Children as young as three years old are scared of the idea of growing old, and negative stereotypes about older people have started to develop by the time children enter elementary school. Negative stereotyping of older characters has been found to be prevalent in all forms of media. Because children use media to figure out who they are and what the world is like, this study looks at some of the most popular films of the past two decades aimed toward children. This study is a content analysis of older major and minor characters from the 60 top grossing Disney live action films in the 1990s and 2000s. This study is a continuation of an earlier study conducted analyzing the same subject in Disney animated films. The two studies will be compared throughout in order to identify trends in Disney's portrayal of older characters. The results of this study found an even more disparate underrepresentation of women and minorities than previous studies. However, this study found a majority of positive portrayals of older people. The majority of older characters in Disney live action films were identified with: the personality traits of “friendly” and “intelligent”; the primary roles of “friend” and “boss”; the health status of “active” or “very active” and in good health; and the stereotypes of “Perfect Grandparent”, “John Wayne Conservative”, and “Golden Ager”. These positive portrayals in all areas are in sharp contrast to many previous studies conducted concerning the portrayal of older characters in the media and are even more positive than the results from the previous study conducted on Disney animated films. As children interpret their social reality based on the media they watch, including Disney live action films, this research postulates that children will cultivate a more positive image of older people as they are portrayed in these films.

When Disney released The Mandalorian, it quickly became the top show on its highly popular streaming platform. As with all media wielding this level of exposure, it is important to closely examine its content for depictions of peoples including females. In accordance with Sandra Bem's gender schema theory, the implicit messaging in this series can influence the formation of people's mental shortcuts about what it means to be female. This study employs content analysis to illuminate the portrayal of physical and non-physical attributes of the women present in the two seasons existing at the time of this study. Results reveal significant diversity in areas such as body type, character role, age, and appearance; especially when compared to the show's predecessors. However, while Disney has publicly pronounced ethnic diversity a priority, one could argue that The Mandalorian possesses only a surface appearance of ethnic diversity. This is because many of the actresses are either fully white or mixed with white--the race that has historically dominated our screens. Disney has taken steps in the right direction with The Mandalorian but would benefit from a closer content assessment if they seek to retain their consumer's trust long-term.

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Disney movies are a vehicle for American culture; however, Disney has lagged behind in representing queer people in their films as protagonists. For this reason, critical scholarship is necessary to understand Disney's role in building, replicating or changing culture. Although some critical work on Disney has focused on gender or race, queer theory is underutilized to understand Disney films, especially in the field of communication. Though much research exists on movies from the Disney Renaissance, relatively few have examined the films released in the past decade in a systematic way, focusing on how the movies may be relatable to queer experiences. This analysis combines a queer theory lens and a grounded theory approach to examine where queer people can find their experiences reflected in the most recent Disney movies, even without openly queer protagonists. The study resulted in the formation of six categories that describe instances of queering and queerness in Disney movies: queering of Disney logic, queering of "appropriate" through mature themes, queering of power and violence, villainous queerness, heroic queerness and queer acceptance. Previous literature and the new categories from this study as a whole suggest that the Walt Disney Company is taking small steps to offer more diverse narratives and subvert expectations in ways that allow queer people to read their experiences in the characters on screen. / Master of Arts / Disney movies are a multi-billion dollar industry (Vary, 2020), and the company has taken steps in recent years to feature more diverse storylines and characters in their animated movies. Despite this, there is yet to be an openly queer protagonist in a Disney animated film. With this fact in mind, this study seeks to find places where queer people can still see themselves and their experiences reflected in the Disney films release in the last decade. These instances range from ambiguity that allows audiences to read a character as similar to themselves to moments that question the power structures that push certain people to the margins of society in the first place. Six categories were created after analysis to describe these moments: the queering of Disney logic, the queering of "appropriate" through mature themes, the queering of power and violence, villainous queerness, heroic queerness and queer acceptance. Taken together, these findings and the previous research on Disney suggests the company is slowly moving to open up storylines to allow more people to see their experiences reflected in the movies.

This study examines the depiction of violence in Disney films by investigating the relation between violence and the characters from the 1930’s until today with focus on a gender perspective. The films are Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Tangled and Frozen. The theoretical framework is based on the works of Devin McKinney, Henry Giroux and Slavoj Zizeks categorizations of violence. The results of the study show that the hyperreal form of violence have increased substantially, while the structural violence, such as detention, has been reduced and made visible in the narrative. There has also been a change in how the female characters relate to violence. In the earlier movies they took on a passive role, but later on they used violence in a more defensive way. In terms of the antagonists, a difference could be seen between the male and female characters. The female characters more often used other people to help them exercise violence, whilst the male characters did it themselves. The physical violence was more commonly used by the male characters, and the psychological violence was more common among the female characters.

