A Content Analysis of Gender Role Portrayal in Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli Animated Films
Yu Lan
Student number: 12130915 Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Master’s programme Communication Science
Supervisor: Hande Sungur Date of completion: 30-01-2020
A Content Analysis of Gender Role Portrayal in Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli Animated Films Abstract
Gender role portrayal was investigated with an content analysis of their traditional gendered behavioral characteristics, rescue and being rescued behaviors, and romantic
conclusion in both Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli animated films. This study aimed to show how gender was depicted differently in the two companies. The depiction of masculine and feminine characteristics were different through the two companies. Results suggested that more gender stereotyped were exhibited in the Studio Ghibli animated films with males displayed with more masculine behaviors and females displayed with more feminine behaviors. While the Walt Disney animated films demonstrated more equalitarian depiction of the masculine and feminine behaviors. Furthermore, the Studio Ghibli was more stereotyped with less numbers of the being rescued behaviors for male figures compared to the ones in Walt Disney animated films.
However, Walt Disney were more likely to generate romantic conclusion while Studio Ghibli were more open for the romantic relationship.
Introduction
The gender portrayal content conveyed from animated films, children television programs, children advertisements and the effects of these media on children are discussed through abundant studies (e.g. Klein, Shiffman, & Welka, 2000; Dinella, 2017; Cvencek, Meltzoff & Greenwald, 2011; Stoltzfus, Nibbelink, Vredenburg, & Thyrum, 2011; Lefkowitz & Zeldow, 2006). With frequently exposed to animated films (Klein, Shiffman, & Welka, 2000), most children may be more likely to accept attitudes and behaviors consistent with the portrayal in the animated films (Baker & Raney, 2007). The viewing of the gendered content may have an influence on the children’s socialization process and cognitive understanding about gender
(Graves, 1999). The beliefs of diversified gender types could have benefits like higher creativity, better reply strategies, and better mental health (e.g., Stoltzfus et al, 2011; Lefkowitz & Zeldow, 2006). Thus, it is worthy to study the content of the animated films to understand the effect of this media on children for researchers, teachers and parents.
Walt Disney is the most profitable animated film company in the world (Kang, 2014) and its animated films are popular among most of the children (Orenstein, 2006). Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio built in 1985 by Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki and is known as the most profitable animation company outside of Hollywood (Odell & Le Blanc, 2009). Though from Eastern culture, Studio Ghibli’s animated films are highly international with prestigious awards and formidable international box-office (Odell & Le Blanc, 2009). Studio Ghibli was also called by the westerner writers as “Walt Disney of Japan” (Price, 2001).
The gender role stereotypes of a culture could be reflected by the media and the portrayal of media differs from culture to culture on account of the diverse types of the gender stereotypes existed in different cultures (Landrine, 1985; Harris, 1994). Previous research (e.g., Sugihara, 1999; Furnham & Imadzu, 2002) about cross-culture television advertisements showed that Japan, though a modern country, still holds traditional gender roles, such as males appearing as dominant authority figures while females as staying more at home, being submissive and less important than males. While the western culture like Great Britain show less but consistent sex role stereotypes (Sakamoto, Takahira, & Adadiu, 1999).
The present research aims to use content analysis to examine the similarity and difference in gender portrayal of the main figures in Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli animated films. The present study provides a quantitative analysis of the main figures’ gender attributes, gendered nature of romantic resolution and rescues in a popular grouping of Disney and Ghibli animated
films. This research could benefit the parents for better understanding of the gender messages in the animated films and insights when they choose the animated films for their children and the researchers for further investigation of gender content in children's animated films.
Gender Stereotypes in Animated Films and Effects on Children
“Gender stereotypes refer to the beliefs people hold about members of the categories man or woman” (Archer & Lloyd, 2002, p. 19). Stereotyped portrayal of male and female characters are found in most of the animated programs. To be specific, the physical attribute of males, and are portrayed as strong muscular, aggressive, assertive, and athletic, whereas females are
portrayed as submissive, mild, troublesome, emotional, caring, attractive, dressed, and more like a team member instead of the leader (e.g., England, Descartes, & Collier-Meek, 2011; Ahmed & Wahab, 2014). Further, male characters especially princes and superheroes are the ones to offer help and rescue, and have difficulty making decisions, whilst the females were needing to be rescued and consumed by love, easily excited in a crisis (Baker & Raney, 2007).
The cultivation theory indicates that watching the gendered stereotypes may have an effect on children ( Graves, 1999). The gendered content may affect how they acquire the gender role and how they understand the gendered social behaviors ( Graves, 1999). What’s more, the children’s stronger gender socialization may also be influenced by higher exposure to gender stereotyped content (Klein et al., 2000). There are numerical studies conducted on the impact of the gender roles description on children. Frueh and McGee (1975) argued that children’s
traditional perspective of gender was related to exposure of television. Media could act as a key socializing agent to affect children’s understanding of gender (Signorelli, 2011). Other
researcher (Durkin, 1985) believed that media, instead of being the only source of information, acting together with other sources to inspire children’s perspective of gender role.
