Annotated catalogue
Films
Item 1: Snow white and the seven dwarfs (1937 Dir. David Hand)
‘Her skin as white as snow, her lips as red as a rose, and so she was called Snow white.’ This is my main focus film, and is the start of my understanding to the way in which women have been stereotyped from the earliest of Disney films. The way that women have been portrayed in this film is through costume, narrative and the mise-en-scene created around the female character. In order to ‘set the scene’ to how the vast majority of women in later Disney films should conform to. This film was made prior to women having the same equal rights as men and is an early example of how men especially, perceived women. They see the woman’s role to be a housewife, do the cooking and cleaning and to look after the children whilst the husband is away at work. An illustration of this is were Snow white is only allowed to stay at the dwarves house if she promises to do household chores while the men go off to work at the mine.
Item 2: Cinderella (1950 Dir. Clyde Geronimi)
Cinderella is a typical ‘rags to riches’ fairytale. She begins a slave in her own home, she ends up running away with Prince charming to live happily ever after. This notion of ‘a happy ending’ seems to run through all Disney films and this could be the key concept to Walt Disney’s auteur status, ‘The man with the happy endings.’ Cinderella is perhaps not such an achievement to Disney’s empire as my other two films but is between the times of my two other focus films, and shows the changes of how women’s roles have changed in Disney films along with how women’s roles have changed in society. This also helps me to understand whether women’s roles are being mirrored or whether Disney have moved on but not as far forward as it had been anticipated.
Item 3: Mulan (1998 Dir. Tony Bancroft)
This is the millennium of Disney films, and to date the only film that changes how women have been represented since the first Disney film. This film challenges its spectators by showing a different cultural background to its main character and showing women in a whole new light. This film represents Mulan as being a fighter, independent and most importantly not dependant on a man. Although this all seems this way on the surface, I feel that Disney is still degrading women at the roots of the film. Mulan throughout the film has a man dominating her and the song ‘ I’ll make a man out of you’ suggests that you are considered to be a man if you do the things Mulan is doing, and that you cannot be accepted as a strong female character.
Books
Item 4: ‘Good girls and wicked witches- ‘ (Amy M Davis)
Magazines
Item 5: ‘Re-release of snow white and the seven dwarfs’
(‘Sight and sound’ magazine) (August 1994 edition)
This article from sight and sound provided me with detailed analysis of the film with reference to how women are perceived in Disney films. It also spoke of the conventional mainstream idea of young princess falls in love with a prince and they live happily ever after. With, of course, the women being saved by the man.
Internet
Item 6: ‘Representation of female character’ (Essay)
http://www.exampleessays.com/viewpaper/33900.html
This essay looked at the changing of the times between Snow white and Mulan. As these two films are also two of my focus films, this provided me with additional information on the specific topic area that I am focusing on.
Item 7: ‘Disney’s presentation of women’ (Essay)
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=122745
This has put women’s roles in Disney films into three positions, and explains in detail who falls into which category. I have found a great deal of useful information; the essay is detailed and gives me facts as well as opinions.
Item 8; ‘ Too few animated women break the Disney mould’ (Essay)
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/articles/gender_portrayal
This information was enlightening and provided me with a number of quotes that conform to responses I received from my primary research. It included stereotypes on a ‘Disney woman’s’ appearance, and again conformed my thoughts about ‘the Disney mould.’
Item 9: ‘Disney essay’ (Blog)
This talks in some detail about pseudo-feminism. It also discusses Disney as using women as a sexual object or desire. The article is anti-Disney films and the author is passionate about the subject that they are discussing.
Focus groups
Item 10: (Children)
Item 11: (Teenagers)
From this focus group I asked them to draw a ‘Traditional Disney woman,’ the responses that I got were stereotypical ideologies of women in Disney films that were being repeated in the drawings that I had asked them to draw.
Item 12: (Adults)
This was my primary research, I found very remarkable descriptions and quotes from the adults as they are the generation that have been brought up with these ideas of how women should behave and act.
Analysis of film characters
Item 13: Analysing photos of Disney characters
This was research that I had undertaken myself in order to understand how the appearance of women had changed over the 70-year period. By doing this exercise it brought to my attention just how many Disney women all look the same and have the same features. Within the Disney mould there is no such thing as individuality.
Item 14: Analysis of my three focus films
I had made notes on all three of my focus films. This enabled me to gather information about the mise-en-scene and the body language of the three female characters, which was obviously information that I could get from analysing the images of them.
Rejected Items
IMDB Forum
Item 16: ‘Representations of Disney women’ - Cinderella
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042332
I created a message board on IMDB. I received 2 comments which were not of any use to me or that would help to move my research further.
Item 17: ‘Representations of Disney women’ - Mulan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120762
From the post that I put on to IMDB I only received one comment, which again, along with the other posts I put on to my other focus group areas I did not receive feedback that was of any use to me.
Item 18: ‘Representations of Disney women’ - Snow white
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029583
On all three message boards I posted the same question, however with regards to the Snow white post I did not receive any feedback from anyone.
Item 19: ‘Discuss how the representation of women in Disney films has changed overtime with reference to ‘Snow white’ and ‘Mulan.’ (Essay)
http://www.coursework.info/University
This essay was a short and also brief analysis of Disney women’s representations. It did provide me with some good point and quotes, however I have already come across the same type of information but instead in a much more detailed format.
Item 20: ’On Disney, daughters and dads.’ (Essay)
This essay is lengthy and with a few high-quality quotes, however the essay is talking about Disney films in general rather than focusing on the specific subject area that I am researching
Item 21: ‘Princess series’- Snow white (Blog)
http://scots.coventant.edu/faculty/davis/disney
This blog has been written by someone who has an opinion, but this lacks facts about the film, as I need to look at quotes, opinionated text isn’t particularly the type of information that I am looking for.
Item 22: ‘Princess series’- Cinderella (Blog)
http://scots.coventant.edu/faculty/davis/disney
This analysis was lacking depth. The information that it provided I have already read from other sources. It was also brief and completely opinionated.
Item 23: ‘Mulan’ (Empire review)
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews
This review is a description of what happens in the film. It has not given me any information at all of how Mulan is represented in the film.
Item 24: ‘Cinderella’ (Empire review)
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews
This in turn is a very brief and descriptive review from empire. Which again I feel has no information that is new to me and that I do not already know from looking at other secondary resources.
Item 25: ‘Snow white’ (Empire review)
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews
This review has only described what happens within the film, and does not go into detail about the subject matter that I have been looking into. Therefore, I feel that the information from this review is information that I have already found out from watching the films.
Blog
Item 26: ‘ How are women represented in Disney films’ (Blog)
This was a blog that I had set up in order to get additional responses to my hypothesis. I had posted a question on my blog, which had a multiple choice that people could respond to. As only 3 people have responded I feel that the poll is not of use to me as not enough people have left feedback.
