Editorial: Disney and Diversity

Editorial: Disney and Diversity

This article is aimed for any Disney followers whether it is from the famous Mickey Mouse to the movies from Beauty and the Beast to the Snow White films. The article explains how Disney has created these questions for viewers to think about gender, race, and disability. As little girls grow up to become women they fantasize about their future and about their husbands, marriage, house, and family. It’s overwhelming for girls to think about and this article explains how Disney movies can give the wrong impression. Meaning, some Disney movies can give false hope about finding your prince charming and it being so easy as it is in most movies. The article quotes, “…they have also defined the romantic and romanticized worldviews of several generations of girls as well, establishing female gender identity and relationship roles that often create artificial and unreasonable expectations regarding love and marriage”  (Hoppenstand, 2013.)

This article provides an example of how Disney takes their icon, Mickey Mouse, very seriously and will threaten lawsuits to protect their “brand”. In some cases, children would create art work in school of Mickey Mouse and teachers would hang the children’s art work in the hallway for classmates, parents, and teaching staff to see but the school would get threats of a lawsuit by the media and theme-park giant stating that Disney is protecting its “brand” and to remove the art work (Hoppenstand, 2013.) Disney is continuing to work on their diversity in films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Beauty and the Beast, and Mulan are some of the great examples of diversity.

I agree with the author that some Disney movies give young girls the wrong image of marriage, husbands, and family because in real life marriage, husbands, and families struggle and in Disney movies everything appears to be happy and easy going. I can see where it would be difficult for girls to go from dreaming of being treated like a princess and having everything is perfect to a real life situation. However, I do think that it gives girls expectations of what marriage, husbands, and families can be like when and after they work out their real life struggles. I was surprised to see that Disney would threaten a lawsuit on schools because the teachers would hang up the children’s artwork, it makes sense on the business side but I feel that it is also honoring that children are so fascinated with Mickey Mouse. It is very important and life changing to see Disney create films with different races and diversity as it shows all of society that all races are beautiful and deserve to be treated equal.

I believe that this article is important as helps to open the eyes to the audience what Disney is about. I think that it is good for parents to read that Disney movies can portray this perfect life of happily ever after and parents can explain to their children that you can find your prince charming but there will also be stumbles along the way. I grew up watching Disney movies and I still watch them to this day, I love how they portray families and what marriage should be like. This article is also important as it gives examples of how Disney has included different races and diversity, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Beauty and the Beast, and Mulan are great examples. 

References

Hoppenstand, G. (2013). Editorial: Disney and diversity. The Journal of Popular Culture, 26(2),

241-242. Retrieved from http://journals.ohiolink.edu/ejc/pdf...ticle=241_edad