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Essay / Disney Role Development Essay - 2069
Disney owns several television networks, is a major producer of box office hits, owns several theme parks and resorts around the world, and is a major supplier of toys for children (Junn, 1997). For these reasons, and because of Disney's universality, that is, its worldwide popularity, it has the capacity to exert a global influence on the youth of society. The potential for gender stereotyping in Disney films was the reason for this study as it could have significant ramifications in the future (Thompson & Zerbinos, 1997). In an effort to analyze potential gender differences in Disney films, we watched and coded five popular Disney films, noting the character's name, gender, and the occurrence of four predetermined behaviors, giving order , aggressive behavior, completing household chores and getting ready. Therefore, in the present study on the occurrence of gender stereotypical behaviors in Disney stories and based on previous studies by Thompson and Zerbinos (1997), (Junn, 1997) and Leaper et al (2002), we first predicted that male characters would exhibit stereotypically masculine behaviors such as giving orders and being aggressive, more often than stereotypically feminine behaviors and women would display stereotypically feminine behaviors such as performing household chores and preparing , more often than stereotypically masculine behavior in Disney films. Second, we hypothesized that women would have more fluidity in these activities.