How Far Will She Go? Female Unruliness in the Representation of Disney’s Adult Women

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How Far Will She Go?

Female Unruliness in the Representation of Disney’s Adult

Women

29th June 2018

Jeanne Viet

MA Film Studies

University of Amsterdam

Dr. E. Laeven

Dr. T. Laine

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Abstract

With this thesis, I will analyse the older female characters of various Disney films and their relationship with the heroine of the story. These women are the archetypal mothers and grandmothers, or they fulfil similar roles in absence of the real family members, which is often the case. A frequent statement within the academic field is that mothers are usually nonexistent both within our media culture, as within Disney films (Haas 195; Tanner et al. 366; Rowe 2011, 9). If a mother does make an appearance, she is often depicted in a very one-dimensional way. The same goes for older women, who are usually expected to disappear (Rowe 2011, 11). But not in Disney films. I will show that the older women of Disney refuse to disappear, and structurally display unruly behaviour as described by Rowe (1995; 2011; 2017). These women can convey certain values or preferred behaviours, by mirroring these to the female protagonist. They encourage her to walk a specific path, which is made possible by their strong, unruly personalities. The research will be conducted with the aid of character analysis and ideological analysis, which will provide the tools for creating elaborate character constellations and extracting from them the dominant value systems and ideological messages that are communicated to the audience.

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Introduction

I like to dance with the water, the undertow and the waves. The water is mischievous, ha! I like how it misbehaves. The village may think I’m crazy, or say that I drift too far. But once you know what you like, well, there you are. You are your fathers daughter, stubbornness and pride. Mind what he says but remember, you may hear a voice inside. And if the voice starts to whisper, to follow the furthest star, Moana that voice inside is who you are.

- Moana’s grandmother in Moana (2016) Disney films pass from parent to child, introducing to each generation a certain set of implicit values, beliefs, and attitudes (Robinson et al. 204). I have also grown up with Disney films, from watching them as a toddler up to still watching them regularly as an adult, not yet tired of its nostalgic images and sounds that can still comfort and inspire me as a 22-year old. From my own memories, I can recognize the idea of Disney creating expectations about life and its course, and creating ideas of what is expected of you as you grow up. The enormity of Disney’s power within our media culture is striking, and therefore the influence that their films can have on the worldview of children is undisputed among scholars (Brode 6; Giroux 45; Zipes 1995, 21; Bell et al. 6; Tanner et al. 355-356; Robinson et al. 204). This seems relevant especially since there are so many developments to be seen, particularly in relation to the more recent Disney films, concerning the position, representation and function of older female characters. The representation of these often academically unnoticed characters will be the focus of my thesis.

Within the existing academic research of Disney films, there has been a focus on the representations of gender, with special attention paid to the representation of the heroines of Disney. Disney does not lack female protagonists in their filmography, neither is there a lack of research on these characters. But there are more female characters who play significant parts within Disney stories, who haven’t received much scholarly attention. A frequent statement within the academic field is that mothers are usually nonexistent both within our media culture, as within Disney films (Haas 195; Tanner et al. 366; Rowe 2011, 9). They are either nonexistent or depicted in a very one-dimensional way. This is mostly correct, as I will also show within this thesis, but this does not include all the other different ‘types’ of female characters represented within Disney films, who are often forgotten. For example, Robinson et al. argue how there is barely any research on how older people are presented to children in Disney films (203). Even though these older female characters usually have an important function to fulfil in relation to the progression of the story, since they encourage the heroine to reach her goal and reflect confidence and faith in her actions. Besides, the way these

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older female characters are portrayed may have a strong influence on the ideas that children develop about the world around them, and about similar relations in their lives (Robinson et al. 203; Tanner et al. 355-356). Robinson et al. even sustain that by the time children reach elementary school, they have already developed negative views of older adults (203). Like scholars Shohat and Stam assert, even though films are only representations doesn’t mean they don’t have real effects in the real world (178). They acknowledge the inevitability and the inescapability of representation within media, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is at stake. This points for example to the argument that television shows and films for children are supposedly “innocent” and shouldn’t be scrutinized so critically, but after all they do affect the worldview of these young viewers (Giroux 1995; Robinson et al. 203; Tanner et al. 355-356). The importance of research on these representations within our media culture lies according to Shohat and Stam not so much in the fidelity to a pre-existing truth or reality, but in the specific orchestration of ideological discourses and communication perspectives (180). It is about how discourse is employed and used to communicate a certain message.

Therefore, Disney films can have a strong influence on the way they represent these groups of archetypes, such as the mothers or the grandmothers.

I will analyse these older female archetypes that haven’t received the attention that they deserve. Because even though the real mothers of the female protagonists might be lacking, there are other women, possible mother figures, to take their place. Within this thesis I will look at these characters and the different archetypes they represent, and I will pay attention to the functions they have in relation to the heroine of the story and I will look into the different value systems that they promote. But most of all, I will show how these older women refuse to become invisible. I will achieve this by addressing Rowe’s theory of female unruliness, and by applying it to a selection of older female characters from the most well-known, female-fronted Disney films. Even though Rowe confirms that women are often represented in a very one-dimensional way in our visual media, or simply expected to disappear as much as possible, the older women of Disney often show signs of rebellion against these rigid gender-related expectations (2011, 2017). They do this by expressing different forms of unruly behaviour, which I will show can consistently be seen through time, even in the slightest forms, while each socio-historical period also highlights different unruly characterizations.

The corpus will exist of the feature-length Disney films with leading ladies, who have a meaningful relationship with a (grand)mother figure in their story. These films will be from different moments throughout Disney’s history, therefore also providing a historical

comparison of the film’s stories and characters. According to England et al., these films can be categorized into three groups relating to their date of release (555-556). The group of earliest Disney princess films were released between 1939 and 1959. The group that

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England et al. describe as the ‘middle’ Disney princess films came out between 1989 and 1998. The newest films are the ones from 2009 and onwards, starting with The Princess and

the Frog (2009) up to Moana (2016). There is one Disney-Pixar film that is an interesting

exception to most of the arguments considering the erasure of the mother or her one-sided representation in Disney films, which is Brave (2012). I will not go into this myself, because of a practical lack of space and because there already are very accurate analyses of this film. For example, Dominguez describes this film as an alternative hero model, not limiting the heroines to sexual or mothering confinements (50). Besides this, the scope of this research is still quite broad, since I will be analysing specific characters and characterizations that can be seen in almost all Disney films with female protagonists, providing a elaborate reading of all these objects throughout Disney’s history. The methods I will use during my research will consist of character analysis and ideological analysis. For my character analysis I will rely on Eder’s article “Understanding Characters” (2010), and I will discuss the ideological

implications mainly through the works of Rowe (1995; 2011; 1017), White (1993) and Bell (1995), among others. These methods will provide the tools for creating elaborate character constellations and extracting from them the dominant value systems and ideological

messages that are communicated to the audience.

