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Sex Roles (2011) 64:555567 DOI 10.1007/s11199-011-9930-7
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Gender Role Portrayal and the Disney Princesses
Dawn Elizabeth England & Lara Descartes &
Melissa A. Collier-Meek
Published online: 10 February 2011# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract The popular Disney Princess line includes nine films (e.g., Snow White, Beauty and the Beast) and over 25,000 marketable products. Gender role depictions of the prince and princess characters were examined with a focus on their behavioral characteristics and climactic outcomes in the films. Results suggest that the prince and princess characters differ in their portrayal of traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics, these gender role portrayals are complex, and trends towards egalitarian gender roles are not linear over time. Content coding analyses demonstrate that all of the movies portray some stereotypical representations of gender, including the most recent film, The Princess and the Frog. Although both the male and female roles have changed over time in the Disney Princess line, the male characters exhibit more androgyny throughout and less change in their gender role portrayals.
Keywords Children . Disney. Film . Gender . Gender role
Introduction
The Disney Princess line was created in 2001 as an advertising and marketing campaign targeted toward young girls (Orenstein 2006). Although the first of the Disney Princess movies was released in 1937, a strong marketing franchise has reinvigorated the popularity of the Disney Princess line (Disney Princess 2010). The advertising campaign aims to attract a wide audience of girls with the ultimate goal of encouraging children to personally identify with the characters so that they will purchase the associated products (Do Rozario 2004). The franchise now includes over 25,000 products and it contributed greatly to the rise of Disney marketing sales from $300 million in 2001 to $4 billion by 2008 (Setoodeh and Yabroff 2007). Disney and its princess phenomenon have been identified as a powerful influence on childrens media and product consumerism, contributing to a new girlhood that is largely defined by gender and the consumption of related messages and products (Giroux 1997; Lacroix 2004; McRobbie 2008; Orenstein 2006). Though the Disney Princess movies are produced in the United States and the phenomenon is American, Disney has a strong international presence and marketing efforts (Disney International 2010). Thus, the Disney Princess line...