Cultural Differences and Gender Portrayal
The gender portrayal of a particular culture is not directly generated from media but from the stereotypes that exists in that culture (Harris, 1994). Western cultures and Eastern cultures have different cognitive styles (Cole & Packer, 2011). According to Hofstede, culture has two dimensions: Individualism and Collectivism (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Hofstede, 2005) and the USA has the highest individualism tendency, while the Japan shows a collectivism tendency. Individualist cultures tend to have less gender inequality between males and females than collectivism cultures (Bretl and Cantor, 1988; Furnham and Voli, 1989; Cuddy, Wolf, Glick, & Crotty et al, 2015). Nisbett (2003) stated that the cultural differences are larger than the gender based differences. Yamaguchi stated that western males and females gender norms differed more than eastern ones (Nisbett, 2004). With different gender norms, their portrayal through media appears to be different (Furnham & Imadzu, 2002). For advertisements, for example, the degree of gender role stereotyping differed from culture to culture (Furnham & Mak, 1999). The commercial portrayal of gender role of eastern countries (e.g. Japan, Indonesia) were more stereotyped than western countries (e.g. the United States, Britain, Italy) (Bretl & Cantor, 1988; Furnham & Voli, 1989; Furnham & Imadzu, 2002).
When it comes to different societies and cultures, the definition of gender portrayal could be complicated. The gender roles for different societies are different, with some cultures hold rigid roles for males and females, while others accept more overlaps in roles like most Western societies will do (Durkin, 1985). Moreover, the concepts of females and males are changing from time to time as well as across cultures and the boundary are obscure (Basow, 1980). Take
consideration of the ration of the depiction of male and female characters, they are different across cultures. Chu and Mclntyre (1995) analyzed 31 international television cartoons with 277
animated characters and concluded that the ratio of the depiction of male figures in western countries like the U.S. and Great Britain was higher than the one in Japan animated films. Contrast to western animated films, Japanese animated films have a higher representation of the female figures with a ratio of 2:1. While the U.S. and Great Britain’s depiction of male figures outnumbered the female ones with the ratio of 4.8:1. So the depiction of the characters are showing different percentage across culture, with western films of higher ratio of exhibition of male figures and eastern films with a higher representation of female figures.
Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli
Walt Disney animated films is investigated with gender stereotyped depiction (England et al, 2011). Wiserma (2001) revealed the female figures performed more domestic work than the male figures. One of the most famous portrayals by Disney is the “princess”, which is believed by the parents to be ‘safe’ for their children to watch (Sarah, Jennifer, Eric, & David, 2016). The princess figures convey feminine behavior in the films and may contribute to the gender
stereotyped “girly girl” trend (Orenstein, 2011). Perceiving oneself as a “princess” may result in giving up more easily on a challenging task, having low intention to work, and focusing more on superficial qualities (Dinella, 2017). The female portrayals in Walt Disney films released after 2003 were believed to be more egalitarian compared to the previous movies (Davis, 2006; England et al, 2011). On the other hand, Ghibli’s films tend to show the phenomenon that the portrayal of the female characters is believed to deviate from gender stereotypes appearing with gaining courage, self-respect, strong determination, and judgement (Iles, 2005; Le Blanc & Odell, 2019), which contradicts with what we expect from the collectivist cultures.
Walt Disney animated films are recognized as a manifestation of the values and cultures of America (Schaffer, 1996), While the Studio Ghibli embedded itself deeply into Japanese
culture and history (Napier, 2016). The interconnected human, creatures and the environment is always emphasized in the animated films of Studio Ghibli, which stays rare in Walt Disney films (Chow, 2012; Stibbe, 2012).
The Present Study
As stated before, a series of theories indicate that the gender role portrayal in animated films play an important role on shaping children’s conceptualization of gender (Graves 1999; Martin, Diane, & Joel, 2002). Collectivistic cultures tend to demonstrate greater gender
inequality compared to individualistic cultures (Cuddy et al, 2015). However, the Studio Ghibli’s animated films are perceived with less portrayal of gender stereotypes under the Collectivism culture (Le Blanc & Odell, 2019) and the Walt Disney’s animated films, on the other hand, appear more masculine characteristics for male figures and with more feminine characteristics for female figures under Individualism culture (England et al, 2011). Considering the world wide popularity and different culture context of Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli, it is worthwhile to investigate the representation of the gender role in the animated films produced by these two film companies. There is research on the children advertisements across culture (Furnham & Mak, 1999), while no research focus on comparing the content of the gender role portrayal across western and eastern culture on the children’s animated films. In order to compare the gender role portrayals in Walt Disney animated films and Studio Ghibli animated films, the first hypothesis was formulated:
H1: The depiction of the traditional masculine and feminine characteristics would have equal number for both female figures and male figures in Studio Ghibli animated films, while the ones in Walt Disney animated films are not equal.
