Thesis (M.A.)--University of Kentucky, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 63 p. : ill. Includes film clips utilizing MPG files. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-62).

Thesis (MFA)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2009. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Cindy Stillwell. Why don't we ride zebras is a DVD accompanying the thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 29-34).

Thesis advisor: Lisa Cuklanz / For my Communication Honors Program thesis for Boston College, I plan to analyze gender roles and how gender is constructed in recent children’s films produced by Disney. Since the Disney Corporation is so prominent in today’s culture and thus influential to its audience, this topic of study is very important. It impacts many people including its main target audience—children. Existing research proves that children develop their gender schemata early in life. Furthermore, the media they interact with influences children and their concepts of gender. Therefore, the way that Disney portrays gender in its children’s movies is worth analyzing since it can impact the way children develop and view gender and stereotypes. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Communication Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Communication.

This study seeks to answer the following research questions: which stereotypical linguistic profile characteristics and/or typical linguistic profile characteristics, if any, can be found in the old film and the new film respectively? Does the time difference between the films seem to have affected the female characters’ language use, if so in what way? Works by Lakoff (2004), Coates (2004) and Holmes (2013) are used to create a profile for stereotypical female speech and a profile for typical female speech. These profiles are applied to the transcripts of two Disney Princess films; one old film representing the classical Disney Princess films, and one new film representing the modern Disney Princess films. In order to suit this study all non-conversational utterances such as singing, and non-human utterances, are removed from the transcripts. The features are counted and then converted to frequencies of 1 feature per 100 words, in order to account for the differences in amount of words uttered. The results show that stereotypical features as well as typical features are present in both films. However, the old film contains more stereotypical features than typical features, and the new film contains more typical features than stereotypical features. Therefore, it would appear that the old film presents a more stereotypical image of women than the new film. Furthermore, the results indicate that power relations, and not just gender differences, play an important role in both films. The importance of these power relations would benefit from further investigation in future studies.

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.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (January 11, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-50)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Texas, May, 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

In the field of research within film studies which consider how aspects such as gender or race affect the portrayal of a character, the aspect of characters' body sizes are not always taken into account. By analysing the fat characters in the popular children's and young adult film series about Harry Potter, I bring attention to the fact that the use of stereotypes is significant in these characterisations, and further contributes to the marginalisation of this particular group of people. I looked specifically at what the characters had in common with each other, and if they adhered to already established stereotypes concerning fat people, and found that the one thing they all share is a lack of academic or intellectual skill to varying degrees, which is in line with the common stereotypes of fat people as dumb. I further analysed the differences between the fat men and fat women in the series, and found that fat men were a far more common occurrence than fat women, and that fat girls did not even exist in these stories. This is not surprising, as the exclusion of fat women and girls is abundant in mainstream culture.

Children's animated films have held a lasting influence on their audiences since the rise of their popularity in the 1980s. As adults co-view such films with their children Hollywood has had to rewrite the formula for a successful animated children's film. This thesis argues that a main factor in audience expansion is adult humor. The results show that children's animated films from 2002-2013 are riddled with many instances of adult humor while earlier films from 1982-1993 use adult humor sparingly. It is clear that over the years the number of adult humor occurrences has consistently increased. Furthermore, this research shows that adult male roles consistently deliver the adult humor.

This study examined the claim that animated films influence childrens' opinions of accented-English. Two hundred and eighteen 3rd through 5th graders participated in a web-based survey. They listened to speakers with various accents: Mainstream US English (MUSE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), French, British, and Arabic. Respondents judged speakers' personality traits (Work Ethic, Wealth, Attitude, Intelligence), assigned jobs/life positions, and provided personal information, movie watching habits, and exposure to foreign languages. Results indicate: (1) MUSE ranks higher and AAVE lower than other speakers, (2) jobs/life positions do not correlate with animated films, (3) movie watching habits correlate with AAVE, French, and British ratings, (4) foreign language exposure correlates with French, British, and Arabic ratings.