The chosen corpus of female Disney characters will be roughly divided into two main groups: one of middle-aged women or mother figures, and one of elderly women or

grandmother figures. This division will also structure the thesis, but within these two groups some nuance will be applied. This division is based on the work of feminist scholar Bell, who made an attempt at categorizing the different ways in which the female characters of Disney were structurally portrayed (1995). Though her theory is still relevant, it does seem

somewhat outdated and needs some nuance. For example, she categorizes the middle-aged women of Disney as evil femme fatales, which I would argue is not entirely accurate (any more). There are some representations of middle-aged mothers who don’t have an identity of their own, and who are not femme fatales. I would also argue that some of them are not so much femme fatale but more unruly woman (Rowe 1995; 2011; 2017). Bell’s division between the different representations of female characters is still very well argued and practical in use, and therefore serves as a basis for my own argumentation.

Taking all of this in consideration, the question that my thesis focuses on will be: which value systems are represented through the unruly women of Disney and their relationship with the female protagonist? I will address the different parts of this question throughout my thesis, starting with explaining the main academic concepts in my theoretical framework which are the first two chapters. Here I will start with a short recapitulation of the history of feminism and postfeminism in order to provide some context for the rest of my thesis. I will also

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elaborate on the theory of female unruliness and the ways in which it manifests itself and how it has developed through the years. After that, I will discuss the genre of the Disney fairy tale, defining Disney and tracing its history. Then I will focus on the academic history of the archetype, and trace its definition. The use of the term archetype seems necessary and logical when considering its inextricable relationship with the fairy tale, and since the mother and grandmother figures I will be analysing are classical archetypes themselves. I shall also address the different archetypes that Bell describes within her work and how they can be of use for my own theory. Then I will discuss the different possible functions of the Disney archetypes. Chapter three and four will consist of an elaborate analysis based on the division I described earlier. In the third chapter I will address the middle-aged female characters, considering the expression of unruliness and their function in relation to the heroine. The fourth chapter will be about the elderly female characters of Disney. After that, the only thing left is a conclusion, bringing all the elements together and also looking beyond the

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Chapter 1. The Unruly Woman

(Post)feminism and stereotyping

Through the last couple of decennia, different ideas have come and gone considering the position of women in society, and within cultural studies there is a specific focus on the way that women have been represented in media. These different feminist ideas have been defined as belonging to different waves of feminism, each providing a specific perspective on feminism, relating to their moment of emergence within history. Kennedy’s article shows how second and third wave feminism are most prominent within scholarly discussions, but she also mentions how feminism’s history should not only be understood as a succession of neatly bound waves (7-8). Genz and Brabon add to this that feminism has never really had a universally accepted agenda and meaning that could be measured. They assert that

feminism can at best be said to have a number of working definitions, saying that “it exists on both local and abstract levels, dealing with specific issues and consisting of diverse

individuals while promoting a universal politics of equality for women”, which can be seen as the overarching idea (4).

From these feminist movements emerged a group of feminists that focussed on the part that media played within the distribution of patriarchal ideas. This lead to the

development of feminist film criticism, which analysed the representation of women in film and compared this to the inequities of real-world gender roles (Gilpatric 735). In a number of these studies has been concluded that women are underrepresented within media, and if women do make an appearance, they are often portrayed in very stereotypical ways (Collins 290). Therefore the different waves of feminism created awareness of how women saw themselves, and how they wanted to see themselves represented, changing the

representation of women in, for example, films and television. Rowe illustrates how the 1990s are remembered as the decade of Girl Culture and Girl Power. According to her, “new phrases began sounding in the air and new images surfacing in the media, changing the face of popular culture in a decidedly more youthful and female direction.” She also mentions how television programming began featuring teen-girl protagonists more than ever (5). This increase in women who refused to comply with the rigid expectations of traditional femininity eventually lead to a so-called “backlash” and eventually to the development of postfeminism, reinstating some traditional values. Postfeminism signals the ‘past-ness’ of feminism

according to Genz and Brabon, which was often evoked by a younger generation of feminists that indicated that they no longer needed second wave feminism (3). It consists of the belief that feminism has achieved its goals and therefore is no longer relevant (Rowe 2017, 30;

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McRobbie 2004, 255). According to Kennedy, these prevalent postfeminist theories exert their influence through media on a new generation of young girls from the beginning of the twenty-first century (2017, 1).

This very brief recapitulation of (post)feminist history provides the necessary background information for the rest of my thesis, even though there is obviously more to it than only mentioned here. It is meant as a short historical contextualisation in order to understand the subsequent theories and analyses, but is definitely not exhaustive.

Female unruliness

The elaborate theory of the unruly woman was developed by feminist film scholar Kathleen Rowe Karlyn. She worked with this theory for the first time in her book The Unruly Woman:

Gender and the Genres of Laughter from 1995. She states that in this book, she mapped the

tradition of female unruliness and emphasized that the unruly woman is a transhistorical figure (2011, 2, 9). This idea is very closely related to my thesis, for I would also like to draw upon the idea that female unruliness, in all its different forms, can be seen throughout Disney’s history. Just as Rowe argues that female unruliness is a tradition that reaches back for millennia (2017, 19), it is also socio-historically specific. Therefore, I would like to sustain that the different forms in which the unruly woman presents herself are closely related to the socio-historic circumstances in which the film was made. Later on I will provide some

elaborate examples for this statement, arguing, for example, that the different waves of feminism have had their influence on the depictions of unruly women in different times within the media, shown in the work of scholars Kennedy and Roche (2017; 2015). But going back to Rowe’s research and definition, she explains her theory of the unruly woman through three books and some related articles. Her second book, Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers:

Redefining Feminism on Screen, focuses on the mother-daughter relationship and the

representation of motherhood in popular media (2011). She says herself that the book “takes as its starting point the ambivalence around mothers that persists in widely consumed forms of popular culture today” (4). With this she points towards her findings that mothers in popular culture are often sentimentalized, demonized, or forced to disappear, whereas unrepentant mothers refuse to do so (9). Feminist scholar Haas comes to very similar conclusions, also arguing that mothers often have no identity of their own, because representations of mothers and mother-daughter relationships are lacking in our visual culture (196). She even goes as far as calling it the “media’s repeated erasure of the mother’s place” (195). According to her, this is also the case in many Disney films, where mothers are, just as Rowe asserts, often simply absent, or represented in very stereotypical or one-dimensional ways. This often means that mothers are either ‘good’ or ‘evil’, but Haas also describes the type of the ‘silent other’, a mother who is like “a mirror that confirms the

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child’s identity without interference from hers” (196). Her contribution to a third book on this subject resulted in a chapter for Gender: Laughter, a book that is part of a series on gender studies. It is a study book, and in the second chapter Rowe revisits her theory that originated from 1995 and shows how it has matured, and how it is still relevant by giving some more recent examples.