The scenes that one character is saved by another character from a situation of danger or harm are coded as the rescuing scenes. The one who offers the saving behavior will be coded
with rescue other characters, the one who received the saving behavior will be code “being rescued by other characters”. In the themes of heroism and love, rescuing behavior is a potential source of the gender content (England et al, 2011; Hine, 2018). England et al (2011) revealed that though the rescuing behavior of the princesses in Disney animated films from the 1990s are increasing with the support by the princes than the ones before the 1990s, the princes still lead most climactic rescues. Hine et al (2019) found the same level demonstration of the rescue behavior in princess and prince characters in “2000s to the 2010s” Disney films than earlier ones. In Studio Ghibli, the rescue behavior is also normal to observe (e.g., rescue a princess in The Castle of Cagliostro; Conan tries to rescue Lana in Laputa: Castle in the Sky) and the females and males figures repeatedly save each other (Iles, 2005). As former studies generate different conclusion, we would compare the recue behavior in Walt Disney animated films and Studio Ghibli animated films in this study. The second hypotheses are formulated as follows:
H2a: The male figures in Walt Disney animated films perform more rescues than the male figures in Studio Ghibli animated films.
H2b: The female figures in Walt Disney animated films are rescued more often than the female figures in Studio Ghibli animated films.
DiPirro (2007, p. 19) demonstrated that in the Disney Princess animated films, “a consistent happily-ever-after image of love accompanied by traditional examples of courtship illustrate that romantic love is the most important aspect of female existence.” The romantic narratives and the messages given to the children about romantic relationships in Disney animated films is debated by researchers of its unrealistic nature and rewarded romantic ideals (Hefner, Firchau, Norton, & Shevel, 2017; Garlen & Sandlin, 2017). A recent research by Hine et al (2019) concluded the Disney princess characters from 2000s to 2010s are less likely to be
married or live happily ever after in the end of the film than the princesses in “1930s to 1950s” or “1980s to 1990s” who are more committed to end up married or live happily ever after. On the other hand, the Ghibli films romantic conclusion appears without romantic ideals. Some films like Howl’s Moving Castle demonstrate romantic relationships between the main male character and female characters, while the main characters San and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke end up in separate worlds. Another example is the absence of romantic relationships in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. In order to understand the narrative of the romantic conclusion in Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli, the third hypothesis was formulated:
H3: The romantic conclusion in Studio Ghibli animated films include less situations of being married or living happily ever after than the one in Walt Disney films.
Methods
A content-analysis of a representative sample of the Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli over the years from 1980s to 2019 was conducted. The earliest released Ghibli animated films was in 1979 prior to the establishment of the Studio Ghibli. While Walt Disney started the animation cartoons from 1937. Thus to be comparable, animated films from Disney released after the year of 1980 and 10 films from Studio Ghibli released after the year of 1980 were selected (see Table 1 ). To be included, the films had to meet the following criteria: (a) are more than 60 minutes in length, (b) had at least one main female or male figure, and (c) achieved more than & $20 million in box office worldwide. Other parameters were considered of the age rating at least PG-13 according to the U.S. standard and the film rating from film rating websites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes to maintain the popularity of the selected films. All the animated films would be divided into 20 minutes sessions. To make it comparable, 9 films from Studio Ghibli and 10 films from Walt Disney were chosen and also two random sessions from the animated films The
Wind Rises were cut off to enable each company had 45 sessions in total. The main female and male figures would be coded no matter they are human, animal, or other forms like robots. TABLE 1
Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli animated films
Walt Disney animated films Studio Ghibli animated films
NO. Name Year Name Year
1 The Little Mermaid 1989 Castle in the Sky 1986
2 Beauty and the Beast 1991 My Neighbor Totoro 1988
3 Aladdin 1992 Grave of the Fireflies 1988
4 The lion King 1994 Porco Rosso 1992
5 Mulan 1998 Princess Mononoke 1997
6 The Princess and the Frog 2009 Spirited Away 2001
7 Frozen 2013 Howl’s Moving Castle 2004
8 Zootopia 2016 The tale of the Princess
Kaguya
2013
9 Moana 2016 The Wind Rises 2013
10 Ralph Breaks the Internet 2018
Characters would be first coded as human, animal, or others (e.g. toy). Gender coded as male or female of the main figures in the films will be collected to offer an overall understanding of the gender ratio of all the sample films. Female and male gender was based on the physical characteristics for human figures. While the animal and other characters would be coded based on the voice, name and other related information.
