Mickey also thinks this is a dumb idea. via gabriel_michael @ flickr
Disney has a conundrum. They want to make money — lots and lots of money. Luckily, they have their Disney Princesses(TM) merchandise, Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana, The Jonas Brothers, and High School Musical all working to line the company’s coffers. But they’re not satisfied. Disney wants more. Specifically, Disney wants more boys to love their brand, because they fear their fanbase has been overrun with girlish cooties.
Not content to rely on intuition, they have called in Kelly Pena, a woman who has been dubbed “the kid whisperer.” The New York Times tagged along with Pena as she researched what boys like and how to pigeonhole them from an entertainment standpoint to lure their allegiances over to Disney. Because enormous revenues mean nothing if they’re primarily driven by girls. What’s really needed for a strong brand is boys, boys, and more boys.
I was a Disney girl. I wanted to be Ariel in The Little Mermaid, I wrote my own lyrics to the songs in Aladdin, and I had a well-worn VHS copy of the little-remembered Oliver and Company, starring Bette Midler and Billy Joel. I have been to Disneyland twenty-two times. I am drinking coffee out of a Tinkerbell mug as I write this post. The Mouse (as Disney is sometimes called) did an excellent job of ensnaring me in their web of mass-produced fantasy. Their problem is that they’re tired of being known as a princess-y, tween-y girl machine.
That’s where Pena comes in. She interviews preteen boys, looks through their rooms, examines their natural habitats, and tries to discern how this information can be turned into Disney dollars. (Of course, the reporter has to follow up Pena’s statement that “’Children seemed to open up to me’” with the addendum that “[Pena] does not have any of her own.”) Market research has been around for a very long time, and Disney is not breaking any new ground here. But there’s something icky about pigeonholing boys and girls in this matter, implicitly saying that they can’t enjoy the same movies or TV programs.
Disney thought it had a surefire “boys” hit with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise but they didn’t count on females from ages ten to fifty also flocking to the theaters in droves. Oops. Their animated film division (not counting the Pixar films) has been heavily skewed towards girls for the past twenty years, and whereas the girl-centric films have consistently hit the box office mark, the few aimed more towards boys have been much more hit (Aladdin) or miss (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules). The article notes that the days of “Davy Crockett” are long gone for Disney, as are the days of The Jungle Book, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, and Robin Hood. Male protagonists are few and far between for Disney, but is that really such a bad thing? It’s not exactly like boys suffer from a dearth of entertainment aimed at them. And a boy enjoying The Little Mermaid or Hannah Montana is not a sign of the apocalypse.
When I taught daycare several years ago, I taught a class of fifteen children: six boys and nine girls. Come Halloween, three girls dressed in princess costumes from the Disney store (and I donned the store’s Tinkerbell get-up, much to the glee of my young charges), but the boys were not exactly at a loss for pop culture costumes geared towards them. Batman, Spiderman, Bob the Builder, and SpongeBob Square Pants were all present and accounted for on that day, and I doubt that any of the boys — or their parents — were crestfallen that their costumes did not come from Disney.
And, in the end, the boys fashioned their own Disney costumes during dress-up time for the rest of the year, grabbing my wand and Tinkerbell slippers and disregarding dictates as to which gender is supposed to like which costumes. That was five years ago and my guess is that the boys, all of whom are now eight, are not struggling to find material that is geared towards them. Is it such a bad thing if Disney allows its product to seem nominally girl-centric? Is it such an imperative that entertainment be branded and assessed according to what gender they are perceived as appealing to? My answer to both of these would be “no.” And while I have long since grown disenchanted with the happily-married-princess-living-ever-after mantra of Disney, I would rather have The Mouse reevaluate its characterization of gender within its products than have it drop the girls and work on clumsily pigeonholing the boys in that same manner.
Now if you excuse me, I have to refill my Tinkerbell mug.
I wish they’d just give up on boy and girl films and stick with films like those from Pixar that appeal to both genders and all ages. The quality of their 2-D animation is really down, anyway. Not so long ago, I was a huge fan of “Even Stevens” which seemed like a show which could appeal to both genders.
And I’m saying this as a HUGE Disney fan– been to Disney World 13 times. Have a giant dream to one day spend a night in Cinderella castle. Get choked up when Tinkerbell flies overhead during the Magic Kingdom Fireworks show. Even celebrated my 16th birthday in WDW, and will always love them because they give my little sister (who has autism) a special pass every time she visits so she can ride the rides without having to be traumatized by the lines.
My brother and I enjoyed watching the same cartoons as kids – probably because the stuff they were putting out back then was not hyper-stereotypically gendered. David the Gnome ftw.
/threadjack
By any chance did you catch the south park episode with disney and the Jonas brothers? I was waiting for some feminist blog to pick it up and comment but I never saw any that did.
But I can’t really say i’m surprised by the article. After all the mouse is after global domination. I think the mouse has trouble doing boys entertainment and keeping it’s wholesome image when the majority of boys entertainment is considered more violent, not that disney’s never has violence. But the general impression of disney is that it’s not violent even though Simba/Bambi watches their dad/mom die.
“Is it such a bad thing if Disney allows its product to seem nominally girl-centric?”
I’m pretty sure this has absolutely NOTHING to do with Disney disliking girls or worrying about its “image” as a girl-centric company. As you stated at the beginning of the piece, this is about money — period. This is what business people do all day. They see two pieces of information like “40% of Disney Channel viewers are boys” and “the vast majority of Disney products are bought by/for girls.” They see the unmet potential to make more merchandising dollars, and they take action. They aren’t actively discriminating against girls; they’re just trying to milk boys’ parents for more money. I just do not have a problem with this. (Then again, I did major in business.)
