Parents need to help their children critically evaluate the images they see in Disney films, psychologists say.

By Scott Sleek
Monitor staff

?Cinderella,? ?Lady and the Tramp? and other classic Disney films have become such cultural institutions that they represent an important socializing agent for children. Unfortunately, psychologists warn, many of these animated movies give children an archaic view of gender roles, offering heavy doses, for example, of fair maidens waiting for handsome princes to rescue them.

Three psychologists?who also are parents?are voicing their concerns about the male and female roles depicted in most of the Walt Disney Co.?s 34 full-length animated features. Parents need to teach their children that many of these popular classics were made as far back as 60 years ago, when men?s and women?s roles were much different than they are today, they said.

?I was interested in Disney as a kid, but became very interested when I started raising two daughters,? said Gary Brooks, PhD, a Texas psychologist and president of APA?s Div. 51 (Men and Masculinity). ?It?s important to help kids get very competent in deconstructing what they?re taught.?

Typically, the only powerful female roles in the films tend to be displayed in such characters as the wicked queen in ?Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? or Ursula the sea witch in ?The Little Mermaid,? Brooks said during a symposium titled ?Deconstructing Disney: gender socialization through the lens of the cinema,? at the Midwinter convention of APA?s practice divisions. Brooks and other psychologists discussed the subtle messages that Disney films convey to children:

? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937): The dwarfs are wary when they meet Snow White, in hiding from a queen who is jealous of her beauty. But they are won over when they learn she can cook, said Ron Levant, EdD, a Massachusetts practitioner, Div. 51 past president and member of APA?s Board of Directors. Later, a kiss from the handsome prince is the only remedy for Snow White?s coma-type sleep, induced by the evil queen. Among the outdated messages for women are that beauty is everything and that only men can save them from trouble, Levant said.

? Cinderella (1950): When Cinderella prepares to attend the grand ball, her jealous, ugly stepsisters rip up her dress and leave her sobbing in her room, notes Louise Silverstein, PhD, of

Yeshiva University. The message is that competition for men, rather than cooperation, is the way to define a feminine self, she says.

? Lady and the Tramp (1955): The Tramp, a stray who espouses the joys of freedom, questions the commitment that Lady, a sheltered cocker-spaniel, feels toward her master?s family. But in the end, Tramp dons a collar himself and enters the domestic life with his beloved. The basic message is that men need women to tame them, Brooks said.

? The Little Mermaid (1989): This film represents Disney?s effort, albeit flawed, to show women in more assertive roles, Brooks said. The mermaid Ariel is athletic and brave, rescuing her friend, a boyish fish named Flounder, from a shark. And in her dream to marry the human Prince Eric, she resists the efforts of her father?King Triton?to keep her underwater. It is only after Prince Eric he helps Ariel battle the evil Ursula that the king agrees to allow his daughter to live among humans. The message is that only through patriarchy will women be saved, Brooks said.

? Pocahontas (1995): This movie reveals Disney?s attempt to be politically correct, Silverstein said. The film shows Pocahontas and her people as noble protectors of the land, and the English settlers as greedy and destructive. Unlike most Disney romances, ?Pocahantas? ends without a marriage. Pocahantas decides to stay with her people rather than marry Capt. John Smith, who must return to England.

? Toy Story (1996): This first computer-animated film features such ?macho? characters as the toy cowboy Woody and his rival, space ranger Buzz Lightyear. When Buzz realizes that he is not a real space ranger but a toy, he gets depressed. Eventually Buzz dresses up as a girl?s toy and plays girl games.

?So what is the message here?? says Levant. ?If you are not a powerful boy, then you will be a girl?quite a potent message to boys about the importance of masculinity.?