But what is female unruliness exactly in Rowe’s terms? According to her, she “defined female unruliness as a cluster of attributes that challenge patriarchal power by defying norms of femininity intended to keep a woman in her place” (2011, 10). In her last work, she

describes how unruly behaviour is a refusal to take seriously the expectations of patriarchal society, among which are the idea that women defer to men and that they are to accept this subservient position, and that they should comply with the traditional feminine ideals (2017, 19). In her second book she also adds that this definition is implicitly feminine because it aims to destabilize patriarchal norms (2011, 11). This idea of female unruliness is not limited to a certain narrative or genre, but is an outline for several characteristics that can be applied to women off-screen as well as representations of women on-screen (2017, 28). What Rowe also emphasizes in defining the unruly woman, is that this unruliness can mean several things, which can be contradictory, but that resonates especially when women are considered excessive:

This excess is most evident in their bodies; for example, fatness in women often connotes excessive appetites, excessive willfulness, and excessive speech. But women are also perceived as excessive when they are too old, too dirty, too pregnant, too sexual (or not sexual enough) to meet the standards of normative femininity. (2017, 21)

The term of normative femininity is key here, for this is the standard to which the unruly woman positions herself, and which she rebels against. Rowe describes this by saying that an ‘ideal’ woman subordinates herself and her own desires to those of men, and that they allow men to define them and their experiences, accepting that their prime value is limited to their (hetero)sexual desirability (2017, 19). Therefore, women are most unruly when they are assertive and see themselves as acting subjects, laying claim to their own desire (2017, 21).

Following this line of thought, female agency can under the right circumstances be seen as an unruly phenomenon. Since philosophy professor Meyers defines female agency as a women’s capacity for individualized choice and action (2017), it would be considered unruly behaviour if a woman uses her agency to choose against normative femininity within a patriarchal society. That women possess the ability to make their own choices may seem self-evident, but according to Meyers it becomes problematic when prevailing cultural

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assumptions and ideas prove otherwise. She points to the existing knowledge that

institutions and practices throughout human history have subordinated women, forcing them to comply with strict feminine norms, making it difficult for them to choose otherwise,

considering the disadvantages of nonconformity. This theory shows great resemblance with Rowe’s arguments that deliberately choosing for oneself as a woman, deciding to chase one’s own desires, sometimes goes directly against societal expectations of traditional feminine ideals and can therefore be considered unruly. This is something that can be seen in the actions of some female Disney characters, as will be discussed later on in my analysis.

Rowe doesn’t limit the unruly woman only to a specific genre, but she does consider the importance of unruliness and the connection to laughter, since she says that “theories of laughter and comedy that have proven helpful in understanding unruly female laughter” (2017, 21). She asserts that there is a substantial feminist potential in comedy, for it allows more narrative room for women to break the rules and celebrate with rebellious laughter (2017, 27). She stresses the importance of laughter by arguing that it can be used as a political weapon, for it is a way to “transform passive suffering into an active response to circumstances they find unjust, painful, or simply ridiculous” (2017, 20). As she mentions in her first book, it might also help to loosen “the bitter hold” of social and cultural repressive structures (1995, 3). In her recent work she adds: “especially big, bold laughter [...] is even more taboo because it conveys fearlessness and often contempt for its target,” and it

exchanges “the defeat of a victim for the power of a victor” (2017, 19), which points directly to the possibility from women to climb out of the victimized position they might be put in. In addition of all these discussed features, she made a clear outline of the most typical

characteristics that are often found in the unruly woman, which are shown in the table below.

Characteristics often found in unruly women

1 She creates disorder by dominating, or trying to dominate, men. She is unable or unwilling to confine herself to her proper place.

2 Her body is excessive or fat, suggesting her unwillingness or inability to control her physical appetites.

3 Her speech is excessive in quantity, content, or tone. 4 She makes jokes or laughs.

5 She may be androgynous or hermaphroditic, drawing attention to the social construction of gender as a binary category.

6 She may be old, or a masculinized crone, for old women who refuse to become invisible in contemporary Western culture are often considered grotesque.

7 Her behaviour is associated with looseness and occasionally whorishness, and she may

be pregnant; but her sexuality is less narrowly and negatively defined than that of the femme fatale.

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8 She is associated with dirt, liminality (thresholds, borders, or margins), and taboo, rendering her above all a figure of ambivalence. She is charged with a kind of power derived from her very refusal to ‘‘fit’’ familiar categories of meaning.

Table 1: Rowe 2017, 28-29

Rowe’s summarizing points in this table create a clear overview of the transhistorical character traits that are often seen in unruly women. Again, I would like to stress Rowe’s point that the unruly woman is not only defined or limited by these particular traits, and that she can also possess contradictory characteristics or behaviours (2017, 21).

One issue from the table that should also be addressed is the enforced invisibility of older women that according to Rowe is typical for contemporary Western culture (2011, 11; 2017, 29). As a reason, Rowe states that there is potential power inherent in their aging bodies, from which derives the enforced invisibility (2011, 11). She also urges for more research on the topic of the mother in her postmenopausal years related to the perspective of female unruliness, which is what I intent to do with this thesis. Elaborating on this, she says:

Sadly, even more than mothers of daughters, the old woman in popular culture, as in this book, is largely a structuring absence. Yet throughout, I seek to hear the suppressed voices of mothers I call “unrepentant”, a term that suggests unruliness over time, the stubborn refusal of women later in life, to apologize for who they are or have become. (2011, 11)

Even though Rowe states with this quote that older women are, just like mothers,

underrepresented within our visual culture, I would like to show that this is not the case with Disney films. Here, older women are often represented, and even though they may live on the margins of the story, they do often seem to have an important function in the progression of the plot.

Different perspectives on the unruly woman

Rowe mentions that Canadian American historian Natalie Davis was the first Anglophone scholar to focus on the role and the power of unruly or rebellious women, which she calls “women on top” (Rowe 2017, 21; Davis 124). In her book Society and Culture in Early

Modern France (1975) she looks at the unruly woman, which is described as a topos or

theme, in early modern Europe. In the sixteenth century, the supposed female “inferiority” was attributed to nature, and female unruliness was ‘not done’ at the time (125). But notwithstanding this habit to repulse unruliness, sexual inversion was (already) a popular form of cultural play in literature, art and festivity in preindustrial Europe (129). According to Davis, anthropologists generally agree that these kind of carnivalesque practices are

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ultimately ways to stabilise a hierarchal society (130-131). Davis herself argues that “the image of the disorderly woman did not always function to keep women in their place” (131). It could actually help widen behavioural options for women inside and even outside marriage, loosening the rigid traditional gender role and expectations. In a way, it is a political tool to facilitate innovation, for it was part of the conflict over efforts to change the basic distribution of power within society. Davis also acknowledges the limits of its influence. It could, probably at best, inspire a few like-minded women to pursue similar goals, but would not change an entire patriarchal system (133).