A relevância das animações infantis no processo de ensinar papéis específicos, valores e ideais é amplamente reconhecida pelos estudiosos da cultura. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo central desvelar e analisar criticamente a sutil estratégia discursiva presente em alguns destes artefatos midiáticos endereçados prioritariamente às crianças, que consiste em reiterar o status de normalidade das formas de identificação por gênero hegemônicas a partir da atribuição de teor de negatividade a identidades desviantes em relação às normativas sócio-historicamente constituídas de \"masculinidade\" e \"feminilidade\". Para tanto, lançamos mão da semiótica greimasiana, de modo a analisar a presença de elementos de transgressão dos papéis de gênero concebidos como \"naturais\" nas representações dos vilões Úrsula, Jafar e Scar, das animações Disney A Pequena Sereia (1989), Aladdin (1992) e O Rei Leão (1994), respectivamente. Enfatizamos a análise de elementos presentes no nível discursivo do texto, destacadamente os figurinos dos personagens, seus códigos de gestualidade e suas conformações físicas. Em combinação com a semiótica, empregamos alguns conceitos da linha de pesquisa genericamente conhecida como Análise de Discurso, visando discutir a relação dialógica que se estabelece entre os textos constituintes do corpus de análise e os discursos políticos e sociais conflitantes, próprios dos contextos sócio-históricos dos quais os filmes emergiram. Buscamos ainda propor discussões acerca do papel que essa associação entre desvio das normas de gênero e a figura dos antagonistas desempenha no reforço da heteronormatividade e de preconceitos em relação a determinados grupos sociais, problematizando as animações enquanto instrumentos de educação moral não-formal. Concluímos que o padrão de representação dos vilões analisados, no tocante às suas performances de gênero, cumpre com a função ideológica de implicitamente avaliar negativamente as formas de ser e agir que frustram as tradicionais expectativas de \"masculinidade\" e \"feminilidade\", inequivocamente associando-as com maldade, crueldade, egoísmo e ganância. Por fim, procuramos compreender as identidades de gênero desviantes dos vilões em questão sob a luz de alguns elementos da Teoria Queer / The relevance of childrens animated films in the process of teaching specific roles, values and ideals is widely recognized by culture scholars. The present work aims to unveil and critically analyze the subtle discursive strategy present in some of these media artifacts primarily addressed to children, which consists in reiterating the normality status of hegemonic forms of gender identification by attaching negativity content to devious identities in relation to socio-historic rules of \"masculinity\" and \"femininity\". Therefore, we make use of the Greimasian semiotics approach in order to analyze the presence of transgression elements of \"natural\" conceived gender roles in the representation of the villains Ursula, Jafar and Scar, from the Disney animation movies \"The Little Mermaid\" (1989), \"Alladin\" (1992) and \"The Lion King\" (1994), respectively. We emphasize the analysis of the elements present on the text discursive level, namely the characters costumes, their body language codes and physical conformations. Together with semiotics, we use some of the concepts from the research line generically known as \"Discursive Analysis\", aiming to discuss the dialogical relation established among the \"corpus\" of analysis and the political and social conflicting speeches, proper to the socio-historic contexts from which the movies emerged. Furthermore, we aim to propose discussions over the roles that this association between deviation of gender norms and the antagonists figure play on the support of heteronormativity and pre-concepts regarding certain social groups, problematizing the animation films as non-formal education teaching tools. We conclude that the representation patterns of the studied villains, on their gender performances, comply with the ideological function of implicitly and negatively evaluate ways of being and acting which frustrate traditional expectations of \"masculinity and femininity\", unequivocally associating them to evil, cruelty, selfishness and greed. Finally, we attempt to understand the devious gender identities from the studied villains under some Queer Theory elements.

The Town Where Mickey Mouse Has Lived is a documentary video program in which people talk about themselves and the life of a small town. The town is known as the boyhood home of Walt Disney, which he recalled as the most charming place in his life. The interviews explore the personal perspectives of the people and why they stay in Marceline despite the fact that Disneyland, full of Disney's memories of Marceline, attracts people while the town has been obsolescent for a long time.

Snow White through Grimm and Disney - A Comparative Study This essay attempts to discern the differences regarding six Swedish versions of the fairy-tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs over a period of 150 years. Focus is placed on structural transformations through time and media according to the analytical theories of Vladimir Propp. Attention is also given to former research done on the impact of the fairy-tale on the child from a psychological and social point of view. Of interest is the historical background of the tale, commencing with oral tradition, and how this was dealt with by the Grimm brothers. Three of the versions used for this comparative study are variants of the Grimm tale, and three belong to Walt Disney productions, i.e. the film and its picture stories. The aim of the comparison is to clarify how and why this tale is retained to the present.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the ways in which the constructions of heterosexuality and gender in three Disney movies about princesses affect the power relations between men and women in the movies, and how discourses on gender and heterosexuality have changed over time. Research questions were: How do characters in the movies talk about gender and heterosexuality? How does the interplay between gender and heterosexuality affect the power relations between men and women in the movies? What are the likenesses and differences between movies from different time periods? Discourses were mapped out using a model based on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s political theories. These discourses were then analyzed with a theoretical framework consisting of Yvonne Hirdman’s concept of gender system and gender contracts, Judith Butler’s view on the heterosexual matrix and an understanding of power relations based on Michel Foucault. Results showed that the construction of gender and heterosexuality are intimately connected, as the main character’s desire or lack of desire for the prince was central to the plot in all three movies. Results also indicate that the most recent film was the most subversive in terms of constructions of gender and heterosexuality. Power relations between men and women remained relatively stable through all three movies, since most expressions of opposition did not really challenge patriarchal norms.  My conclusion is that the development of gender portrayal in popular culture is going in the right direction, since women and girls now have access to a wider spectrum of gender expressions as exemplified in this study. But the lack of men venturing into areas and displaying behaviour traditionally associated with women suggests a reinforcement of a patriarchal structure where masculinity is viewed as preferable to femininity. This view is limiting men’s possibilities of expressing themselves, as well as downgrading women who express femininity.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-121). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.