Name : Angelica Ourri Word Count: 2192 Film : The Little Mermaid Topic : Disney reinforcing dominant Gender ideologies and representations The following essay will be an analysis on the theme of dominant gender ideologies and representations in mass media. Furthermore, The essay will explore how westernised cultural and society’s expectations on gender can derive from mass media, especially from what one could of the first exposures to mass media, fairy tales, by conducting research on the themes of Marxism in the context of Disney films as a medium which is essential in the study of power and ideology . Moreover, the Disney film “The Little Mermaid” will be used as a case study in order to explore how Disney circulates dominant gender representations through stereotypical heteronormative characters. The characters of “Ursula”, the villain, “Eric” the prince,“Ariel” the protagonist and her father “Triton” will be the main film focus in order to analyse the film’s gender representations by exploring their physical and personality traits and the role in the storyline. In order to contact the further analysis,I used the books “Eistenstein on Disney” by Sergei Eisenstei​n (Eisenstein and Leyda, 1988) and “Understanding Disney” by Janet Wasko (Wasko, 2001), in order understand the industry and its productions as a whole. Furthermore to analyse the subject of gender, I used theories of Judith Butler, specifically from her book “Gender trouble” (Butler, 1999) to better understand gender as a spectrum and the theory of gender performativity, a theory on how people are not born with one gender or the other but the gender factor is one that later on develops according to an impression , a performance of what a man or woman should be. To further expand the analysis on gender and its relation to physical characteristics I investigated Naomi Wolf and her theory of “The Beauty myth” (Wolf, 1991)concerning what , how and most importantly why , the image of what is considered by society as beautiful is constructed.I explored theories from the second wave of feminism such as “The female Eunuch” By Germaine Greer (Greer, 1971), in order to analyse the submissive female characters of the film and explore her argument on how women are castrated by society. The roles girls are ascribed restrict their femininity. Also, when looking at the male characters of the film such as King Triton or Eric I drew theories from the book “Gendered media” by Karen Ross (Ross, 2010). Furthermore, in order to analyse how Disney and mass media create and reinforce dominant gender ideologies​, I used the book titled, Manufacturing Consent (Herman and Chomsky, 1988), in order to study how the media manipulates audiences to prevent them from rebelling against“the system”. The construction of gender roles and ideologies, starts from a young age as one could argue both by societal norms and by an early exposure to mass media. Classic fairytales, either in their original form or the mass production of them, create some of the first expectations of gender roles . Taking in account, the level of media consumption from an early age in a media savvy culture, one could argue that , large corporation such as Disney play a huge part in constructing society’s gender roles. The Walt Disney corporation has been one of the most successful multinational mass media corporation since 1923 and largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Disney has made some of the most successful animated movies with the majority of them following the same principles based on stereotypes. Vladimir Propp (Propp and Liberman, 1984)​ established a number of characters types and events/functions associated with them. These stereotypical storyline characters exist in the Majority of Disney films with “The Little Mermaid” being no exception. Using Propps theory in this case study,The limited roles of the stereotypical storyline in The Little Mermaid, will include The hero, Eric , a princess, Ariel, and a villain, Ursula. As in many Disney films, the above characters follow stereotypes, in order to provide an easy access , so they can be easily identified by audiences and be labeled as protagonists or antagonists from the beginning of the movie as Andy Medhurst argues (Medhurst, 2007). In the case of Eric the audience can easily identify him as the hero and protagonist, from his physical characteristics. Eric is a white physically strong male,with evenly proportion facial characteristics, big black eyes and black hair. However, the dominant male, of the story, is Ariel’s father King Triton. He is presented as a caucasian male with blue eyes, but his masculinity is exaggerated in order to highlight his dominance, to achieve this result, King Triton is drawn with a broad back, muscles, and white beard and hair in order to also emphasise his wisdom as the older leading male. Stereotypical hero, prince representations such as the one of Eric and patriarchal representations such as the one of King Triton ,create a constrained image of masculinity and what a man should be as argued by David Gauntlett (Gauntlett, 2002). By using the book “Gendered Media” Karen Ross it could be argued that the 2 dominant males create a competition is achievement and success between men (Ross, 2010) , as Ariel is forced in a way to choose between her father King Triton and her love, Prince Eric, when she makes the decision to live on land. To emphasise the masculinity of the dominant males secondary male Characters such as the Grimbsy, Prince Eric’s manservant, has a very thin posture and exaggerated face characteristics such as a wide nose and long ears. It could be argued that this binary presentation of the main male characters with the secondary ones depicts, that for one to be successful and hold any form of power, he must look stereotypically beautiful and masculine. Furthermore, Ariel choosing between the two men, reinforces the dominant ideology of men in power obtaining a “trophy wife” (Godfrey and Richards, 1999) thus objectifying women and minimizing their role as a status symbol for “successful” men. However, the above is just one of the negative female representations and dominant ideologies The little mermaid reinforces. In her book The Beauty Myth , Naomi Wolf, described the unreachable female ideal of a perfect woman as “Barbie”, constructed and objectified. The characteristics of the stereotypical female ideal Wolf described are reinforced in the film . Triton’s daughters, are all caucasian, thin , and 2 of them blonde, Arie is also presented with the same characteristics, she is slim, caucasian, with blue eyes, and in her original design, her hair was supposed to be blonde(Treasures Untold: The Making of Disney's 'The Little Mermaid', 2006). The film goes even further with reinforcing dominant ideologies of the time with the overall patriarchal nature of King Triton and the submissive role of his daughters. In her book the Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer argued that women are castrated by society. She attached romantic love to the limits of women’s