In the process of defining female unruliness and putting it in a historical perspective by tracing precedent theories, Rowe points to Laura Mulvey’s essay on the male gaze, that still proves to be an influential and an often mentioned theory in feminist (film)studies (Rowe 2017, 21; Mulvey 1975). She even states in her work from 2017 that the 1970’s film studies produced some of the most important strands of feminist theory, referring to Mulvey (24). Rowe summarizes Mulvey’s main argument by stating that “the position of spectacle to which women are consigned offers them no possibility for using that visibility toward their own ends or on their own terms”, thereby implying that Mulvey describes women as victims of film’s gendered structures. Though she does not in the least question Mulvey’s assumptions that the organization of social power along the lines of gender shapes and influences culture (2017, 21), she does seem eager to break with the stereotype that women are kept in a passive or submissive position and are unable to make even the slightest change. Rowe asserts that “no fully articulated theory yet existed to challenge or complement the existing paradigm and explain how women both resist the existing social order and take pleasure in the dominant culture, despite its sexism” (2017, 24). That is why her theory on female unruliness shows that despite the disadvantageous position women might hold within film or other media, they do have the potential to make a difference and defy their position; they have possibilities to express their own agency. This makes her theory – that she first described back in her book in 1995 – so progressive. As she argues in the same book, feminist film criticism has hitherto often been drawing upon theories of psychoanalysis, which associated women’s identification with loss, and feminization with hysteria, therefore

constructing women, despite its many variations, as castrated men, outside subjectivity, agency, and the symbolic (1995, 4-5). This adds to the fact that social contradictions of gender in artistic forms have been “centered on their victimization and tears rather than on their resistance and laughter” (1995, 4). This lack of agency and participation in the

representation of women in media or feminist film theory at that time, is what Rowe called ‘neglect’. She does not argue that there were no texts at all that suggested an alternative view of female subjectivity, but that these had not received the scrutiny they might (1995, 5). This ‘neglect’ is what she wanted to tackle with her own theories of female unruliness.

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The idea of potential female agency in film, or the possibility for women to resist the gendered expectations or positions they might hold, is therefore not yet irrelevant. Rowe even sustains that this has been happening throughout history, but only until recently has feminist film studies been sufficiently developed to explore this feminist potential (2017, 19). Therefore it seems relevant to research these older media sources in hindsight. Feminist film theory now has more developed tools and knowledge to address these issues and will be able to get new insights from older media sources, which could contribute to the

historicization and the overall understanding of these phenomenon, also in more modern contexts. The emergence of this idea can be seen in more feminist film research, such as the work of White, who addressed this issue specifically within Disney films. In her article on Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989), she shows how this film does contain structures of a patriarchal ideology, and is “partly designed to reinforce negative stereotypes about women and girls” (184). But she focuses her article on the potential female agency that is present in the film, stating that the film “vicariously gratifies girls’ and women’s urges for active

participation in the world around them [...], while also presenting an image of women as both physically and socially constrained” (183). With this, she also breaks with the stereotypical idea of women as passive victims, but draws the attention to their equal desire for agency, the possibility of active participation.

This is also explained by Jennifer Roche in her PhD thesis on unruly women in postfeminist television (2015). She shows how women have worked their way through the male-dominated medium of television and entertainment from the 1980s and onwards, and how they secured themselves a place both on-screen as well as off-screen. She states how “the perception of powerful female characters taking over the television changed cultural understandings of what women on television could do”, therefore also focussing on the potential impact and the difference that women can make regarding the representation of women within media culture (10). She also shows that even though traditional archetypes still pervade televisual texts, especially regarding the representation of women, these archetypes have been growing and transforming, often fuelled by women in powerful positions or in accordance with feminist movements (6-7).

She also argues how the representation of new types of women on screen “led to the creation of a new archetype for female characters taking its roots in literary and social history” (10). According to her, this new archetype is that of the unruly woman as described by Rowe and Davis. She shows with her own examples from television how certain women took up more space than they were expected to, as their unruly natures surprised and intrigued audiences (12). Roche also puts this theory in a historical perspective, which is, in my opinion, an asset to the theory, by stating:

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The attention given to female characters and creators who “took up space” (Rowe) on

television was so great in the late 1980s and early 1990s that the late 1990s showed a shift in the public perception of equality. Constructions of women working toward and achieving access to the public sphere became common enough that it seemed as though the struggle for parity, on television at least, had been won. (12)

According to her, these societal advancements in America lead to a media-driven backlash, which meant that more traditional values were reinstated. She points to Susan Faludi who mentioned that women at the time where supposedly unhappy because they had been “too free” (5). This backlash is in line with the succeeding theory of postfeminism, the belief that feminism has achieved its goals so is no longer relevant (McRobbie 2004, 255).

This all comes down to what Roche adds to the theory of the unruly woman: despite the fact that the same set of characteristics can be seen throughout history, doesn’t mean that certain socio-historically specific factors do not have an influence on the representation of the unruly woman, as is the case with the representation of women in general. The way they are represented might be determined by certain societal movements or overarching theories as described by Roche. This can be seen in the work of Kennedy, who says that “tween popular culture participates in the mediated construction of feminism’s history by implicitly depicting the different “waves” of feminism as generations of female characters: as teenage princesses, their mothers, step-mothers, and grandmothers/fairy godmothers” (2). This shows how the depiction of certain women, in this case also certain archetypal

characters, can be influenced by historical developments associated with that type of

character. In addition, Roche asserts in her text that the current leading lady is a postfeminist version of the unruly woman, therefore also linking the reoccurring figure of the unruly woman to certain current, predominant ideas. She supports this claim by saying that today’s unruly characters “have lost the political and social motivation that was once the driving force of television’s unruly women”, explaining that instead of taking a stance, these unruly

characters have nothing to prove, and their conflict and drama is purely personal (4, 41-42). The point is that the figure of the unruly woman, with her most common characteristics, is a transhistorical figure, reoccurring throughout history as Rowe argued, but that the specific depiction of the unruly women at a given time can be influenced by socio-historical factors or predominant, (feminist) theories, favouring certain characteristics over others, but still within the figure (or as Roche argues, the new archetype) of the unruly woman.

