Contextual & Theoretical Studies: Deconstructing Disney Princesses

Reflecting predominantly on the theories of Laura Mulvey, I will discuss how Disney can internalise a false ideology in young women, and will conclude with whether Disney justifies such an accusation.

In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1989), theorist Laura Mulvey would use psychoanalytic theory to demonstrate how patriarchal society has been used to structure women in films.

Mulvey argues how phallocentrism in film relies on the use of the image of a castrated female (passive female) to give order and meaning to its world, and ‘It is her lack that produces the phallus as a symbolic presence, it is her desire to make good the lack that the phallus signifies’ (Mulvey, 1989:p14)

Therefore the male protagonist is used as an authority figure to bring credibility to a film, no matter how small his part may be, his power is reinforced by the female protagonists weak and succumbing character that appears to idolise him. Even if a male interest is not physically present in the film his symbolism could appear as a phallus object and the passive female can then even be overshadowed by an inanimate object and she in turn feels the struggle to compensate for her own lack of signification.

Mulvey clarifies how women form the patriarchal unconscious and thereby join the symbolic order; ‘She first symbolises the castration threat by her real lack of a penis and secondly thereby raises her child into the symbolic. Once this has been achieved, her meaning in the process is at an end’ (Mulvey, 1989:p14)

Ultimately then, the main meaning of woman is sexual difference, the absence of a penis enforces the woman to justify her belonging in the patriarchal order by giving birth to a child that can continue this order.

In furthering Mulvey’s argument Berger observed that ‘according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’ (Berger, 1972:p45,47)

He depicts how this ideology is internalised in young women and how by obtaining a man she can then only be recognised in society: ‘She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another’ (Berger, 1972:p46)

Jack David Zipes talks of the use of phallic symbols in Disney. He notes Donald Crafton’s discussion of the topic in Before Mickey: The animated film 1898-1928 where Crafton argues that the early animators were nearly all men and would literally draw themselves into animation using their phallic pens and camera work as a phallic function. Crafton uses the example of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland where they employed a cat named Julius, ‘Who would take off his tail and use it as stick, weapon, rope, hook, question mark and so forth’ (Zipes, 1994:p78) Zipes argued that this was the ‘Phallic means to induce action and conceive a way out of a predicament’ (Zipes, 1994:p78)

Michele Aaron also links to Mulvey’s patriarchal order theory as she notes Freud’s female Oedipal story that theorizes the girls passage to maturity: ‘As the girls ‘change to femininity’, is marked by her shift from the clitoris to the vagina as the site of sexual pleasure: a shift from a female-identified self-pleasure to a pleasure in penetration (1991X:151). It is also marked by the transfer of her original attachment to her mother to her father: the male – the correct – object of desire. That this original attachment ‘ends in hate’ is essential to the transfer, for, as Freud asserts, the girl blames her mother for her own castrated state which she seeks to amend by gaining her fathers penis or its substitute, a baby (1991C:155)’ (Aaron, 2007:p38) Thereby this desire for the male phallus encourages the longing to join the symbolic order.

In considering further Mulvey’s theory of film as a patriarchal ideological institution she exposed the ways in which narrative cinema endowed men with empowerment and entrapped women in the opposing qualities. This was achieved through the mechanism of the gaze and her main charge was that the spectator subject was male, it was his look that was solicited and his ego that was massaged by films psychological strategies. Aaron argues that the psychological strategies in film revolve primarily around the female spectacle: ‘She functioned as both the locus for harnessing that male gaze and as the trigger for the re-enactment of his formative psychic processes’ (Aaron, 2007:p25)

Mulvey narrowly did not account for the female spectator in her thesis, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1989). She claimed that women can not be subjects and can not own the gaze and two that men can not be objects, they can not be gazed at, they can only look, and only look at women.

This contradicts all of Disney’s early classics where females play the part of the main protagonist and it is generally the female spectator that identifies with these female characters, the trouble with these heroines however was that their happiness was usually mired in misery that could only be salvaged by the prince.

