Bibliography and Literature Review

I started searching for articles and books for my bibliography using the following keywords:

• Gender inequality 
• Performative gender representation
• Role portrayal
• Redefining the women’s role
• Man’s role
• Modern culture
• Disney Princess films
• Young audience

And i have choose my Key Areas of Investigation:

• Women’s roles in modern culture – To understand how the representation of women in Disney princess films has evolved over time, I began by analyzing the earlier films. I used academic articles and research to explore how these portrayals have shifted throughout the production history of these movies.
• Strong Male Hero – I then examined the portrayal of male characters throughout the films, focusing on their roles and how they developed alongside the story. This analysis aimed to understand the influence these male characters had on the representation of women within the films.
• influence on children – Ultimately, my analysis focused on how the evolving portrayal of gender roles in these films is likely interpreted by children viewers. This allowed me to explore how these representations have potentially changed over the years and impacted how children understand gender dynamics.

Introduction

Disney Princess productions have, over time, conveyed performative gender inequality through how the role of women was represented. Although progress has been made over the years, the idea of the powerful male hero is still present. In this case, those who suffer the most are children, the main viewers of Disney productions, who will grow up with a distorted view of current society.

For years, younger generations have been taught to think and act according to their favourite princesses and princes, ultimately learning social cues as they imitate their favourite animated films.

Furthermore, it is appropriate to think that while the representation of gender roles has not particularly changed, it may have influenced the children’s view of the adult world creating a disadvantage in the perception of women’s roles and we can suppose that compared to men, women are the most affected by society’s stereotypes and norms. 

Literature review

The literature review will cover existing research on Women’s role in numerous Walt Disney productions. This will include articles and books that analyse the vision of women in early Disney productions, but also the evolution to a more mature and modern vision of the role of female characters. To better analyse the role of women I decided to focus on films with female protagonists, therefore I chose princesses productions.