Chapter 2. The Disney Fairy Tale and the Archetype

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Sometimes it seems that the more obvious and well-known a certain phenomenon is, the more difficult it is to break it down and fully understand it. This also seems to be the case with Disney entertainment, and its prevalence within our Western popular culture. Disney is often so omnipresent within our visual culture and our personal memories, that it is hard to see all that Disney is and has become through the years, and how it continues to exert its influence. The fact that the Disney company has (had) a huge influence on our media

culture, and especially on the mediated worldview of children, is something that is undisputed among different scholars (Brode 6; Giroux 45; Zipes 1995, 21; Bell et al. 6; Tanner et al. 355-356; Robinson et al. 204). Bell, Haas and Sells try to break the phenomenon of Disney down in five different parts that all constitute to its meaning (2). According to them, Disney is 1. Walt, Disney is 2. a studio, Disney is 3. a canon of popular film, Disney is 4. a multinational corporation and Disney is 5. an ideology: “a sign whose mythology and cultural capital is dependent on and imbricated in all the above manifestations of the name “Disney”” (2). Since they consider Disney and its influence as cultural capital and as an ideology, it still seems relevant to keep a critical position towards it. This ideology and the extent of Disney’s

influence might not only be seen in the dozens of well-known feature-length films that Disney has made, but also through its famous theme parks, merchandise, music, books, and

television shows (Tanner et al. 356). The focus here will be how the feature-length Disney films have become a singular and prominent part of the fairy-tale genre and how Disney’s supposed ideology and influence can be seen through these cultural artifacts. Just as Brode argues: “children are most strongly influenced by films that, like Disney’s, are seen over and over again, and by generation after generation”, which is a very striking observation that characterizes Disney films and their institutionalized place within society (Brode 5; Bell et al. 3). Just as Giroux argues, there “are few cultural icons in the United States that can match the signifying power of the Disney Company” (45), which is supported by other scholars (Brode 6; Bell et al. 3).

To understand how Disney Entertainment came to be, especially considering the place that the company has conquered within our media culture today, it might be insightful to trace back its roots in the history of the fairy tale. After all, the films that Disney produces are considered to be modern day fairy tales, fit for all ages, communicating their ideology to every new generation that watches them. According to Jack Zipes, “Walt Disney cast a spell on the fairy tale, and he has held is captive ever since” (1995, 21). He elaborates on how Disney appropriated European fairy tales, adapted them by employing up-to-date

technological skills and his own ideological proclivities, thereby obfuscating the names of the original writers of the fairy tales, such as the Grimm Brothers or Hans Christian Andersen:

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If children or adults think of the great classical fairy tales today [...], they will think of Walt Disney. Their first and perhaps lasting impressions of these tales and others will have emanated from a Disney film, book or artifact. Though other filmmakers and animators produced remarkable fairy-tale films, Disney managed to gain a cultural stranglehold on the fairy tale. (Zipes 1995, 21)

This argument fits with Brode’s statement of Disney films being re-watched and passed on by generations. One thing remains clear: Disney has conquered a very singular place within the genre of the fairy tale. As Zipes asserts, Disney didn’t totally divest the classical fairy tales of their own meaning, but he did change our way of viewing fairy tales (1995, 21). Scholar Baker-Sperry bases her own research on Zipes’s argument that children’s understanding and associations of the Cinderella fairy tale are so closely related to the animated Disney film Cinderella (1950) that they are practically inseparable (718, Zipes 1997).

By examining the history of the fairy tale, the origin can be found in the oral folk tales that were told by narrators to “endow with meaning the daily lives of members of a tribe,” with an emphasis on communal harmony and bringing the tribes’ members closer together (Zipes 1995, 22). With the rise of literacy and the invention of the printing press from the fifteenth century and onwards, these traditions of storytelling underwent an immense revolution. This specific kind of magic folk tale was appropriated and transformed into a literary tale to fit into the French salons and courts of aristocracy, and thereby established itself as a genre and was institutionalized (1995, 23). Meanwhile the oral tradition did not disappear. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, writers such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen celebrated their country’s folk tales with the writing of their literary fairy tales, assuming different ideological and aesthetic positions within the institutionalisation (1995, 23). This meant that the oral folk tradition was privatized, shifting from a communal

experience to a private reading, thereby suddenly excluding the majority of people who could not read, contributing to notions of elitism and separation (1995, 24). In the early stages of film, there were some filmmakers who turned to the genre of the fairy tale, but none ever matched the intensity with which Disney occupied himself with the genre (1995, 28). He identified himself with the fairy tales, and under his direction the stories were carefully scripted to project his own vision and experiences. For a long time, Disney did not give much credit to other animators or technicians who worked with him on his films, and he vowed to maintain complete control over all his productions, which he did (1995, 30-34). Through Disney’s work, the fairy tale became institutionalized within cinema (1995, 31). He may have appropriated the literary fairy tales, transformed them and used them for his own purposes,

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but by doing this, he also returned the fairy tale to the majority of the people, because of cinema’s accessibility and popularity with the public (1995, 32).

Disney’s ideology

After looking at the historical perspective of Disney films, I would like to elaborate some more on the presumed ideological aspects of the Disney film productions. According to Brode, Walt Disney only adapted fairy tales that would allow the expression of his own worldview (18). He argues that Disney’s main theme was to encourage diversity, the “intermixing of the human races” (18). With this, he proved to be accessible to a global community. As an example, Brode mentions how “Mickey could be read either way, as an image of what it specifically meant to be American or what it universally meant to be human” (18). This notion of being American and the corresponding set of values, is something that is often mentioned by other scholars. Whereas Brode is very in favour of Disney’s vision, Giroux describes it as “an endless regime of representations and commodities that conjure up a nostalgic view of America as the “magic kingdom” [...] with a notion of innocence that aggressively rewrites the historical and collective identity of the American past” (45). He sustains that behind the ideological appeal to nostalgia there is the institutional power of a multinational conglomerate that is worth billions. Also Bell, Haas and Sells assert that Disney is constructed as a

metonym for “America”, therefore marking it as ‘off limits’ to critical enterprise (3). The Disney films are “(self-)righteously protected by Disney within the U.S. legal system, even to the point of suing [...] “unauthorized use””, like the use of the trademarked Disney name in the title of an academic book, which they do not allow (3). Their main argument against this is a loss of sales.

Although Disney’s films are valorized by mass audiences, academic scholars are often very critical towards Disney according to Bell, Haas and Sells (4). They argue for example that the cloak of Disney’s successful innocence masks the enormity of its political and economic influence (6). Within media studies, Disney has been the cause of a years-long debate about the moral standards and the political correctness of Disney and its films, particularly with regard to the representations of race and gender. Disney films are often critically analysed by film scholars and claimed to be racist, sexist or homophobic (Ward 172; Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz 711). Wiersma (2001) examined sixteen Disney films and found that gender images in these films tend to be stereotyped. Both film scholars Addison and Craven argue by analysing Disney films that feminism is commodified and female individuality is limited by romance (1993; 2002). Wood agrees that Disney romanticizes storylines, particularly in Cinderella, and claims that Disney’s ideology is conservative (1996). Beres (1999) not only concluded that the films portray gender stereotyped images, but that men’s abuse of and control over women is romanticized. On the contrary, Brode sustains

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that Disney was overall very progressive and respectful towards women, and he tries to counter what he calls “the academic demonization of Disney” (2005, 14). All in all, Disney has proven itself to be very influential within our contemporary media culture. The company has achieved to move masses of people towards the cinema to see its fairy tales, and to inscribe the images into their memories, whether they liked it or not.