Gender stereotype would be coded as masculine and feminine characteristics based on prior content analysis research (see England et al. 2011 for full review; Thompson & Zerbinos, 1995). Masculine and feminine would be coded with the characteristics in Table 2. To drive the study more practical and comparable, not all the characteristics were adopted from the study of England et al. Some similar characteristics like “physically strong” and “athlete” were merged into one characteristic. Characteristics like “helpful”, which is ambiguous when categorized into traditional masculine or feminine traits was deleted. Other standards are based on the frequencies from the former studies. Characteristics has low appearance frequencies like “collapses crying”,
“described as pretty” were also excluded from the codebook. The rescue was coded when the rescue behavior was conducted by the characters and the number of rescue and being rescued behaviors would be recorded. Furthermore, the romantic conclusion at the end of the film would be coded for marriage or suggestion of happily together ever after and for single or without romantic relationship conclusion.
TABLE 2
Masculine and Feminine coding characteristic
Masculine behaviors Feminine behaviors
Wants to explore Physically weak
Physically strong Submissive
Unemotional Shows emotion
Independent Nurturing
Engaging in intellectual activity Sensitive
Inspires fear Tentative
Brave Fearful
Leader Asks for or accepts advice or help
Results Overall Masculine and Feminine Behavior Depiction
To investigate the depiction of the masculine and feminine characteristics in general within the two animated companies as well as the difference between the two animated companies, a Two-Way mixed repeated measures ANOVA test was processed. Trait of the behavior (masculine behaviors and feminine behaviors) and gender characters (female and male) created four within groups and company ( Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli) served as one between subjects variable. There was a significant main effect of the traits on the number of the observed behaviors (F(1, 88) = 29.31, p < .001, η2 = .25), with the number of the depiction of masculine behavior (M = 3.20, SD = 1.95) more than the number of feminine behavior (M = 2.33, SD = 1.73). The gender had a significant main difference (F(1, 88) = 13.41, p < .001, η2 = .13).
Females (M = 3.11, SD = 1.76) had a higher mean than males (M = 2.42, SD = 1.79). There was also a significant interaction between trait and gender in terms of the number of the behaviors (F(1, 88) = 18.09, p < .001, η2 = .17). Descriptive statistics showed that the depiction of the feminine traits generates a larger difference between males (M = 1.68, SD = 1.57) and females (M = 2.98, SD = 1.65 ), while the number of masculine traits was less different between males (M = 3.16, SD = 2.02 ) and females (M = 3.26, SD = 1.88). When we looked into the interaction effect of gender and traits, only the males were presented with significantly (F(1, 88) = 55.01, p < .001, η2
= .39) more masculine behaviors (M = 3.16, SD = 2.02 ) than the feminine behaviors (M = 1.68, SD = 1.57 ). Female figures were displayed more androgynous, while the male figures were portrayed more stereotyped with traditional masculine behaviors.
Masculine and Feminine Behaviors Depiction for each Characteristics
In Walt Disney animated films, across 10 movies and 45 sections in total, the female characters displayed 172 traditional masculine characteristics, 49.85% of the total characteristics, and the male characters displayed 152 masculine characteristics, or 57.36% of their total coding characteristics (see Table 1). While in Studio Ghibli animated films, across 9 movies and 45 sections in total, the female characters displayed 132 traditional masculine characteristics, 44.00% of the total characteristics, and the male characters displayed 141 masculine characteristics, which was 60.26% of the total characteristics (see Table 1).