In Mulvey’s follow up argument, ‘Afterthoughts on “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1989) Mulvey acknowledged the existence of the female spectator, however the options were still bleak where she could identify with the inevitable passive and masochistic female character such as Disney’s, Ursula the Sea Witch or the many other evil witches that played the role of Disney’s antagonist. The female spectator could only briefly borrow the male gaze and identify with the male character. Aaron argues that Mulvey’s female spectator was, thus, ‘Characterised by discomfort and restlessness as she alternated between one defeating alignment and another, between identification with the masochistic ‘heroine’ and the ill-fitting garb of the male gaze’ (Aaron, 2007:p36)

Chandler argues that both Neale and Richard Dyer (1982) also challenged the idea that the male is never the object in mainstream film and argued that the male will not only look at women and isn’t always in control of the gaze. Chandler suggests ‘It is widely noted that since the 1980s there has been an increasing display and sexualisation of the male body in mainstream cinema and television and in advertising’ (Moore 1987, Evans & Gamman 1995, Mort 1996, Edwards 1997). (www.aber.ac.uk)

Feminists Gamman and Marshment have also contested Mulvey’s pessimistic view of mainstream cinema, where they insist; ‘ It is not enough to dismiss popular culture as merely serving the complementary systems of capitalism and patriarchy ‘false consciousness’ to the duped masses. It can also be seen as a site where meanings are contested and where dominant ideologies can be disturbed’ (Storey, 2006:p106)

This image of Disney Princesses was altered by Jeff Brunner and although the original of this image can’t appear to be found, therefore we know little of what Brunner’s intentions or what influenced him to create this scathing review of some of Disney’s most classic creations were, it still managed to create mass waves of debate across media forums and blogs across the world.

Debate seems to have been split between mainly females that had grown up with such Disney tales and felt the need to defend their heroines, and parents that were going through the ‘I want to be a Princess’ stage and who were forced to re-watch the fairytales with an open and more cynical eye, to the point where everything Disney in their house was banned. (www.feministmormonhousewives.org) (www.feministing.com)

Parents were concerned about the false ideologies in Disney films and although their 5 year old had yet no conception of female oppression or male dominated culture they were worried that these false ideologies would be internalised.

An example of Mulvey’s patriarchal order could be used in Disney’s tale of The Little Mermaid where Ariel’s desire to be human leads her to visit the evil Sea Witch Ursula who grants her the wish of human legs in return for the sacrifice of her voice, consequently her wish can only be fulfilled by the kiss of her true love otherwise she will return to her former self.

Mulvey would argue that this resembles the image of a castrated woman where she first symbolises the castration threat by her lack of a penis and secondly relies upon ‘the maker’ the man to form her into the male other. Although in the story Ariel does not bear a child the signification of marriage is that she now has the possibility to raise a child to become the symbolic and as Mulvey argues, ‘Once this has been achieved her meaning in the process is at an end’, ‘She turns her child into the signifier of her own desire to possess a penis’ (Mulvey, 1989:p14)

Mulvey concludes, ‘Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer, not maker, of meaning’ (Mulvey, 1989:p15)

The Little Mermaid links clearly with Mulvey’s description of the ‘silent image of woman’ as she physically has to lose her voice to gain the acceptance of her true love and she physically and mentally has to make a sacrifice of losing her fish tail and never seeing her family and friends again for the chance at being truly happy. This could instil a false reality in young females of having to make great sacrifice in order to make themselves physically more attractive to win the love of a man.

Ariel plays the protagonist in The Little Mermaid as do most princesses such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella that gives the female viewer a chance to reflect herself onto the screen and identify somehow with the character giving a sense of empowerment to the viewer that this story is all about her, yet all these stories are contradicted by the fact that the actual part played by the princesses in overcoming some life obstacle is generally heavily influenced by the man. In Snow White only the kiss from her true love can awake her from the poisoned apple, whilst Sleeping Beauty is comatose for a good period of her film and again only true love’s kiss can awake her. This could give the example to young women that they are incapable of overcoming life’s obstacles without the influence of a man.