Archetypes

The concept of the archetype is central to my argumentation. The concept has been

developed by philosopher Carl Gustav Jung. Jungian analyst Louis Stewart summarizes his theory by stating that the archetype is defined as a ‘formal factor’ responsible for the

‘organisation of unconscious psychic processes’ (36). History professor David Lindenfeld says that in all his formulations of the archetype, Jung was mostly trying to reach a notion of form (222). But both mention the concept in relation the image, at which Stewart argues:

[...] the archetype appears in consciousness as an ‘image/idea’. These image/ideas are found embedded in myth, fairytale, religious symbolism, in art and theoretical thought, and in the forms of society and its structures, that is to say, in every cultural form (Jung 4-6; Stewart 36) Important to note here is that the archetype can be found and traced back through myths and fairytales, two categories that tend to be intertwined, for myths often form the basis of

fairytales, as is the case with many Disney stories. Psychoanalyst Carr emphasises that Jung relates the archetype to the domain of what he calls the “collective unconscious”, which is shared with all humans (478). It contains primordial images and ideas that have emotions and symbolism ‘attached’ to them, which become manifest in myths, among others.

According to Lindenfeld, the validity of Jung’s conception of archetypes “lies in the claim that people think in terms of images much of the time, however culture-bound these might be” (223). Nevertheless, he does state that Jung’s use of the term ‘archetype’ is vey imprecise (222). Also does Lindenfeld point to the fact that Jung never created a taxonomy of

archetypes. About this, Lindenfeld says:

Certain ones – the anima, animus, the wise old man, the self, the mother, the child, the trickster-shadow – recur in his work. On the question of an exhaustive list, Jung simply admitted, ‘there are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life’ (222)

Therefore, the theory of the archetype is an open one. The concept can evolve and change throughout history, and most importantly, through cultural change. As an example, I would like to point again to the different ideas that the various feminist waves brought into our Western culture (Kennedy 2017; Roche 2015, 6-7). The female archetypes have also

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changed through time due to these changing ideas of what is typically feminine or how femininity should be depicted in our visual culture.

To elaborate on the different female archetypes found within Disney films, I would like to turn to the work of Elizabeth Bell, who wrote a chapter in the book From Mouse to Mermaid: The

Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture, whose essay is an asset to my own thesis. She starts

this chapter by mentioning how Disney animation is not an innocent art form, despite its association with children’s cartoons (108). According to her, there is nothing accidental about the animation of which each second consists of numerous paintings. “The exacting,

communally created images of women by men are consistently rendered in a somatic triumvirate of bodily forms and snapshots of the aging process” (108). Here she argues how these different kinds of women are structurally shown as if belonging to three separate categories, each representing a different stadium in the aging process. These categories are not only based on physical characteristics related to a certain age, but are also based on existing cultural ideas, which Bell describes as “a cultural accumulation of representations of good girls, bad women, and doting servants” (109). I would like to argue that the

categorizations that Bell describes perfectly match the concept of archetypes, for they are presented as ‘typical situations in life’, or at least as (stereo)typical representations of the feminine life cycle (109). In accordance to this idea, Bell also mentions that the meaning of these categorized women, as cultural artifacts, are not fixed (109). She doesn’t specifically label these three groups herself as archetypes, but does mention the connection to

stereotypes or somatypes (118). In essence, she formulates three distinct types of women that inhabit the Disney universe, grouped together by their main physical and behavioural characteristics. These kind of categorisations will help me put the characters of my corpus into an existing tradition, therefore adding to the knowledge that already exists on culturally determined, archetypal representations, but also still shaping its meaning and discovering differences and nuances. Also, the categorization of these archetypes is very practical in use, for it distinguishes differences and makes the enormous amount of information more manageable.

The first category that Bell describes is that of the “Disney’s dancing girls”, or also mentioned as ingénue, who are basically the kind and beautiful young girls of folktales. This type of “good girl” seems an archetype in itself. They are (re)created by Disney artists with the help of “contemporaneous popular images of feminine beauty and youth, their sources ranging from the silent screen to glossy pin-ups” (109). They often have Anglo-Saxon features of “Eurocentric loveliness”, thereby conforming Hollywood’s beauty standards. Bell also mentions how the construction of these teenage heroines is based on the bodies and movements of professional dancers. Whereas the earliest Disney heroines are based on the

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movements of classical ballet, the later folk heroines play with the conventions of burlesque, such as Belle or Ariel (114). Bell does mention how Disney artists have created a somatic mixed message in animating Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora: “While the

characterizations of Disney heroines adhere to the fairy-tale templates of passivity and victimage, their bodies are portraits of strength, discipline, and control, performing the dancing roles of princesses” (112).

The second category is that of Disney’s femmes fatales. These are, according to Bell, Disney’s evil women, “beautiful witches, queens, and stepmothers”, based on the

representation of middle-aged women. She argues herself that “Disney transforms the vain, active and wicked woman of folktales into the femme fatale, the “deadly woman” of silent film and of Hollywood classic film” (115). They take pleasure from their power and authority as femmes fatales, thinking of themselves not as sexual objects, but as active, sexual subjects (116). The use of cosmetics of paint, clothing, cowls and jewellery are deliberate choices for the readability of the femme fatale, according to Bell. She describes the femme fatale as an iconic and congruous caricature of cinematic codes that depict middle age as a time of treachery, danger and consumption in the feminine life cycle, which is reinforced by the fact that the construction of their bodies is based on predatory animals (116-117).

Looking at this specific archetypal category, the similarities with the figure of the unruly woman are striking. The overlap between these two types becomes even more visible later on in the text:

While the femme fatale of film noir directs her catastrophic powers at a man who is powerless under her fatal force, Disney’s deadly women cast their spells, not only on their young women victims, but on the entire society from which they are excluded. [...] their excess of sexuality and agency is drawn as evil (117)

This can be linked to one of the principal characterizations of the unruly woman: the desire to destabilize patriarchal society, refusing to defer to men by dominating them. Bell also talks about the “femme fatale[‘s] construction of feminine excess”, which supports my argument (117). This can also be seen in their ‘excessive’ use of cosmetics and similar means to draw “attention to the social construction of gender as a binary category” (Rowe 2017, 29).

