5 Ways Modern Disney Is Even More Sexist Than The Classics

5

Female Characters Have Less Dialogue Than Ever

According to linguists, the dialogue in Disney films has been staggeringly dominated by male characters over the years. This sounds like a "the way it's always been" problem, but then you look at the graph:

Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer/The Washington Post
Damn Jasmine, pipe down.

Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora may not have had any skills outside of cleaning and being liked by birds, but at least their movies let them friggin' speak. Both Frozen and The Princess And The Frog give more than half of their dialogue to male characters, even though they have female protagonists (in Frozen's case, two female protagonists). The Princess And The Frog has less female dialogue than The Little Mermaid, which is LITERALLY A STORY ABOUT A WOMAN LOSING HER VOICE.

4

Disney Deliberately Markets Its Films To Look Less "Girly"

Frozen is based on a Hans Christian Andersen story called "The Snow Queen." Tangled, of course, is based on the Grimms' "Rapunzel." Pretty catchy titles -- and what's more, they don't mention gender at all. That's intentional. After The Princess And The Frog underperformed at the box office, Disney made the conscious decision to give its princess films ambiguous, "gender-neutral" titles so they didn't appear too "girly" and turn off potential male theatergoers.

"LOLFUQU" you're already typing in the comments section, "wutz rong wiht bean inklusiv?" Nothing! That ain't our beef. It's what happens next. For Tangled, they created a new character, "Flynn Rider" -- a swashbuckling, badass thief who wasn't in the original story. They then based the entire trailer around him.

3

The Women Still Live To Get Married

Disney's traditional princess stories knew a woman's ideal life goal: Get married, have a kid, and then die in order to inspire said kid to learn to love again and eventually get married. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Little Mermaid -- for Disney women, living "happily ever after" meant "marrying a cape-wearing dude," even if the original fairy tales had them dying alone.

Walt Disney Studios
It's almost as if fairy tale writers have some issues with women.

2

Every New Female Character Looks Exactly The Same

You know the "DreamWorks Face" -- the hilariously specific smirk that seemingly every DreamWorks character sports in their movie posters? Well, Disney/Pixar is just as bad. All their female characters have the exact same face.

An unofficial analysis of facial structures done on the new Disney/Pixar characters found that male characters have vastly more depth and variety, while the female faces are almost identical spheres with oversized baby eyes and tiny button noses.

Alex/Tumblr

Alex/Tumblr
They all look vaguely like boobs when you get down to it ...

1

The New Princesses Can't Control Their Powers And Tend To Ruin Everything

In Frozen, Elsa accidentally freezes her entire kingdom with her cryogenic magic, then almost kills her sister by inadvertently ice-zapping her in the heart. In Brave, Merida foolishly trusts a witch and puts her mother under a spell that turns her into a black bear. In Tangled, Rapunzel is born with magical age-reversing hair, but she's never aware of her own healing powers; instead, she's imprisoned and exploited.

Walt Disney Studios
By another, jealous woman.

In every case, the princesses are helpless and oblivious despite their great power, and they ruin everything by being too selfish and emotional. Compare this to Wreck-It Ralph, or Hiro Hamada from Big Hero 6, who use their abilities to defeat their opposition. You can see that same attitude reflected in society at large. Powerful men are awesome, but women are too emotional to be trusted with important stuff like leadership positions. A competent woman wizard? Gross. They'll probably get their magical periods right as they cast a big spell and accidentally turn the whole kingdom into potato chips.

Matt Cowan sells T-shirts. Vicki Veritas writes comedy and tweets. Follow Vicki on Twitter.

For more reasons we shouldn't let kids watch Disney movies, check out 7 Classic Disney Movies That Taught Us Terrible Lessons and 5 Awful Lessons Disney Teaches You About Relationships.

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