Now here is a Disney film that immediately screams of gender roll issues and the downgrading of women's worth. From the start there is a big dumb brute named Gaston who speaks ills of women and anyone else below him there in the local village. "It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting *ideas*, and thinking." How rude this must be seen in the ayes of viewers today, but then again possibly not so much as when it was first released. This Gaston character sees from the beginning that the female star "Belle" is absolutely going to be his wife in the end, and is pretty much already his property. How ridiculous. This young and highly intelligent woman is a book reading machine, and an intelectual due to her father's scientific teachings and her own study and research. Even in one unforgettable scene, the large and in charge Gaston traps Belle agaisnt a wall and is trying his best to force her to say that she'll marry him. Her smart reply, but also displaying her acceptance of this "male controlled society" is simply, "I'm very sorry, Gaston... but... but I just don't deserve you!"
Underlying messages and tones about this theme of "gender" roles and finding one's "identity" is something we as parents cannot simply let our children be influenced by, especially young females, without interceding in one way or another. Not to say these movies are overall a bad influence on our growing children's opinions of others and themselves, but just that we need to educate them on the reasoning behind the author including them in the first place, and what is the right and wrong in these classics. As long as they understand this, and know the history of woman's rights as well as knowing we support their full freedom in finding themselves, then most often things will not get to clouded.
Underlying messages and tones about this theme of "gender" roles and finding one's "identity" is something we as parents cannot simply let our children be influenced by, especially young females, without interceding in one way or another. Not to say these movies are overall a bad influence on our growing children's opinions of others and themselves, but just that we need to educate them on the reasoning behind the author including them in the first place, and what is the right and wrong in these classics. As long as they understand this, and know the history of woman's rights as well as knowing we support their full freedom in finding themselves, then most often things will not get to clouded.