Therefore, the femme fatale as described by Bell seems to strongly resemble the unruly woman. But there is an interesting discrepancy to be found, for Rowe specifically states in her characterization of the unruly woman that “her sexuality is less narrowly and negatively defined than that of the femme fatale, a female stereotype who uses her beauty and sexual allure to seduce and destroy men” (29). So why can’t femme fatales be unruly women? From what I understand of Rowe’s quote, a femme fatale does conform to conventional beauty

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standards and uses this to seduce men, therefore simply being evil for the sake of getting what she wants, and not necessarily being unruly with its additional moral perspective and cultural statement on the restricted position of women. In this way, she may use the patriarchal system to her advantage, (partly) complying with it, but often in order to turn it around and dominate men all the same. But then most of them do not aim to address social or cultural issues with regard to gender. But others do: there are more ambiguous characters who possess both characteristics of the classical femme fatale, but who are also most unruly. I think this needs some nuance, especially when looking at the chosen corpus of Disney films with leading ladies. I will elaborate on this and provide more examples within my own

analysis in the next chapter. The argument I would like to make is that these categories, like the femme fatale, prove that they are never all-encompassing, and show a certain overlap in their characteristics. I would assert that characteristics of both (arche)types could be

possessed by the same person. But I do agree with Rowe that one way to roughly divide the two categories is by the fact that femme fatales generally comply with the traditional feminine beauty standards up to the point of perfection. Their beauty is idealised, which makes them deadly attractive to men, which is how they seduce them and lure them in their trap. A truly unruly woman does not do this. She might show excessive signs of femininity, but always in order to draw attention to the construction of gender, to mock or even deconstruct it. Scholar Doane emphasizes the ambivalent character of the femme fatale, and perfectly defines her by stating that she “is not the subject of feminism but a symptom of male fears about feminism” (2-3). This seems to be what separates her from the unruly woman, who actually personifies feminist values. The femme fatale closely identifies with her sexuality, which can instill fear and anxiety in others (Doane 1-2). The unruly woman can also present herself as a sexual subject, but she may as well be not sexual at all, attempting to lose the image of being a sexual object as a woman (Rowe 2017, 21). All in all, there seems to be some necessary nuance that has to be brought into Bell’s still sharp and interesting, but outdated theory, especially considering the newer Disney films.

As an introduction to the third category, Bell mentions how the first two are familiar representations of women within cinema. But according to her, “Disney artists fill a relatively empty cultural category with their depictions of feminine nurturing and sacrifice in their depictions of good fairies, godmothers, and servants in the fairy-tale films” (118). This is something that Rowe could agree on, for she argued that depictions of older women are structurally absent in popular culture (2011, 11). While Disney does often erase mothers from the story, the company does pay attention to the older generation of grandmother figures. Bell describes these women as “dutiful servants” (118). Especially the fairy godmothers, who depict a supernatural feminine goodness, “appear and disappear at whim”, that according to

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Bell points to a protective power that resides in the heart. They are always at the ready to serve, are never needful of their own rights, and are constantly helpful and protective (118). She also elaborates on how this depiction of feminine sacrifice and nurturing in old women past menopause is constantly contrasted with the femme fatale of middle-aged wickedness and sexuality. Their bodies are pear-shaped or apple-shaped, therefore postmenopausal, asexual and nonthreatening (118-119). Bell stresses how they “re-establish and maintain the order that the femme fatale destroyed” (119). This would suggest that they are not unruly, for they fulfil their selfless and nurturing role and comply with the rules of the patriarch. But still, they are old, fat, and apparently, “not sexual enough” (Rowe 2017, 21). They are visible even though they are old and expected to disappear, as Rowe says, which they also do

sometimes when no longer needed, like the fairy godmothers. But they do not apologize for who they are or what they have become (Rowe 2011, 11). The way in which the older women – or older people in general – are depicted, can have a strong influence on the (stereotypical) ideas that children have of older people (Robinson et al. 2007). A study from Gerbner et al. shows that frequent viewers of television are more likely to think that older people are vanishing from society (2002).

Another point to consider here, is the comical dimension of these older women. Bell states that “many comic moments in the films centre on the initial ineptness of their

maintenance”, adding comic value, inherent in their bodies (119). Though often these are honest but comical mistakes, these women can also be deliberately funny. They are often good-humoured, like to laugh and make little jokes, and are very talkative. With these

indications, they do seem to show slight signs of unruliness, even though often unintended. I would argue that this applies mostly to the grandmother figures of the earlier Disney films, as categorized by England et al., whereas this degree of unruliness seems to increase with the newer Disney films. As I will show in the analyses later on, the grandmothers and older women of the newer Disney films are overall less passive and more deliberately unruly, refusing to disappear.

Functions of archetypes within Disney

Since Disney films are based on myths and fairy tales, they are full of archetypal characters and situations. These films often encompass images of various kinds of families and their structures, showing the different functions that characters have in relation to each other. According to Tanner et al., Disney is one of the media sources from which children gain information about their world, especially in regard to ideas of family (355). So how are families and family ties represented within Disney, and what do children therefore learn from them?

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First of all, Tanner et al. find that family relationships are a strong priority in Disney films (366). They argue how “the majority of families were presented as providing a caring and nurturing environment for family members” (367). Also, the portrayed families are diverse, but the diversity is often simplified. The films portray various family forms, including two-parent, single parent, and stepparent families. Despite this variety, some family forms were simplified and presented in a negative way. For example: all of the stepmothers in their case-studies were portrayed as evil, being structurally mean and hateful towards their stepdaughter. This could be problematic, according to Tanner et al., considering the potential influence the repeated viewings of these films might have on children’s expectations about themselves and their own families (268). Besides that, the Disney fathers are usually elevated, while mothers are marginalized, which is also elaborated in a study from Haas (195). They also find that couples are often represented based on traditional gender roles (Tanner et al. 366).

Looking at the findings from the analysis of Tanner et al. regarding the mothers, they showed that a little less than half of the films did not depict mothers at all. Considering the mothers in the rest of the films, they were either presented with little information about their nature, or they were represented within two dominant themes: as primary caregivers and as protectors of their children. This seems to be a dominant theme when assessing the qualities that belong to the mother role as an archetype. In my opinion it is necessary to define the qualities or typical characterizations that make someone a mother figure, because in my analysis I will show that other women will take on a motherly role in relation to the heroine when the real mother is absent. So what makes the viewer see them as a motherly figure? According to Rowe, one of the most important and predetermined associations for women is the link between the female body and the possibility of reproduction (2011, 5). Therefore after her childbearing years the mother is always defined as nonsexual or masculine. Rowe shows how typical “good” mothers are barely ever portrayed as being sexually active (11-12). Haas argues that in some Disney films mothers exist primarily to nurture and encourage their children in benevolent ways, often sacrificing themselves to do so (196). Considering the motherly role outside the realm of the biological mother, Rowe asserts how another perspective presents motherhood as the active labour involved in caring for children. She mentions how feminist philosopher Sara Ruddick, uses the term “maternal” in place of “mother”, which shifts the emphasis from biology toward the work done by people who care for children as fully human beings demanding “protection, nurturance and training” (Ruddick 1989, xi; Rowe 2011, 20). Bell explains this difference as the distinction between mothers and grandmothers: according to her, the “good” Disney women produce, not children, but the perfected enactment of motherhood as fostering grandmotherhood. “Removed from a “natural” blood relationship to the child/heroine, their sacrifices are deemed even purer in

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their selflessness” (119). The act of sacrifice and nurturing is therefore lifted from the realm of necessity, and becomes a matter of choice. She argues how the cultural codes of feminine goodness are rooted in matriarchal healing, comfort, and sacrifice (120). Kennedy adds to this distinction that the grandmother figure has lived through different times in comparison to the mother figure, therefore having experienced other predominant ideas about life and society, which enables her to provide a different view to the young heroine, and allows the leading girl to understand and appreciate the opportunities she lives with now (11).

