As far as Putnam’s argument goes, I am conflicted with
whether or not I agree with her. On one hand, she makes a great point about how
Disney tends to assign more masculine features to their female villains.
However, on the other hand, I don’t believe that this was an effort to support
certain ideas about transgendered individuals or that the characters were even
intended to represent transgendered individuals.
Disney princesses in particular tend to follow very narrow
and limited ideas about beauty. For the most part, they are styled to have very
Western features, and arguably Old-Hollywood ideals when it comes to beauty:
long hair, big eyes, and lean hourglass figures. By following this standard,
Disney is in fact promoting a standard that most applies to specific ideas
about sexuality. Putnam supports this idea in her recent article “Mean Ladies:
“Transgendered Villains in Disney Films” “In making each heroine’s outfit
form-fitting, especially around her breasts, waists, and hips, Disney
accentuates the ideal heterosexual female figure to viewers: curvy breasts and
hips, an unrealistically small waist- and tight apparel to show it off”. To
further this position, Putnam illustrates how this applies to the male
characters in these installments as well with “Taller than each respective
princess, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, and muscular, their attributes become
standardized heterosexual male physical characteristics”. This is a point that hadn’t before registered
in my mind when I consumed Disney media. The male counterparts of the Disney
characters never wear pink, speak about maintaining their appearance, or
display any overtly artistic appreciation, (i.e. speaking about a love of dance
or song, having a job in the arts).
The characters that don’t fit into
this constricted scope of appearance and personality are either the sidekick
characters intended to provide comic relief (ex., a weak Mushu in Mulan, or an
emotionally sensitive Flounder in the Little Mermaid) or they are the villains
that are out to harm Disney’s beloved protagonists. Putnam makes a point in
stating that when these ideas about gender normativity are enforced
consistently, society can reflect by therefore being less accepting of
individuals who don’t fit into this constricted scope of “normality”. This is
where my opinion with Putnam becomes one that is less clear in terms of
agreement and disagreement. In an attempt to further her argument, she ends up
giving credibility to the opposing views that she’s trying to discredit, “While
there are no Disney characters that actively announce their homosexuality or
transgenderism, there is considerable evidence that Disney’s gender-bending
characters are flourishing,” in this sentence alone, Putnam commits the crime
that she’s denouncing. She’s assuming that all characters that display
unconventional characteristics are transgendered, which seems a lot like the
stereotyping to me. None of the characters that were used as examples in her
piece were noted as transgendered. While I agree that the way in which Disney villains
are characterized presents a problem in how people are perceived by society, I
don’t believe that Disney bears the burden of these implications. If she were
to expand her argument to pick a bone with media as a whole rather than Disney
alone, I would have an easier time agreeing more wholeheartedly.
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