Disney Delusion Sexy, Cartoon Version Of Pocahontas Is A Male Fantasy And A Poor Role Model For Girls
So Elizabeth Dole, head of the American Red Cross and wife of Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., has sold her stock in Walt Disney Co., saying she doesn’t want to support the violent or anti-Catholic films made by Miramax, a Disney subsidiary.
Attention, Libby! Wrong bandwagon! The anti-violence movement has developed a nice momentum of its own without you.
Surely you’ve seen a few ads for “Pocahontas”; perhaps by now you’ve seen the movie. Do you not agree that the title character looks as if she were created solely by guys with pneumatic fever? That they chose their favorite Victoria’s Secret model and made her ever-so-much-more-so? (Pocahontas’ dress more closely resembles a tight slip than any other garment.)
I have two ‘90s daughters, 11-1/2 and 6-1/2. The older one wants to be a raptor rehabilitator (medic to birds of prey), the younger one an artist and deep-sea diver. The last several Disney heroines resonated with my daughters’ realities, and when one heroine didn’t, the girls told me.
They were amused by mermaid Ariel as she challenged her father’s xenophobia and became an amateur anthropologist, collecting artifacts and behavioral data about humans. They pulled off their ponytail holders in the bathtub and pretended they were mermaids.
They took turns being lioness cub Nala so they could win wrestling contests with each other and be brave exploring. But they didn’t want to be Jasmine very often. (“She doesn’t do anything,” the older one complained.)
My friends and I, discussing these movies, said, “Thank God! It’s about time! The people at Disney are getting it about young girls and their movie role models.”
But, Libby, Disney blew it this time with “Pocahontas” by sending very mixed messages to American girls. On the surface the movie is about a courageous young woman who moves like a panther and is close to nature. She seeks the counsel of La Que Sabe (the Wise Old Woman) in the willow tree; she is a peacemaker who successfully counsels the testosterone gangs to cease armed confrontation, and she easily crosses ethnic and cultural barriers for romance.
But there are subliminal messages in this movie as well. First and foremost is the girl with the biggest bust, smallest waist and tightest dress gets the guy. Another message is a society that works just fine without middle-aged women or babies and little kids. (In fact, the absence of middle-aged moms is one of the most consistent lapses in Disney movies - including “Snow White,” “Cinderella,” “Bambi,” “Dumbo,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and now “Pocahontas.”
Do you see a male fantasy emerging here, Libby? Doesn’t this make you feel just a teensy bit feminist? If it doesn’t, I’ll tell you why it should.
Psychologists have begun sounding urgent alarms about the effects on girls of media-created female images - and not only the sexier or more violent ones such as those in music videos.
In “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls,” Mary Pipher, Ph.D., writes, “With early adolescence, girls surrender their relaxed attitudes about their bodies and take up the burden of selfcriticism.”
At this time, “many girls scorn their true bodies and work for a false body. They allow the culture to define who they should be.”
But by their very immaturity, they cannot digest that what is culturally accepted as “beautiful” is “achieved only with great artifice - photo croppings, camera angles and composite bodies.”
As a result, she writes, eating disorders (such as anorexia and bulimia), depression and self-mutilation are at all-time high rates among teenage women.
It is easy to be fooled by the lofty plot of “Pocahontas.” Actually, the movie is a giant step backward for Disney and for girls.
I personally feel betrayed by Disney. Following a group of features in which the pretty heroines’ nice looks were more or less balanced with the young women’s natural intelligence and curiosity, Pocahontas is a grotesquely distorted female body image whose shape was the brainchild of two male directors. Her image is the real message of the movie. And don’t forget: Young boys are absorbing this image too.
Libby, if you want some headlines above the fold, repeat after me: “Disney damages kids’ minds.”
And congratulations for selling your stock, even if you did it for another reason. Money speaks even louder than images.
MEMO: April Olzak is a writer who lives in Chicago.