Laura Sells describes how the separation of the two worlds between land and sea in the film The Little Mermaid mirrors the unobtainable reflection of females into the ‘white male system’. (Sells, 1995:p177) Sells notes that according to Ann Wilson Schaef in Womens Reality (1981) ‘The white male system operates on several contradictory myths’ (Sells, 1995:p177)

Sells argues that at least two of these myths are relevant to the complementary worlds of this film. The first that ‘Nothing exists outside the white male system; and second, the white male system knows and understands everything’ (Sells, 1995:p178) Therefore those who are included in the white male system are oblivious to anything outside of it whilst those who are outside of it know about this ‘dominant culture’ as well as their own ‘marginalised culture’ (Sells,1995:p178)

These myths contradict themselves but relate to the Prince’s land world and that of Ariel’s sea world. This is due to the sea world being rendered invisible by the Prince’s land world whilst his is blessed with cultural certainty.

The spilt between the female and male world is frequently enforced through the language and imagery of “up there” and “down here”. Sells notes a key instance during Ariel’s song “Part of Your World” in which she desires to be “up there”. Sells claims that ‘The spatial imagery supports the hierarchy of dominant and muted cultures’ (Sells,1995:p178) this is done through popular uses of visual language in cinema where the viewpoint of the camera plays a key role in portraying the passiveness or dominance of the character; many camera shots give the audience the viewpoint of looking downward on Ariel and the other is seeing upward through Ariel’s eyes. Sells realises the resemblance of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings of sweeping seascapes and the female imagery of sea shells and cave openings.

As with most Disney movies that rarely follow the path of the original fairytale, which are far more dark and generally without happy endings, Disney has made a conscious decision to portray characters in such demeanours and is not merely visually recreating the original therefore many feminists are objectionable to Disney’s idealistic interpretations. In the original tale of The Little Mermaid (1837) by Hans Christian Anderson the mermaid dies because she regrets the sacrifice that she has made and wishes to return to being a mermaid but to do this she must slay her prince which she could not bring herself to do and therefore throws herself into the sea, but upon death she is rewarded for her good deeds and becomes ‘a daughter of the air’ claiming an immortal soul. In the Disney version the mermaid does not attain her self-actualisation where as Anderson’s version wanted the mermaid to earn a soul on her own and not as an attachment of someone else.

I believe it would be unfair to say that Disney has directly enforced these false ideologies in young women as Disney has merely capitalised on American innocence and utopianism of the social and political issues that related to the current era that the film was produced.

Films such as Snow White (1937) and Cinderella (1950) were both released in cultural eras where women were not at that time viewed as being oppressed and thought it nothing more than an achievement to be the loyal housewife, mother and part of the patriarchal order. Stacey would contend that; ‘Paradoxically, whilst commodity consumption for female spectators in mid to late 1950’s Britain concerns producing oneself as a desirable subject, it also offers an escape from what is perceived as the drudgery of domesticity and motherhood which increasingly comes to define femininity at this time. Thus, consumption may signify an assertion of self in opposition to the self sacrifice associated with marriage and motherhood in 1950’s Britain (238)’ (Storey, 2006:p108)

It is only now where feminism is of greater cultural interest that women have far more political and cultural freedom and we therefore look back with a critical view of the past.

However, it would be cynical to say that The Little Mermaid was accurately reflecting cultural society in 1989 and in even more recent Disney films such as Beauty and The Beast (1991) Disney did manage to produce a heroine of more substance and intelligence but dragged her into the social issue of domestic violence, where she chooses to stay with her beast that has captured her, swiftly falls in love with him regardless of his violence towards her and therefore inhabits the unfortunate stereotype of a wife that accepts her husband’s violence towards her because he tells her that he loves her afterwards.

On the contrary, Disney’s Mulan (1998) portrays the protagonist woman in the fight to be equal with men and thereby offers an encouraging role model to young women and a more accurate reflection of current society.

Disney classics such as Snow White and Cinderella have and will probably always remain popular with children, as our own nostalgic childhood memories of them will encourage us to share them with our children. However we must be aware that such films represent former politics and societies and if we want our children to understand this we must take into consideration the age at which we expose them to such films and entertainment and be prepared to sit down with them and question their false ideologies in relation to current society.

Bibliography

Aaron, M. (2007) Spectatorship: The power of looking, London, Wallflower Press

Bell, E. Haas, L. and Sells, L. (1995) From Mouse to Mermaid: The politics of film, gender and culture, Indiana, Indiana University Press

Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing, London, Penguin