I just wanted to take a quick look at musicals and notice that Disney is not just perpetuating gender stereotypes, but actually bowing to the musicals tradition. Theatre is often considered to be one of the best venues for breaking ground on gender stereotypes, but take a look at the progression of gender ideas in musicals for a second:
Showboat (1927): Women are separated from their men due to racial discrimination and male gambling problems. (One man pulls a clever "trick" sucking his mulatto wife's blood so that he has "black blood" also and must go off with her, but later leaves her). The woman who does not find a man has become addicted to alcohol. The other woman is remarried at the end of the play, and despite all the bad actions of men throughout, this is construed as a good thing.
My Fair Lady (1956): Man decides to prove his brilliance by pulling a scam. He uses a woman as his tool to do this. Scam succeeds. The woman becomes angry when her own part in the plot goes unrecognized. Another man falls in love with her and goes about admiring her and singing songs about larks. He is construed as flat and foppish. Woman eventually goes back to first man and first man takes back up his mantle of overbearingness, apparently not having learned his lesson. This is construed as humorous and positive.
Fiddler on the Roof (1964): Man is poor with lots of daughters. All the daughters are married off. This is construed as a good thing. One daughter marries a man who is not of the father's culture. Father disowns her. This is construed as bad but understandable.
Music Man (1967): Sketchy man comes to town, seduces intelligent, independent woman. Woman covers for man's fraud, falls in love with man. This is construed as a good thing.
The Producers (1968): Men try to pull a fraud. They fail, but the audience is supposed to find their efforts vaguely charming or clever. Women are sex objects. This is construed as humorous.
Chicago (1975): I haven't seen this one but from what I understand: women kill men for one thing or another involving inadequate or unfaithful sexuality. Women compete for media limelight. A woman pulls a trick which gets her her husband back and gets her out of prison. When her husband learns of her trick, he leaves her. This is construed as bad. She teams up with her competitor for the limelight at the finale (this is good?).
The Phantom of the Opera (1986): Woman is seduced by a creepy man. Woman also falls in love with a childhood sweetheart. Woman also is ruled by memories of her father. Creepy man is construed as intellectual and tries to pull off several murderous plots which are successful. Childhood sweetheart promises to protect woman. Childhood sweetheart tries to outwit creepy man but fails. Woman melts creepy man's heart by being willing to sacrifice herself. Creepy man lets them both go. This is construed as sad, but there is some debate as to whether it is sad that man was creepy in the first place or that woman left creepy man. Either way, woman ends up married and this is construed as good.
Jekyll & Hyde (1990/7): Man decides to rebel against society in order to try and save his mentally ill father. This is construed as a good thing. Man meets independent-thinking prostitute, tells her he wishes to be her friend. This is construed as a good thing. Man has a faithful fiance, construed as an ideal sort of wife. Man's experiment goes terribly wrong, he murders lots of people, rapes the prostitutes, and eventually murders her. This is construed as very bad but conceivably redeemable. Man makes it to his wedding, seemingly conquers his bad side, but it comes out at the wedding. Man gets his friend to kill him. This is construed as bad but the right thing to do.
Rent (1993-4-6): I have to admit I haven't seen this one, but from reading the synopsis: lots of people deal with health and money issues, at the finale a woman and a man declare their love for each other, and this is construed as good (maybe the best thing to happen in the play?)
Wicked (2003): Woman is stigmatized for the color of her skin. Woman is independent, free-thinking, and powerful, and grows to have a deep friendship with another woman. Man is carefree and disdainful of education. Woman makes man learn to care, man champions woman. Woman abandons close female friend to go live with man. This is construed as bittersweet, but the right choice.
Glee (2009-present): Women pretends to be pregnant to impress her husband. This is construed as manipulative. Husband eventually leaves her. Gay boy struggles to find his identity, does so by being flamboyantly effeminate, angry, and pushy about his sexual orientation. Another gay boy (and a lesbian girl) hide their homosexuality behind anger. A last gay boy is totally cool with everything, and also fits the wide chest, muscular arms stereotype. Girls are attracted to him (a girl is attracted to the first boy too, but only through emotional manipulation of another girl). Boy is a rebel and beats people up emotionally and physically. He is sometimes redeemable for his occasional protectiveness. Three girls are ambitious. This is construed as bad in all of them. Romantic relationships are the center of most plot developments, and every character appears to be pursuing the perfect partner.
There are tons of others to choose from (Into the Woods and Last Five Years, I actually think really play with gender stuff more complexly than a lot of these). But even with some few exceptions, notice the trends. I didn't pick and choose these plays to illustrate a point, I just chose some that I knew were famous and outlined them real quick. Consistently, men are considered clever and heroic if they are tricky (even if that trickiness is bad, as in The Music Man) while women (as in Chicago) are wicked in their trickery. Heroes who are belligerently commandeering are contrasted with foppish figures who are construed as less manly. Women who are intelligent and independent consistently get married and submit to their new husbands. When men do something awful (murder, for instance), they are redeemable or pitiable, or did it for the right reasons. Women are wicked, albeit sexy. Men and women are incomplete and unhappy without the other. These aren't hard and fast rules, but they are generally true, pretty much across the board.
What do you think? Are there other musicals that fit this? Musicals that rebel against the trend? And why do you think this trend is so attractive? Does Glee fit the bill, or is it able to play with things more because its a long running tv show (and if it is able, does it succeed)?
I think musicals in general tend to follow a formula, so it's not surprising that they would also tend to feature archetypal gender roles. But then again, it's apparent that a lot of other works of popular media do, too. I suspect that this has more to do with writers trying to fit the expectations of audience members than anything else: as a rule of thumb, you can make a lot of money by throwing out a canned genre-film. Granted, some things that come out of hollywood are thoughtful, well-composed, and challenging, but they're generally the minority.
ReplyDeleteOverall, you can see the same thing happening on FM radio. Radio stations know that their listeners are either at work or driving, and that of those, the vast majority are driving. Drivers tend to dial-cruise: that is, they turn the dial until they hear something they "like" (i.e. a song that's familiar) and then choose that station. So, the goal of a radio station is to loop as few, massively popular songs as possible. That way, they have to pay less for usage rights, and also attract more listeners. Movies are the same way; they're looking for a cheap production that people will see a trailor for, remember that they like the genre, and then go see once and forget about. Forgetting about it is preferable, because that way, they'll go see (what's basically the same) movie the next summer and not make the connection as to why they're seeing the same movie twice.
Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to see how these films handle race as a component of woman as the other. It's hard to disentangle sometimes.
Yes, in fact, they seem to use race as the reason you should cheer for or otherize the woman, interestingly.
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