In the movie Walt
Disney’s Cinderella, Cinderella’s
character, her family and the story line reveal strong gender role
stereotype’s, especially of women.
Stereotypes
for girl’s ages 16-25 are the cruelest and unrealistic expectations shoved down
our throats. Stereotypes include insane beauty standards and
responsibilities. Cinderella fits right
in to man of these stereotypes without question. First of all her appearance,
even before her transformation is poised and perfect. Her hair is long and
luscious, but pulled up as it should be for housework. As soon as she wakes up
in the morning she is wide awake, and singing. Her skin is absolutely perfect,
her waist is smaller than her head and she has big beautiful blue eyes. Although
she is going to do work all day she must be wearing a dress and heels. He talks
in a high pitched soft voice and never talks out of turn. Her work includes
feeding animals, cleaning the house and of course cooking dinner and washing
dishes. On the other hand at least Cinderella does somethings around the house,
you definitely cannot say the same for her sisters.
Cinderella’s
step mother is the typical older women from the 50’s. Hair pulled up, rich by
not lifting a finger and always pristine. None of the women in this family have
a job, only inheritance money. Each of them is never caught wearing pants, only
dresses and heels. They all walk with straight backs and snarky attitudes. They
devote all of their time to their appearance, fitting the stereotype that all
females must look perfect from the moment they wake up a 16 year old to the
moment their wrinkles are much too difficult to cover. Perfection in beauty is
of course the way to any man’s heart. One that might waltz his way down the
street, or stand by the store or maybe be tiptoe his clumsy feet at a ball.
The
story line of this movie has to be the most repulsive. Every girl in town is
invited the princes all, so that he may flirt with all of them and then pick
his favorite. The girl attend in big dresses and drastic make up to get the
richest man’s attention. Of course they want him, how else are they going to
support themselves? Once Cinderella escapes to go she must have the best dress,
carriage and horses to even think about going. He is only flustered by her
beauty once she arrives. On the hunt to find her after she runs away at midnight,
he only has her looks for his inspiration definitely not intelligence or work
ethic. When he sees her, he does not even recognize her but he immediately marries
her once he is convinced that with another tight ball gown he may fall in love
again.
This
beloved childhood movie is absolute stacked with cruel and ridiculous
stereotypes of women. Although this movie was created in the 1950’s, similar expectations
are still presented to young girls today. Hopefully one day childhood movies
will show equality and not a reliance on men.
Cinderella
Notes
The analysis of
Cinderella connects with what we have been studying in class because of the
strong gender stereotypes of women it includes. In class we discussed the pressure
media puts on girls and women to look their best. Social media puts a weight limit on every
height so that girls know what to strive for.
Make-up is advertised on women that have gone through hours of photo
shop. In Cinderella, the women all
uphold these must haves in the beauty world, teaching girls that even if you
are poor and mistreated you must have beauty if you are to get man. Another gender expectation in this movie was that
women need men. Cinderella needed the prince to be successful. Without hi she
would have been locked away forever. In
our world today and for the past hundred years women have been seen as only
maids and tools to create children. In
the movie, this role expectation of women hold true. None of the family has a
job or income except for inheritance from the deceased father. Cinderella does
chores around the house which is undoubtedly unfair but nothing too stressful.
Also I find it troubling that Cinderella transformation made her unrecognizable
to the prince when she went back to the prince when she went back to normal.
The role expectations
today are the same if not 100 times worse than the 50’s and it is sad that one
of the most loved childhood movies depicts so many unfair stereotypes.
Changing
Mindset
This is for my fellow
teenagers and recent graduates. The city of Eau Claire is never the less a
beautiful city. The river running through Phoenix Park and the Mt. Simon cliffs
are a must see. Eau Claire s like an amusement park. Some people can ride the
same rides 100 times and be convinced that no other amusement park could be
better. The rides at their park are safe, reliable and most importantly, never
changing. These are the people with a
fixed mindset. On the other hand there are people that get sick of the same old
rides, they want something new. Maybe something with a bigger drop or different
theme. Just something so they don’t get bored of the similarity. These are the
people with a growth mindset. As I said before Eau Claire is beautiful but what
if you have been to every hang out spot, beach, and ice cream shop around town,
do they still possess the same beauty? Do we still admire them the same? Some
people defiantly do. This town is safe, it has decent schools and a functioning
economy for the most part, but this town can get boring after 17 years. It is
important for someone to have adventure in life, and this city can only offer
so much. Now some of us might be scared of change and have such a fixed mindset
that they might believe that leaving might bring failure and failure brings
tragedy. I am asking those people to change their mindset. Mindset is a choice. Failure can mean
whatever you like, if we all changed our mindset to having a growth mindset we
would all embrace failure as a passage way to deeper knowledge. Leaving Eau
Claire opens a whole other world of opportunity for dreams to happen. I am
terrified to leave my hometown, but I know if I don’t I will be stuck in the
same routine and never fulfill my dreams of owning a franchise of animal rescue
centers, and being a vet, learning how to help animals across the world, being
a fantastic rock climber all by supporting myself and driving an Audi R6. Some
might say that these are just dreams but they have a much better chance of
being a reality if I leave, and I hope all of you with big dreams take your
life in your own hands, change your mindset and not be afraid of failure
because it might happen. Maybe you might be on the tower of power ready to fall
and notice your soulmate sitting next to you or maybe your future manager of
your nation wide company.
Mindset
Advice Colum Notes
The
advice column relating to one of my life dreams to leave Eau Claire relates to
our study of mindsets. In class we
disused mindset and how there are two distinct ones, growth and fixed. Someone with
a growth mindset would be someone who likes a challenge, someone who is not
afraid of mistakes but embrace’s them as a learning opportunity. People with a
growth mindset want to try new things and get good at them, they always went to
move forward and are not afraid to keep looking until they find the best they
can. Adventure is their middle name. On the other side someone with a fix mindset
is someone who believes change is not possible, someone who would rather be the
best at one thing then be good at a lot of things. They are the kind of people that always get
vanilla ice cream instead of trying a banana split just in case they don’t like
it. People with a fixed mindset relate
mistakes to failure and failure to “stop trying you’ll never be good
enough.” Perfection is the middle name
of the fixed mindset. Neither one is bad or terrible, although if everyone had
a growth mindset then getting a D on a test wouldn’t be something to cry over
and maybe schools would teach kids to be good at everything rather than just
having lateralization on the left side of our brain.
Although
same people have different belief’s so having an intensely educated left
hemisphere might be enticing to many. We learned in class that people won’t
always agree but at least we know why.
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