a little out of place. Most of the princesses are strong characters that dominate the film. Their choices are some of the most important and they often ignore the rules (mulan, ariel, pocahantas, to name a few)