Research Essay: Blog Post #2

 The Production of Meaning through Peer Interaction: Children and Walt Disney’s Cinderella

 By: Lori Baker-Sperry

    In this source, by researcher Lori Baker-Sperry, she examines the gender role in young children through the reading of the book Cinderella. The focus point of this article was to show how young children reacted to this classic Disney book. Baker-Sperry read the book to eight different first grade classrooms, and explains her findings in this article. She noticed that every child knew the book and its basic story line, no matter if they were a boy or girl. She did note that the girls were more involved and actively participated in the reading, even going ahead in the book and telling everyone the ending. At a young age, these girls nearly had the book memorized and it is only one Disney book, not to mention most girls owned the movie as well. Baker-Sperry asked the class questions throughout the reading, regarding the personality and physical appearance of the characters. The girls answered by saying that Cinderella was “beautiful, kind, blonde, young, and skinny”, they said that the prince was “handsome, brave, and nice”, and that the evil stepmother and her daughters were “ugly, mean, old, and nasty”. The boy’s responses were that they were all dumb and stupid. The article also mentioned how the girls would relate their lives to Cinderella’s, hoping that one day they will have a happy ending like she did. At a very young age, girl’s expectations are being shaped around Disney princess’ lives, which automatically set them up for failure. These books and movies have such a powerful effect on girls and allow them to form an unrealistic life. The author of this article is a scientific researcher, and uses many outside sources to back up her information. This source is very reliable and helpful for my research paper. It will help make my paper solid and academic. It elaborates on most of the information in my other sources so it will all flow nicely. The source isn’t biased since it is academic research. It has truthful results that will help me write this essay. It will help shape my argument since it is exactly what my research is about. It helped reinforce my topic by proving that Disney princess movies shape the expectations and goals in young girls lives.

Research Paper: Source One

One source that I am going to use is “Gender Role Portrayal and the Disney Princess”. In this article, research was conducted for 3 different hypotheses. The first hypothesis suggested that the prince and princess character’s gender role portrayals would vary to their gender. The researchers displayed the characteristics for both masculine and feminine qualities in princes and princesses. In their findings they discovered that traditionally, the princes showed more masculine qualities like acting brave or being athletic, and princesses showed more feminine qualities like being fearful, troublesome, and affectionate. The second hypothesis was concerning how the rescuing actions would vary by the gender of the character. The results showed that the princes did in fact do more rescuing than the princesses did. This reinforced the statement that princesses were portrayed as helpless and powerless. The third hypothesis suggested that the gender role portrayals in the Disney Princess movies would become less restricted over time. The research from this showed that as the years went by, princesses were showing more masculine characteristics, like being brave and rescuing themselves.  It not only gives the data from these experiments but also provides detailed information about the Disney princess movies. This source will provide plenty of information for my paper since it talks about both the past, present, and future history of Disney movies. From its research, it provides how new movies will differ from the “original princess movie.” It doesn’t completely answer my research question but it contains enough information and data that will help me get there.