Table 3
Coded characteristics for the male and female characters in the Disney and Ghibli animated films
Female Male
Masc. Fem. Total Masc. Fem. Total
Walt Disney 172 (49.85%) 175 （50.43%） 347 152 （57.36%） 113 （42.64%） 265 Studio Ghibli 132 （44.00%） 168 （56.00%） 300 141 （60.26%） 93 （39.74%） 234
To further examine the differences of the gender characteristics portrayal by the male and female characters, independent t-tests were conducted for each characters between female and male characters. To make it comparable, the percentage of one character of the total behavior was used. The numbers and percentage of the total behavior of the two companies were listed in the Table 2. For the characteristics in Studio Ghibli films, there was a significant difference between the male and female on the behavior of: show emotion, t(88) = 3.62, p < .001, leader, t(88) = -2.97, p= .004, sensitive, t(88) = 2.14, p = .035, wants to explore, t(88) = 2.02, p = .047, ask for advice or help, t(88) = 2.37, p = .020, fearful, t(88) = 4.87, p < .001, submissive, t(88) = 3.55, p = .001. Among them the shows emotion, sensitive, ask for advice or help, fearful all belonged to feminine characters, and the characteristics of wants to explore and leader belonged to masculine behavior. While for the characteristics in Walt Disney films, there was statistically significant difference between the male and female characters on the portray of shows emotion t(88) = 2.24, p = .028, independent, t(88) = 3.46, p= .001, fearful, t(88) = 2.60, p = .011, unemotional, t(88) = -2.07, p = .044, nurturing, t(88) = 2.04, p = .046. The characteristics of shows emotion, fearful,
Table 4
Characteristics portrayed by male and female figures in the Studio Ghibli films and Walt Disney films
Studio Ghibli Walt Disney
Male Figures N % Total
Behavior Female Figures N
% Total
Behavior Male Figures N
% Total
Behavior Female Figures N
% Total Behavior Physically strong 28 11.97% Shows
emotion* 34 11.33% Physically strong 34 12.83% Shows emotion* 38 10.95%
Independent 25 10.68% Independent 31 10.33% Brave 29 10.94% Independent* 37 10.66%
Brave 24 10.26% Brave 26 8.67% Wants to explore 24 9.06% Brave 36 10.37%
Shows emotion* 20 8.55% Sensitive* 26 8.67% Shows emotion* 24 9.06% Fearful* 31 8.93%
Nurturing 20 8.55% Physically
strong 23 7.67% Independent* 23 8.68% Physically strong 28 8.07%
Intellectual
activity 20 8.55% Fearful* 23 7.67% Fearful* 17 6.42% Wants to explore 25 7.20%
Leader* 18 7.69% Wants to
explore* 20 6.67% Asks for help 17 6.42% Asks for help 25 7.20%
Sensitive* 16 6.84% Intellectual
activity 20 6.67% Rescue others 17 6.42%
Intellectual
activity 22 6.34%
Rescue others 14 5.98% Asks for help* 18 6.00% Intellectual
activity 16 6.04% Sensitive 22 6.34%
Wants to
explore* 13 5.56% Nurturing 15 5.00% Being rescued 14 5.28% Rescue others 16 4.61%
Unemotional 8 3.42% Being rescued 14 4.67% Leader 13 4.91% Being rescued 16 4.61%
Asks for help* 8 3.42% Rescue others 13 4.33% Sensitive 12 4.53% Leader 13 3.75%
Being rescued 6 2.56% Submissive* 10 3.33% Inspires fear 9 3.40% Inspires fear 11 3.17%
Inspires fear 5 2.14% Physically
weak 9 3.00% Physically weak 6 2.26% Nurturing* 9 2.59%
Physically weak 4 1.71% Leader* 6 2.00% Unemotional* 4 1.51% Tentative 9 2.59%
Fearful* 4 1.71% Tentative 6 2.00% Tentative 3 1.13% Physically weak 6 1.73%
Tentative 1 0.43% Unemotional 5 1.67% Nurturing* 2 0.75% Submissive 3 0.86%
Submissive* 0 0.00% Inspires fear 1 0.33% Submissive 1 0.38% Unemotional* 0 0.00%
and nurturing belong to the feminine characteristics, while independent and unemotional belonged to the masculine characteristics.
Differences in Gender Depiction Between Ghibli and Disney
Based on the Two-Way mixed repeated measures ANOVA test, company ( Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli) served as one between subjects variable. For the between groups comparison, the two companies had no statistically significant main effect as far as how they would affect the number of the characteristics, with similar average number of the depiction of the traits for Studio Ghibli (M = 2.66, SD = 1.96 ) and Walt Disney (M = 2.88, SD = 1.70 ). However, the interaction effect of trait, gender and the studio on the number of the behaviors showed a
significant result (F(1, 88) = 4.19, p = .044, η2 = .05). Pairwise comparisons showed that only the masculine behaviors on female figures had a statistically significant difference between the two companies (F(1, 88) = 4.46, p = .037, η2 = .05), with Walt Disney ( M = 3.67, SD = 1.79) exhibited higher score than Studio Ghibli ( M = 2.84, SD = 2.07). Other kinds of traits and gender combination stayed insignificant different between the two companies. For Studio Ghibli, the portrayal of masculine behaviors (M = 3.07, SD = 2.13) is more common than the portrayal of feminine behaviors (M = 1.58, SD = 1.54) for males, while for females, the results is opposite, the number of the portray of feminine behaviors (M = 3.13, SD = 1.83) is higher than the ones of masculine behaviors (M = 2.84, SD = 2.03). However, in Walt Disney, the male figures
generated a higher number of depiction of the masculine (M = 3.24, SD = 1.92) than feminine behaviors (M = 1.78, SD = 1.61 ) as well as the female figures (M = 3.67, SD = 1.64, M = 2.82, SD = 1.45).
