Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Hello


I recently walked passed the Disney store in London and saw a window full of Star wars dolls - all men. Spiderman was in the background - athlectic, versatile, strong and...male.


I asked the manager where the heroines were, and was directed to various pink shiney dresses and wings. I raged internally for weeks, ranted a bit and have finally set out to do a small something.


I'm utterly dismayed at the role Disney plays in our world, reinforcing stereotypes and biases, and failing to take the global leadership it could and should take in diversity.


Any support for the attached petition would therefore be appreciated, alongside other views, connections and ideas.


Thankyou!


Emma


Please join this campaign: http://www.change.org/petitions/robert-iger-and-the-board-of-disney-diversify-disney-ask-disney-to-take-diversity-seriously?recruiter=68533140&utm_campaign=mailto_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Signed. I often rage internally about all the sexism in CBeebies shows too and have been meaning to start a petition about that also - you have inspired me to get on with it! At least Disney have the excuse that they exist to make money and "it's what the market wants" - the BBC are supposed to be a public service and are also pedalling this crap for no reason other than lack of thought! It drives me mad.

I love watching Disney with my daughter! Watched Tangled today, it was great, Miss Oi liked the horse best (she's 4.5) and was cackling with laughter the whole way through. And we love Belle as she has brown hair and likes books like us, and is strong and brave and knows Gaston is a twat. If I thought Disney princesses would be the most enduringly important role models in her life then perhaps I would worry, but I don't. We read the (non-Disney) versions of the fairy tales and talk about the context and so on. And of course we watch lots of other stuff and she has lots of other figures that she plays with, making up her own, off-the-wall stories as she goes.


I'm far more concerned about 'heroines' like feeble, vapid Bella Swann, who will pitch up at a far more impressionable age than Belle, Aurora and the rest.


I work with a couple of younger women who were children during Disney's 2nd 'Golden Age' in the 90s; they watched the lot - doesn't seem to have stopped them starting out on the road to being successful career women. They were all big Harry Potter fans too, and you don't get much better than Hermione (who basically did all the brain work for Harry while he stomped around being angry all the time).


Before I started watching the films with Miss Oi I felt similarly to you, but having started to watch them I'm not bothered and have been impressed with quite a number of them.

agree with oimissus. my daughter loves the films and i can't see her growing up to be submissive! what they have done for her is introduce her to a world of films and drama which she is completely immersed in, and she's not restricted to just disney. She loves books equally and the two go hand in hand - her school report this year made a big play of how much she loves "stories". I used to feel the same way about Disney before i watched the films with my daughter as with oimissus, but seeing how they have given a whole new bent to her world has been lovely. I think she'll be one of those who always loves Disney in a nostalgic way, but it's not going to mean she's going to spend her life looking for her prince! Her favourite films are Tangled and Frozen as I think is no doubt the case with most children and they don't have insipid heroines.


Saying that having spent the last 6 months chasing down an elsa dress which i am sure is being deliberately held back by disney to create inflated demand i have no problem with someone taking on the might of disney marketing (even though I succumbed to it)!


susypx

not a huge fan of modern Disney myself....but to be fair all they are doing is making films of fairy tales that already exist. cinderella, beauty and the beast, sleeping beauty....all these girls weren't doing a whole lot for positive female role models before they were turned into movies either!

Not sure why you think Saffron is putting words in your mouth Otta - your post reads like "women can wear what the hell they want" but if they wear something you think is a certain way it can be dismissed as "feminism my arse"?


if you don't mean that, you can see why people are reading it that way?

Mulan. Refuses to get married off, takes her Dad's sword, runs away to join the army, defeats the Huns, saves China. Never wears a big dress but does persuade three manly soldiers to dress up as geisha types (Disney not so hot on distinguishing East Asian countries/cultures). An excellent role model. As already pointed out, most of the really princessy stories are straight remakes of ancient fairy tales, and even the Disney versions are almost antiques.

having given this some more thought (it's a slow day at work) I'm not sure what 'various' pink dresses the OP is referring to, as the only Disney princess in a pink dress is Aurora. I know Ariel has one but her costume is normally a mermaid one, isn't it? Even Tinker Bell isn't in pink.


There does seem to be a view that if you 'allow' your daughter to wear pink and like princesses she will automatically grow up to become a subservient airhead. Do people think that all boys will join the armed forces and become mindless killers if they wear too much navy or khaki and play with action man?

I am very sure that watching Disney movies and wearing pink dresses (or any other ones) will not turn any girl into a subservient airhead.

But I have sympathy for the OP's frustration: as a child of the 80s I remember being upset that there were so few strong females in movies - consequently adored Star Wars as it had Princess Leia... (and later, loved Buffy the vampire slayer - the series).

So it's a bit disappointing that the new Star Wars movies are very light on female leads, and taken together with the general "pinkification" (pink Kinder surprise, anyone?), there seems to be a need for more people speaking out against this stereotyping.

BTW, stereotyping goes both way, I really want more boys shoes/clothes that are not navy, khaki or have trucks/trains/planes on them!

StraferJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Not sure why you think Saffron is putting words in

> your mouth Otta - your post reads like "women can

> wear what the hell they want" but if they wear

> something you think is a certain way it can be

> dismissed as "feminism my arse"?

>

> if you don't mean that, you can see why people are

> reading it that way?



Okay so badly worded (plus the fact you love it and will follow me round the internet jumping on any anti Frozen comment I make). What my issue is is the sexualisation (is that a word?) of it. The arse wiggle and all that.


Rebekah Brooks in Brave is a feisty character.

