My title is a little misleading.
Disney has not changed my
opinions on gender.
That’s not to say that I have not changed my opinions over
the years. I definitely have. As a child, I did not know that anything else
existed besides girl and boy. I thought gender and sex were the same thing. I
could never dream that a girl could like a girl or a boy could like a boy. Now,
I know that gender exists on a spectrum from girl to boy to anything in between
and even beyond, and that love is love and it is real. But this change was a
product of my own open mind, not exposure to Disney. In fact, Disney has yet to
release a gender-fluid princess (or prince?)! And what a revolution that would
be!
To me, Disney is less of a force of social change than it is
a reflection of our gradually changing world. From a business standpoint, it
makes sense to echo popular notions rather than to pioneer progressive ideas,
in fear of losing sales. However, through Disney’s increasingly more common
narratives of independent princesses, it is apparent that a change in society’s
view on women is becoming more mainstream. In that sense, Disney taught me not
that gender roles are restrictive, but that a break from traditional gender roles
is more socially accepted. Women are not restricted to the home. They can work
hard to achieve what they want, and they can be heroes as well.
However, my lack of change in opinion makes me more curious
about other girls’ (or boys’) experiences with Disney. There must be somebody
out there whose opinions were challenged by Disney’s portrayals of girls and
femininity. I can imagine a young girl learning that girls can like reading
books like Belle, and, like Tiana, they can also save the prince instead of the
other way around. I can also imagine a little boy who now believes that girls
can have “superpowers,” too, like Elsa. No matter who is influenced, I will
continue to support Disney’s efforts to create strong female leads in their films.
They could only be for the better.
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