It Goes Way Beyond Disney

In class this week we discussed Disney films and how they portray very sexist themes. Ariel gives up her voice for a man, Jasmine has no control or power for her life, and Belle is kidnapped by a man but falls in love with him in the end. I decided that it is not just Disney films but society in general that have decided women’s lives are not complete without a man. I thought it would be interesting to compare films that are centered around men versus ones centered around women and see how their outcomes differ.
In the film Clueless, the main character Cher spends almost the entire film trying to find the right man to make her life complete, and in the end after getting with Josh the film ends, almost dropping every other storyline because her life is complete with this man. However, in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, while the main character Ferris does have a girlfriend, the ending has nothing to do with his relationship status, but instead his success of skipping the day of school. While the Charlie’s Angels films are themed around strong women who do not need men to succeed in battle, in the end of the first film all three women end up with a man, and a lot of their issues in the films center around men, especially in the sequel when Drew Barrymore’s main plot is how she cannot overcome her ex boyfriend. However, in almost all of the Bond Films, the women are replaceable characters that are just there for eye candy and in every film Bond has a new love interest, implying that even though he spends an entire film attempting to save this girl’s life, by the next film he will already have moved on to another woman.
There are many more examples that I could go in to but I think it is pretty clear that while most female movies center around men or have men somehow important in the finale, films centered around men seem to completely ignore the importance of women in men’s lives or give them little importance in the films plot besides being a helpless victim. So clearly, sexist themes in Disney are continued throughout many other mediums as well.