OMG Sarah, I had forgotten ALL about David the Gnome.
Does this exclude the boys out there who are into Disney princesses (i.e. future Project Runway contestants)? Inquiring minds want to know.
Also, if y’all have never read Carl Hiaasen’s short non-fiction book TEAM RODENT: HOW DISNEY DEVOURS THE WORLD, go get a copy. It’s a devastating indictment of The Mouse and it’s also screamingly funny.
It is strange how toys are so genderized. I feel like if you just put the toys in front of the kids without telling them what to play with they would play with both. I played with my brothers toys and he played with mine. Kids take sides when you tell them too.
@SarahMC & funnyface: I, too, loved David the Gnome. I wonder if boys liked that show, too? Anyway, I’m pretty sure it was inspired by a book (which I own) called Gnomes by Wil Huygen — check it out at the online bookseller of your choice.
@Kivrin: I suppose my issue is with Disney and other companies typing products by gender so that they only appeal to certain segments of the audience, as well as the fact that they have aimed their “girl” products to such an extremely “feminine” area that they now feel they have to make “boy” products.
I haven’t read that one but Carl Hiaasen generally makes me wet my pants.
I agree that less aggressively gendered protagonists would be a positive move. I only hope that whatever new boy movies we get don’t only play to stereotypes of boys behavior but that these anthropological studies allow Disney to also cater to less heavily marketed aspects of young boys’ likes, dislikes, hopes and fears.
@JD: Carl Hiaasen makes me wet my pants in more ways than one.
Oliver & Company is the best and most under appreciated Disney movie of all time!!! I have it on DVD (I actually said “sqweee!!” in the store when I found it)
@AuntieEm: I’m so glad someone else loves Oliver & Company! I think it might be the only NYC-based Disney movie.
@sarah.of.a.lesser.god: I’ve often pondered (yes, pondered) the evolution of the Disney brand. It started out with Mickey Mouse, who is probably equally appealing to little boys and girls. But then the first feature movie was Snow White, and they stuck with the fairy tale theme for awhile…and those are definitely more stereotypically “girly.” And eventually the fairy tale movies came to typify the Walt Disney brand even more than the gender-neutral cartoons. It’s too bad, really.
At least as troubling as the gender aspect of this market research, is the fact that this research is focused on upper-middle class (probably) white boys.
@Hill Rat: Since when has Disney ever catered to any other demographic?
I am very happy to jump on the bandwagon with some Oliver and Company love, it’s one of my favourites!
My 25 year old brother know all of the words to every song from The Little Mermaid, a fact that he proved this weekend by singing them very loudly to my daughter in the garden when he thought we weren’t listening. He’s definitely what some (not me, I hasten to add)would describe as ‘a man’s man’, which is evidence for nothing, but gives me a lot of satisfaction when I see him gleefully confounding various gender stereotypes.
@sarah.of.a.lesser.god @afteriris: YAY for Oliver & Company!!! I wore that soundtrack out and sing terribly and unabashedly along to the movie when I watch it. I had a ton of the toys too. Why is it so overlooked?!?!? Billy Joel for ceiling-cat’s sake!!!
My ex-bf knew all the words to “Gaston” (and loved to sing the part about expectorating), but I think that’s because he had two older sisters who made him watch the movie. I wonder if he would have liked it without their influence?
You may find this rather caustic blog post by a former children’s television producer an interesting counterpoint to the New York Times article:
http://sidneyiwanter.blogspot.com/2009/04/disney-has-found-its-eighth-dwarf.html
[mild threadjack]
The gendering of children’s entertainment is such a self-fulfilling prophecy. Believe me, it infects books as well, and now there’s a trend in children’s librarianship to simply accept that status quo as natural, as a given, rather than question it. Well, that’s just like the rest of society, eh? The Patriarchy is the norm. No questioning of the Patriarchy!
But yeah–these people don’t look to the root of why boys won’t watch “girl” movies, why boys won’t read “girl” books. They pretend that it has nothing to do with the fact that boys are taught that girls are an incompetent, less-than, boring Other. I had a fellow librarian tell me the other day, in a puzzled tone of voice, “I don’t understand–boys won’t read girl books, but girls will read boy books!” Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Well of course–a girl is a shameful thing to be, while being a boy is something to aspire to.”
It’s like talking to a wall, though. The trend is too big and too stupid. It’s resistant to reason.
@HillRat: But of course! Remember, Disney is the conglomerate that made Jafar significantly darker than Aladdin, that had the “urban” hyenas in The Lion King, and the “classic” song “What Makes the Red Man Red?” from Peter Pan.
Something must have missed my generation here, because I still happily watch Disney movies (well, some of them, excluding Cinderella, Sleeping beauty, and Snow White-I’m not that princess-y, I guess) with my friends, male or female (all between 20 and 25). My boyfriend likes them more than I do. Maybe it’s not quite the same here in Europe -much less merchandise available for sale, definitely- but everyone I grew up with saw all the movies, whether they were aimed at girls or boys. And we all know the boys cried when Bambi’s mother died
But now, I have to admit Hannah Montana is not something boys would want to admit watching-although neither would I, I can just hear my father’s scathing tones “What stupidity are you watching now?” That cured me from a lot of girly fluff. Although he wasn’t impressed by my brother’s love of Power Rangers either.
Sorry, i ramble.
I just dislike seeing such vapid, silly role models for little girls in all the Disney shows, whether they’re the lead or secondary characters. As if “girls are stupid” needed reinforcing.
@BeckySharper and @sarah.of.a.lesser.god
True, true . . . but the race and class elements of this strategy serve to reinforce the gender roles.