sexuality. It could be argued the particular dominant ideology of the time is reinforced in the film as King Triton treats his daughters as fragile, ,limiting their personality and sexuality, he is against Ariel having her freedom, and wants his daughters to Praise him encouraging his role as the dominant male. In the first song of the film “Daughters of Triton” his daughters have prepared, a performance for him, the lyrics include verses such as “Ah, we are the daughters of Triton,Great father who loves us and named us well” (Walt Disney Pictures, 1989). Moreover, during most of the film, Ariel is presented as speechless literally as she has given her voice the villain thus her only weapon to make the prince fall in love is her body.Taking Laura Mulvey’s theory this could be argued as scopophilic behaviour, finding pleasure in objectifying others (Mulvey, 1996) as Prince Eric only views her as a beautiful being. The negative female representations and dominant gender ideologies are further reinforced in the villains song called “poor unfortunate souls”. When closely studying the lyrics of the songs, verses such as “​This one longing to be thinner,That one wants to get the girl” stand out, as Ursula gives the example, of an overweight woman and a non muscular thin man, whose way to happiness is Ursula turning the girl thin and the giving the man muscles. Reinforcing the ideology of how the physical characteristics of the 2 genders should be in order to be happy. Furthermore , the other verse of the song that stands out is “The men up there don't like a lot of blabber ...... It's she who holds her tongue who gets a man” (​ Walt Disney Pictures, 1989) The verse supports that women should not talk or express their opinion and be overall submissive in order to be attractive for the man. with the addition of the verse “You'll have your looks, your pretty face And don't underestimate the importance of body language, ha!” one can notice that the film emphasises that the most important part of a woman is not her brains or personality but rather her appearance and body. As Ariel Levy argues, this could be used as an example of raunch culture, with the female sexuality as the only form of power for a woman ​(Levy, 2005) However, although the heroes, reinforce dominant ideologies and present the gender ideal, the villains in Disney movies, often pass camp representations that present certain “minority “ groups in an exaggerated negative way. Manuel Alvarado, argued ,in the theme of racial stereotyping ,that their are four stereotypical representation of black persons , humorous , exotic, pitied or dangerous(Alvarado, Gutch and Wollen, 1987). The villain of the film, Ursula , is the only character that is not presented as caucasian, as she has a dark purple skin colour. The difference in skin tone between villains and heroes, can be seen in various Disney Classics, for example in Lion King the villain , Scar, has a dark brown maine and darker hair colour than the rest of the lions. The darker skin tone of villains could be a negative representation of non caucasians as dangerous, based on Alvarado’s argument. Furthermore, Ursula’s character is based on the Drag Queen, Divine (The Little Mermaid (Two-Disc Platinum Edition), 2006). Using Judith butler’s theories, Ursula’s character creates gender trouble in the patriarchal nature of the film, Gender trouble is created when people begin to create or perform their own gender identity. Ursula is the only character of the film that is not part of the dichotomized and binary view of gender, her inclusion in the film could be viewed as a positive addition however she is presented as the Villain, thus, Ursula passes the idea that any non binary or gender fluid person is presented as bad, and can’t be a hero. Many of the above stereotypes, and dominant ideologies are often continuously circulated in Disney films, and as one could argue, not by random chance. Marxism divides society into 2 groups, the bourgeoisie, in media terms this would be the media companies,producers, directors, and the proletariat ,the workers who sell their labor to the bourgeoisie. In media terms, the media industry is a way of keeping the proletariat happy by passing ideology, beliefs and values in order to convince the proletariat,audience to follow the views of the bourgeoisie. To put the argument in context, when a huge media conglomerate such as disney, with films such as the little mermaid and many others, pass dominant ideologies, with continuous exposure those later on become cultural norms, thus it becomes much easier for industries to target the audiences and sell their products. Jean Kilbourne ​(Kilbourne, 2012)​ ​ has argued how advertisements benefit and help to construct gender identity. When a certain ideal of feminine beauty has become the social norm, industries like cosmetics, dieting and cosmetic surgery, benefit by offering women a way to reach that ideal, of the beauty myth as Wolf argues. Thus the main argument is that, mainstream mass media convinces the audiences, to need and accept consumerism and capitalism as a social norm. To expand, using the book Manufacturing Consent ​(Herman and Chomsky, 1988)​, it could be argued that this shows how the media acts as propaganda, The power elite determine the dominant ideologies which are later reinforced by the media for society to accept. Concluding, unarguably , mass media in the westernised civilisation is almost unavoidable not to consume one way or another, from advertisements, to books or films.Thus, Large corporations of mass media, play a crucial part in creating social norms and shaping dominant ideologies. The Walt Disney Pictures, have been a part of audiences life, from a young age, with what although at first glance seems like harmless fairy tales , when taking a deeper look, one can find many subliminal messages, in the songs and characters that enhance or even create an idea, a norm, of how a person should or shouldn’t look or act like. One can argue that regressive representations such as “the damsel in distress” have improved, with films like “Frozen” where the heroine saves herself, but ideologies such as the perfect beauty Ideal or the barbie model, the macho man, or the lack of non binary gender representations are still largely dominant in mass media leaving audiences suppressed , under or camp represented and circulating dominant societal ideologies. References. Alvarado, M., Gutch, R. and Wollen, T. (1987). ​Learning the Media: An Introduction to Media Teaching. Palgrave Macmillan. Butler, J. (1999). ​Gender trouble. New York: Routledge. Eisenstein, S. and Leyda, J. (1988). ​Eisenstein on Disney. London: Methuen. Godfrey, N. and Richards, T. (1999). ​Making change. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, p.223. Greer, G. (1971). ​The female eunuch. New York: McGraw-Hill. Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. (1988). ​Manufacturing consent. New York: Pantheon Books. Kilbourne, J. (2012). ​Can't buy my love. Levy, A. 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