Good girls and wicked witches

Description:

Amy M. Davis re-examines the notion that Disney heroines are rewarded for passivity. Davis proceeds from the assumption that, in their representations of femininity, Disney films both reflected and helped shape the attitudes of the wider society, both at the time of their first release and subsequently. Analyzing the construction of (mainly human) female characters in the animated films of the Walt Disney Studio between 1937 and 2001, she attempts to establish the extent to which these characterizations were shaped by wider popular stereotypes. Davis argues that it is within the most constructed of all moving images of the female form--the heroine of the animated film--that the most telling aspects of Woman as the subject of Hollywood iconography and cultural ideas of American womanhood are to be found.

subjects: Women, united states,  Women's studies,  Characters,  Women,  Women in motion pictures,  Animated films,  Walt Disney Productions,  Criticism and interpretationdisney, walt , 1901-1966,  Characters--womendisney, walt , 1901-1966,  Walt disney productions.,  Walt disney company.,  Disney characters--social aspects,  Animatiefilms,  Walt disney company,  Vrouwen,  Animated films--history and criticism,  Pn1995.9.w6 d395 2006,  791.436522,  Disney characters,  Social aspects,  Criticism and interpretation,  History and criticism