by CC Michele

Created on: May 18, 2009   Last Updated: May 19, 2009

This is a tired argument, don't you think? Gender role indoctrination through the insidious Disney empire- I can hear the feminist rants now. Our impressionable babies are shown damsels in distress, simpering princesses and Ken-doll heroes who would have never encountered any of the myriad villains if only they had done as they were told by the archetypal cuckolded king and/or his scheming wife, and now our little girls will grow up to be submissive suppressed housewives and our sweet princes will morph into poisoned, truncated pillars of society with little to do besides pick apart their own Cinderellas, ultimately leading to their divorces or demises. All that just because the Disney writers understand and appreciate the concept of the archetype? Or perhaps because their canon's core is based upon the promotion of moral individuality, a concept that has always made our sheepherders nervous... Or because you'd rather whine about how movies are destroying your children than tell the stories yourself? Whatever the excuse, here's my formal response to the outdated and overweighted query, "do Disney movies affect boys the same as girls."

No.

Let's move beyond the obvious arguments. Leaving behind theories of masculine development, of the corruption of mass media, of the commodification of youth, I ask you to push yourself beyond your comfort zone. Ready? Here's Truth. If such subliminal mindwashing is possible, and is or was used intentionally by every writer throughout history from whom Disney has ever adapted or otherwise drawn inspiration from, and achieves popularity to the degree that mass quantities of children in their formative years will be exposed thereto, and if such a social experiment could possibly achieve results of such Stepford-like proportions, it is still glaringly obvious that such a phenomenon would not affect boys the same as girls. Ready to feel like an idiot? Look at the demographics.

Disney's admitted target audience spans between the ages eight to twelve. According to today's statistics on amazon.com, the top movies purchased for the 10-12 age group were: Beauty and the Beast; Transformers; Monsters, Inc.; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Of the three Disney movies listed, tell me which one you can picture that would inspire the avid attention of a ten-year-old boy for the duration of the time it would take for him to internalize the negative character traits of Gaston. Boys are not affected by Disney movies because, by and large, the only Disney films that boys seem to watch are those that are so far removed from the Disney mind f* so as to be dissociated with the Disney genre.

For those of you who I've lost completely, boys are smarter than girls. That's why.

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