Yeah it's a stereotype that young girls go for all this fairytale princess stuff, while boys like spaceships and laser guns and fighting. But there's clearly some truth to it. It's a nature vs nurture debate I suppose, and while plenty of people would claim it's a result of conditioning by society, I don't think it's that simple...

My son seems to be bucking the pinkification trend as he wants pink presents for his 3rd birthday tomorrow and a pink bike when he's older! This I put down to all the girls at nursery wanting everything to be pink, but I stand to be corrected.


He also loves spiderman, Ben 10, batman et al none of which he watches at home yet knows the theme tunes for. There's only so much influence we can have as parents and that's not going to change any time soon, especially with advertisers working hard to get our little ones to pester for their princess yoghurts and spiderman pasta!


When he told me yesterday that girls weren't allowed to come to his party as it's for boys only, I told him that would mean one of his good friends couldn't come and he soon changed his mind!

Done!


Good work Emma! It makes my blood boil too, on a good day, and my heart weep on a bad one.


I have very strong memories of being ashamed to be a girl, given their obvious lower class status, as a child. The ultimate insult for a boy is still: to be a girl. It doesnt work the other way 'round, its just illogical.


Our modern turbo charged sexualised 'feminist' disney heroines are an imperfect replacement to the one dimentional doormats of my youth.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • Doesn’t seem that simple   according to fullfact that’s a net figure   ” The £21.9 billion was a net figure. Gross additional pressures totalling £35.3 billion were identified by the Treasury, and approximately £13.4 billion of these pressures were then offset by a combination of reserve funds and other allowances. The additional pressures identified were as follows: 2024-25 public sector pay awards (£9.4bn) ”   I don’t think Labour have set expectation that changing government cures all the ills. In fact some people on here criticise them for saying exactly opposite “vote for us we’re not them but nothing will change because global issues”   I think they are too cautious across many areas. They could have been more explicit before election but such is the countries media and electorate that if they were we would now be stuck with sunak/badenoch/someone else with the 14 years of baggage of their government and infighting  the broad strokes of this government are essentially along right lines  also loving ckarkson today “ Clarkson: Your claim that I bought a farm to avoid taxes is false and irresponsible.  BBC: It’s your own claim.  Clarkson: What’s that got to do with anything?” and by loving I mean “loathing as much as I ever have”    
    • BBC and the IFS https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2e12j4gz0o From BBC Verify:   Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said Reeves "may be overegging the £22bn black hole". What about the rest of the £22bn? The government published a breakdown, external of how it had got from the Treasury's £9.5bn shortfall in February to the £22bn "black hole". It said that there was another £7bn between February and the actual Budget in March, as departments found out about new spending pressures and the government spent more on the NHS and the Household Support Fund There was a final £5.6bn between then and late July, which includes almost a month when Labour was in power. That was largely caused by increases in public sector pay. It was the Labour government that accepted the recommendations of the Pay Review Bodies (PRBs), but they said that the previous government should have budgeted for more than a 2% increase in public sector pay. Prof Stephen Millard from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research think tank told BBC Verify: "The 'political' question is whether you would count this as part of the fiscal black hole or not. If you do, then you get to the £22bn figure; if not, then you’re left with around £12.5bn to £13.5bn." It isn't this at all. When you run on an agenda of change and cleaning up politics and you put all of the eggs of despair in a basket at the door of the previous government you better hope you have a long honeymoon period to give you time to deliver the change you have promised. Look at the NHS, before the election it was all...it's broken because of 14 years of Tory incompetence and the implication was that Labour could fix is quickly. Then Wes Streeting (who is one of the smarter political cabinet members and is clearly able to play the long game) started talking about the need to change the NHS before the election - he talked about privatising parts of it (much to the annoyance of the left). He was being pragmatic because the only magic wand that is going to fix the NHS is massive reform - it's broken and has been for decades and throwing money at it has just papered over the cracks. Now Labour talk about the NHS needing 10 years of healing for there to be real difference and people are saying....what..... Words in opposition are easy; actions in government are a lot harder and I fear that given the structural issues caused by Covid, the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine (and now maybe a massive US/China trade war if Trump isn't bluffing) that we are heading to constant one-term governments. I don't think there was a government (and correct me if I am wrong) that survived Covid and in a lot of countries since Covid they have had regular government change (I think what is playing out in the US with them voting Trump in is reflective of the challenges all countries face). Labour massively over-egged the 14 years of hurt (who could blame them) but it is going to make things a lot tougher for them as they have set the expectation that changing government cures all the ills and as we have seen in the first 90 days of their tenure that is very much not the case. Completely agree but the big risk if Farage. If Labour don't deliver what they promised or hit "working people" then the populists win - it's happening everywhere. Dangerous, dangerous times ahead and Labour have to get it right - for all our sakes - no matter what party we support. P.S. Lammy is also one of the better Labour front-bench folks - he just is suffering from Labour's inability to think far enough ahead to realise that some posts might come back to haunt you...but in his defence did anyone really think Americans would be daft enough to vote him in again....;-)
    • My cat has been missing since Sunday evening 17th November he is British short hair male cat colour black with grey stripes. medium to large in size. He is easily identified by a large tooth missing on the top left of his mouth.  He lives in Upland Road just near the roundabout at Underhill Road. His name is Jack but he  only answers to Puss Puss please call me on 0208 299 2275 if you see him.   thank you Linda  
    • I think this could go on endlessly, so I suggest we finish it here!  But why don't you  track down the makers of the sign? Which hopefully has amused a lot of people, as well as brightening my bus journey. Tell  them that their directions to Dulwich are not only wrong, but they do not seem to know where the "real" Dulwich is 🤣 I'm sure they will be delighted 🤣  
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...