Two paired sample t-tests were processed to evaluate the difference of the percentage of masculine behavior shown by all females and males in Studio Ghibli animated films. The
masculine behavior percentage and the feminine percentage were significantly different,
suggesting that the portray of the masculine behavior (57.9%) in Studio Ghibli was significantly higher than the portray of feminine behavior (42.1%), t(80) = 2.66, p = .010. For Disney
animated films, two paired sample t-tests showed that the percentage of the portray of the masculine behavior (61.7%) was also statistically significantly higher than the one of feminine behavior (38.4%), t(80) = 5.03, p < .001. The hypothesis 1 stated that both female and male figures in Studio Ghibli animated films generated an equal number of portray of the traditional masculine and feminine characteristics, while the ones in Walt Disney animated films are not equal. The results showed that both of the two companies generated unequal number of portray of the masculine and feminine characteristics, which rejected the hypothesis 1.
To further investigate the difference between the two companies, 4 independent sample T-test were conducted. The dependent variables are the four layers and the independent variable is the companies with two groups. Results showed that there was no significant difference on the portray of the feminine behaviors for the female figures, but the females in Disney (M = 3.67, SD = 1.64) generated significant more masculine behaviors than the females in Ghibli (M = 2.84, SD = 2.03), t (88) = -2.11, p = .037. On the other hand, for the male figures in both companies, there is no significant difference in the portray of masculine behavior or feminine behavior.
Rescue Behaviors
Independent sample t-tests were conducted to examine the difference between the rescue behavior and being rescued behavior between female figures and male figures in both Disney and Ghibli films. The results demonstrated that there is no significant different between the rescue behavior and the being rescued behavior. Paired sample t-tests were used to study the difference in Walt Disney, the results showed that no statistically significant different among
males and females. However for Studio Ghibli, the being rescued behaviors displayed significant difference between males and females. The females figures (M = 0.31, SD = 0.47) in Studio Ghibli performed more being rescued by others than male figures (M = 0.13, SD = 0.34), , t (44) = -2.43, p = .019.
Comparing the same gender figures about the rescue and being rescued behaviors through Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli, the results showed no statistically significant difference of the male figures of rescue behaviors portray from Disney(M = 0.38, SD = 0.49) and Ghibli (M = 0.31, SD = 0.47), and the female figures of being rescued behaviors from Disney (M = 0.31, SD = 0.47) and Ghibli (M = 0.31, SD = 0.47). The results showed no significant difference of the behavior that male figures rescue others and female being rescued by others. So the hypothesis 2 are both rejected. However, the results showed that the being rescued behaviors are significant different among male figures between the two companies (F(1, 88) = 4.21, p = .043, η2 = .05). Studio Ghibli (M = 0.13, SD = 0.34) displayed less being rescued behaviors for males compared with males from Walt Disney (M = 0.31, SD = 0.47). For female figures, Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney had no significant difference on the depiction of rescue behaviors and being rescued behaviors, while for the males, Studio Ghibli tended to exhibited less depiction of being rescued for male figures.
Table 5
Rescue behaviors and Being rescued behaviors
Rescue Being Rescued
Walt Disney Studio Ghibli Total Walt Disney Studio Ghibli Total
Female 14 13 27 14 14 28
Romantic Conclusion
There were 4 films out of 9 (44.44%) total Ghibli movies demonstrated romantic conclusion for both the female and male main figures, which were Castle in the Sky, Howl’s Moving Castle, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, and The Wind Rises. In contrast, in the selected 10 Disney films, Elsa from Frozen and Vanellope and Ralph from Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Nick and Judy from Zootopia did not show romantic conclusion, the other main figures (70%) in the Disney movie were all end up with romantic relationship. The results showed that there are 8 times (17.78%) of romantic conclusion from Studio Ghibli animated movie and 13 times (28.89) of romantic conclusion in Walt Disney movies.
