Language and Gender in Children’s Animated Films
Exploring Disney and Pixar
Using an accessible mix of in-depth discussion and statistics, this fascinating book analyses Disney/Pixar films, to uncover the insidious messages they send to children about language and gender roles. It is essential reading for anyone interested in how language constructs ideas around gender in children’s media.
About the Project
The Disney Company is considered to be the largest media conglomerate in the world. Perhaps not surprisingly, there has been a substantial amount of scholarly work on Disney, both the company and the films, across a number of fields such as Media Studies, Feminist Studies, or even Family Therapy. This research tends to be overwhelmingly qualitative in nature, and even quantitative studies tend towards subjective measures. Where these studies touch even briefly on questions of language, such observations tend to be unscientific and uninformed by linguistic research.
My work with Carmen Fought seeks to fill this gap in the literature by applying well-established language & gender methodologies to children’s media, specifically the Disney Princess films and the Pixar movie canon. We hope to prove that linguistic analysis, specifically discourse analysis and gender-based sociolinguistic analysis, can give a more objective picture of gender representation in these beloved films. We ask the following questions:
- In what ways do Disney and Pixar films use language to characterize gender differences?
- How do the films’ linguistic depictions of gender compare to gendered patterns of speech in real communities?
- Has there been any change in how gender and language are portrayed in Disney and Pixar films over time?
In the Press
Washington Post, Jan 2016
“Researchers have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies“
National Geographic, Jan 2017
“For Princesses, the Question Remains: Who’s the Fairest?”
CBS News, Jan 2016
“Report: Disney still has a big princess problem“
MTV, Jan 2016
Disney Princess Movies Feature Mostly Male Speaking Roles
Language Log, Jan 2016
Aspects of the Theory of Disney Princesses
People Nerds, Oct 2018
Academic Publications
South Eastern Conference of Linguistics, 3/10/2017
“The Ideological Significance of YouTube Commentary on Language Vignettes”
New Ways of Analyzing Variation, 11/6/2016
“Gendered Compliment Behavior in Disney and Pixar: A Quantitative Analysis”
Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, 1/9/2016
“A Quantitative Analysis of Gendered Compliments in Disney Films”