Snow White (1937) vs. The Little Mermaid (1987) vs. Princess and the Frog (2009)
All of these films are made by Disney over the course of the years through the twentieth century and twenty-first century. All these films convey different messages but at the same time similar messages. In this post, we will discuss the topic of feminism specially gender roles and Body Image. All of these films portray women in different ways.
       In the film Snow White it shows how Snow White is the person that the "Queen" is basically jealous of. She is so jealous of her that she goes to the extreme by wanting to kill her and take her heart. It definite is very gruesome, especially for an apparent "kid movie"! The movie starts to portray her as the "perfect" women as White meets the dwarfs. She is acting the stereotypical  female role as cleaning for MEN. She even stayed home while they worked to keep the house clean. White even offered to keep it clean as if she was used to that being her role. What could this be saying? This says that women are supposed to clean and pretty much be the housewife. The ending is the strangest as it demonstrates "love at first site". Although, disney may have done it for different reasons, it comes off with the wrong impression.
     In the film The Little Mermaid it shows the main character as being the "beautiful girl" . Everyone looked up to her including sea creatures. The main character Aerial was interested in a prince which it isn't clear to how old he is. However, we know that she is sixteen. Who knows how old the prince is and they are getting together. One other major thing brought up in the film is the fact that it portrays beauty is everything. Ursala the antagonist, noted that trading her voice for legs was harmless to Aerial's process in hooking up with the prince. She said that Aerial still had her beauty and that her not being able to speak wouldn't matter. The question that arises from the film is, "Does Beauty make relationships?" many children who viewed the film wouldn't notice at first but the more they view it, the more that question gets in their brain. One thing is the fact that Aerial is as beautiful so does a girl need to look like her to be beautiful. She is very skinny, has blue eyes, and light tan skin. Is this the image that forces girls to stress their body out to be "beauty".
     The final film Princess and the Frog is probably the best for kids. This one portrayed a woman at actually getting to know the man that she eventually marries unlike Snow White. The biggest controversy that obviously would go against this film is the men thinking because the character is African-American. This comes from the fact that she is the only one where she is not a princess and she also lives in the morn lower class. There was even a line in the film that said that she couldn't be rich because of her particular "background" Who knows what exactly the movie was implying with that line but it definitely would come off as a wrong message. However, despite the antagonists saying that money was everything in life which the protagonist pretty much believed at first. The entire message of the film was to follow your dream with your heart and not your wallet. This was probably the best movie for kids without having a secret message that is bad.