Discussion
Several conclusions may be draw from this study. In general, the female figures exhibited more egalitarian content of masculine and feminine behaviors, while the male figures were portrayed as more gender stereotyped. The masculine behaviors are displayed more frequently than feminine behaviors both for male figures and female figures. While the portrayal of masculine and feminine behaviors demonstrated gender disparity. The female figures showed more balanced masculine and feminine behaviors, while in contrast the male figures were more stereotypical with more masculine behaviors than feminine behaviors. This results supported the findings that gender balanced content appeared more and more on the popular media such as Disney (Dunsmore, 2017; Machado, 2016) and the changing depiction generated more freedom for women and girls in Western society (Marsh, 2016)
When we deeply compared the two companies, most of the characteristics were in line with the traditional masculine behaviors prominent for male figures and vice versa. Only the characteristics of “wants to explore” and “independent”, which are believed as traditional
masculine behaviors were prominent for female figures. To be specific, the two traditional feminine characteristics “shows emotion” and “fearful” were both significantly different between the male figures and female figures in the two companies. The female figures generated more of these two feminine behaviors than males. For Studio Ghibli, behavior of “being a leader” was more prominent for males and “being sensitive”, “asking for help” and “wanting to explore” were more prominent for females. On the other hand, for Walt Disney, “unemotional” displayed more on males, “nurturing” and “independent” characteristics displayed more on females. Apart from these characteristics, most of the characteristics remained statistically the same. From the statistics, we can infer the overall depiction of gender is egalitarian, which were consistent with the findings that women are expected to incorporate with masculine traits such as assertiveness when remaining feminine traits (Coltrane, 2004). While for the males, they displayed a higher frequencies of both feminine and masculine behaviors (England and Melissa, 2011).
For both Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney, the number of masculine behaviors were higher than the number of the feminine behaviors, which rejected Hypothesis 1. When we took into account of gender, the two companies revealed different outcomes. For Studio Ghibli, male figures displayed more masculine behaviors than feminine behaviors, while for females, the results was opposite, the number of feminine behaviors were higher than masculine behaviors. This indicated a stereotyped portrayal of the characteristics in Studio Ghibli. However, in Walt Disney, the male figures displayed a higher number of masculine behaviors than feminine
behaviors while the female figures displayed more masculine behaviors than feminine behaviors. Males were still portrayed as more masculine, but the females were portrayed differently in Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney animated films. Studio Ghibli’s females were more stereotyped, while the Walt Disney’s females were more masculine which was in the opposite of feminine
portrayal. This findings were the affirm the fact that the gender portrayals of the female figures in Walt Disney films released after 2003 were detected to be more egalitarian compared to the previous years’ movies (Davis, 2006; England et al, 2011). However, the findings rejected the results that the Ghibli’s films were believed that the gender portrayal of the females appeared with gaining courage, self-respect, strong determination, and judgement, which differentiates from the traditional gender stereotypes (Iles, 2005; Le Blanc & Odell, 2019)
When we took into consideration of cultural difference, the results from this study confirm the cultural theory. Studio Ghibli’s films are exposed to more gender stereotyped content, which coincided with the findings that the commercial gender role portrayal of eastern countries (e.g. Japan, Indonesia) were more stereotyped than western countries (e.g. the United States, Britain, Italy) because of they enjoyed a collectivist cultures (Bretl & Cantor, 1988; Furnham & Voli, 1989; Furnham & Imadzu, 2002). On the other hand, individualist cultures tended to exhibit more egalitarian gender roles between males and females than collectivism cultures (Bretl and Cantor, 1988; Furnham and Voli, 1989; Cuddy et al, 2015), which was the same from the findings of Walt Disney’s animated films.
The rescue behaviors and being rescued behaviors for female figures stayed the same for Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli. For the males, both of the companies demonstrated same number of rescuing others. Only for “being rescued” for male figures, Studio Ghibli held higher
numbers. This suggested that Studio Ghibli’s male figures were portrayed more stereotyped. As for the romantic resolutions, Walt Disney animated films are more willing to display romantic conclusion than Studio Ghibli animated films.
One limitation of our study was that we only included 8 masculine and 8 feminine
also contribute to the results and missing them might caused limited results. Further studies could code more masculine and feminine characteristics to reach more objective results. Another limitation referred to the selection of the films. Though we considered the year and tried to create a balance on the selection of Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli films, we were still left out some important movies like Frozen 2. Improvement could drove to include more samples of the movies. Furthermore, this study only includes the main characters of the movies and did not consider other characters which were many. What’s more, other gendered elements like customs, occupation, hobbies and so on could also reflect the gendered portrayal, which could be included for further study. Another improvement for the further study could be more focus on the male figures. Most of former studies focused more on the traditional female stereotypes than the male stereotypes (England and Melissa, 2011), while the study showed the males are more different between the two companies.
All in all, this content analysis study showed how gender was portrayed in the animated films from two different companies. The depiction of masculine and feminine characteristics were different through the two companies. Studio Ghibli animated films were more gender stereotyped with males displayed with more masculine behaviors and females displayed with more feminine. The Walt Disney animated films had more equal numbers of the masculine and feminine behaviors. Furthermore, the Studio Ghibli were more stereotyped when we counted the numbers of the being rescued behaviors for male figures. Walt Disney were more likely to offer romantic conclusion to the figures while Studio Ghibli were more for the open ending for the romantic relationship.
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Appendix
CODEBOOK Unit of Analysis:
The movies will be divided in five sections. Describe the turn from one unit of analysis to the other and mention the timing.