Considering the role of the father, Tanner et al. show how only about 35% of the fathers were left out in the analysed films. The other depicted fathers were often represented as either controlling and aggressive, or as protective disciplinarians, nurturing and

affectionate, and as self-sacrificing. This last notion is specifically interesting, since one of the most typical, archetypal characterizations of a mother is her self-sacrifice (Bell 108; Park 2014; Haas 196). Tanner et al. address this issue by stating that the nurturing

representations of fathers appears to be a positive trend in the Disney animated family. But they also point to a more concerning observation:

However, close examination of this trend reveals that this development of fathers’ role has taken place at the expense of the mothers’ role. The majority of the films that present fathers as nurturing either have completely left out mothers with little or no explanation, or the films marginalize mothers from the story. (Tanner et al. 368)

According to them, this suggests that fathers are only required to be nurturing when a mother is not available to do so. Haas addresses this issue as well, calling the erasure of mothers from the stories an active form of “matricide”, also claiming that “those films [...] excuse the mother figure in order to replace her with a kindly – and often more competent – patriarch” (197). Besides the influence this may have on the worldview of children, this observation also points to something else. Although it might seem like stating the obvious, this shows that in the representation of families or in depicting children, it seems necessary that someone fulfils the role of a mother, even when the mother herself is absent. This can be a father, but Tanner et al. have also shown that babies can be adopted by strangers who will fulfil the role of a mother figure (367). In my own analysis I would like to show how other women can become mother figures to the young heroines of the story. Especially in the stories where the biological mothers are absent, other grown women can take this place and fulfil this function in relation to the female protagonist, even if only temporarily. A special role here seems to be reserved for the grandparents, or similar older characters who could be considered a grandparent figure. As I will show in my analysis, the older characters can play major parts in the stories and can have essential functions in relation to the progression of

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the plot. Robinson et al. showed in their research that older characters in Disney films most often have the function of a friend, a worker or boss, a villain or a parent, amongst others (2007).

In addition, I would also like to add something to the observation from Tanner et al. that mothers are often represented with little information about their nature. Scholar Haas discusses this point in her own research, stating that “although the mother/woman is the mirror into which men look to find their “other” and thus their identity, she has no identity of her own” (196). This lack of identity is a result of the underrepresentation of mothers and mother-daughter relationships within our cultural imaginary, she argues. She points to the mothers in Disney films: they are either absent, generously good, powerfully evil or a “silent other”: a mirror that confirms the child’s identity without interference from hers. This mirroring function seems important to the mother or mother figure. This idea of the mother(figure) as a mirror for the child, or in my case-studies for the heroines, is not surprising. Looking at the relevant theories of Jung about archetypes and their mirroring function, Carr mentions that the Jungian way of thinking suggests:

that character and identity are in a process of continual development, in part through the process of “mirroring”, in which figures (such as the mother) reflect back to the infant the appropriateness of the infant’s own identity and actions and, in so doing, provide an emotional basis for the infant’s identity and development. (480)

According to Carr, this process of mirroring is not confined to infancy and the early period of development, but is an ongoing dynamic of seeking out others and environments that confirm this self-identity of the child (480). Jungian theorist Kohut added to this theory that by

mirroring, the child seeks approval of the parent in an act of both recognition and

confirmation (Kohut 1971; Carr 480). This all shows that the mirroring function is still relevant throughout the entire period of development of the child, or the period of ‘growing up’, for it helps the child, or in my case the heroine, to develop her own personality by mirroring others. In addition, I would like to point out that the person who is mirrored, doesn’t necessarily have to be a parent. As Carr also asserts, the model of identity development is related to the dynamics of idealization, which are fuelled by the search for recognition/affirmation from “powerful” others (481). This idealization could therefore be projected on anyone who is considered to be powerful in the eyes of the child, which I will show within my analysis. Kennedy adds to this point of view by stating that “the mothers, step-mothers, step-sisters, and grandmothers all function as points of comparison against which to judge the leading teen princesses’ authentic selves” (14). This usually means being rebellious towards parents, as one would expect from a teenager, and often being more friendly and accepting towards

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grandparents. I will also specifically elaborate on how these parent figures or powerful others can move the protagonist in the story by their mirroring function. Or as Rowe says: “these mothers are also figures of ambivalence who often motivate their adult children to necessary action” (13). I will particularly focus on how these powerful figures can instill a sense of agency in the heroines, and can therefore motivate these characters to start their journey.

Character analysis of the female archetypes

Within the next chapter I will be analysing the older female characters of various Disney films. Breaking down my method, I will elaborate on several specific concepts or theories with each character or set of characters that belong to a specific archetype. I will link these concepts to the different categories that Jens Eder describes in his article on the

methodological basis of character analysis (2010). He describes the “clock of character”, that distinguishes between four different aspects of characters. The first aspect that he names is the character as an artifact, considering the character in their relations to stylistic devices and kinds of film information, which generate the perceptual experiences of the viewers (21). This is therefore mostly concerned with how the character is represented, how they have been shaped with the help of the devices and techniques of filmmaking. I will not be discussing this particular point within my thesis, because in Disney films this aspect will be limited to the animation techniques, making this argument very technical, which does not fit into my main argumentation. This category also relates to the intertextuality of the character, which is a major aspect with Disney, since the fairy tale characters have appeared in various stories within different media throughout fairy tale history. Think of the original fairy tales from Andersen or the Grimm brothers, which can also help shape the perception of the Disney characters in the mind of the viewer. Comparing the Disney character to the same character in the Andersen story, for example, may provide information about the choices that were made in the production process concerning the representation of the character. Though this is an interesting topic, I will not explore this as a main concept within my own analysis, again because it would be very elaborate and therefore wouldn’t fit in my thesis, and it is not necessary for my argumentation.

The first aspect that I will be discussing, is the character as a fictional being (Eder 16). This means focussing on their bodily, mental, and social features. In this case, I will look for unruly characterizations when analysing the female characters, showing in what way they may or may not fit into the description of the unruly woman (Rowe 1995; 2011; 2017). After this, I will also assess the symbolism of these characters, show if they impart higher-level meanings (Eder 16). Furthermore, I would like to analyse whether the older women fulfil the function of a mother figure to the heroine, and in what way this happens. This will say something about their relationship within the character constellation of the film, their

How Far Will She Go? Female Unruliness in the Representation of Disney’s Adult Women