Movie Number:
Each section will have a unique identifying number. (e.g. 3B stands for the second session for the movie which number is 3)
CATEGORIES A.Demographics A01 Coder 1. Gaspar 2. Yu A02 Species
Other species are defined as the character that cannot be categorized as human or animal (e.g. Olaf and Snogies from Frozen)
1. Human 2. Animal 3. Others A03 Gender
Female and male gender is based on the physical characteristics of human figures. While the animal and other characters will be coded based on the voice, name and what subjective pronounce (e.g.he, him, she, her) other characters will use.
0. Male 1. Female
B. Gender Stereotypes
Every time when the figure appears the following kind of characteristic behavior or is mentioned by others of performing one of the behavior, the codes will be coded. When a new kind of behavior exhibits, this coding process is over with a new count of the new behavior. In addition,
the same behavior exhibits in the previous scenes will be coded again when it appears. 0 will be coded if there is no such characteristic, and 1 will be coded if the characteristic presents.
B01 Masculine characteristics B01.1 Wants to explore
To investigate, study, or look into the unknown for adventure or discovery. This could be coded as present, for example, when the character wants to leave the place that is familiar and explore the unknown places.
B01.2 Physically strong
When the characters exhibit or show the ability to exert bodily or muscular power on the person or object, like moving or hitting something. Also, a jump, kick or running that can be treated as the ability of an athlete is also coded as present.
B01.3 Unemotional
The character reveals or shows a minimum of emotion in front of pleasure or pain. Not easy to be touched or involved with emotions in some situations such as losing someone close to the character.
B01.4 Independent
Exhibiting the behavior or expression that the character is not subject to other authority or jurisdiction, but free and self-governing. The character is not influenced by the thought or opinion from the expected culture, thinking or acting for oneself.
B01.5 Engaging in intellectual activity
Obvious behavior or word expression that shows the character is engaging in thinking, reading, and acquiring knowledge. E.g.1 the character is reading a book will be coded as present. E.g.2 the character is sharing wisdom words or basic rules of life will be coded as present.
B01.6 Inspires fear
Causing others to have a distressing emotion because the character is impending danger, violence, aggression, or pain on others.
B01.7 Brave
Showing no fear, courage, mental strength in front of a dangerous or difficult situation, especially involved in the rescue situation. There must be an obvious behavior of showing courage instead of a general description of the character.
B01.8 Leader
Exhibiting the expression or behavior of directing, making decisions, or commanding authority for a group of people. When the character is giving orders to the servant or pets, the behavior will not be coded.
B02.1 Physically weak
When the character exhibits the bodily or muscular weakness to finish some tasks (e.g.lifting or moving). This behavior is always related to the moment the character needs to be rescued.
B02.3 Submissive
The character allows being controlled to agree on other’s opinions or obeying to power or authority. This trait is usually the responsibility of assertive behavior.
B02.4 Shows emotion
The character shows strong feelings such as happy, anger, sadness, exciting, surprise, fear and etc. When the character is showing face with tears will not be coded in this scenario.
B02.6 Nurturing
The actual behavior of taking care of humans or animals or showing the physical behavior of protection. Nurturing is the prolonged caring or helping behavior and shown as mothering. (e.g. the caring behavior of Seita Yokokawa in Grave of the Fireflies)
B02.7 Sensitive
The code is a sense of empathy, showing the ability that the character is able to understand other animals’ or human’s issues such as feelings or problems. (e.g. Arriety came to Sho when she found her mother was missing. Sho immidietaly understood what Arriety was facing and offered help. The understanding behavior can be coded as sensitive)
B02.8 Tentative
Uncertainty or unconfident word expression or behavior, showing the cautious with experimental manner.
B02.11 Fearful
An expression of the emotion that arose from fear. This reaction could be caused by dead, danger, risk, evil and etc.
B02.15 Asks for or accepts advice or help
The character asks with obvious words expression or gesture for help or assistance and is willing to accept any kind of help, which could be physical, mental, or emotional. The action that directs help but not asked initiative by the character should not be coded as present.
C. Rescue behavior
The scenes that one character is saved by another character from a situation of danger or harm are coded as the rescuing scenes. The one who offers the saving behavior will be coded with rescue other characters, the one who received the saving behavior will be code “Being rescued by other characters”. One rescue behavior will be coded once and if the screen changed and the same character is saved again, it will be coded again.
0 – Not Present 1 – Present
C01 Rescue other characters
C02 Being rescued by other characters D. Romantic Conclusion
d01 Romantic conclusion
This will only be coded at the end of the movie.
0 single or without romantic relationship conclusion 1 Marriage or suggestion of happily together ever after
