From birth we are conditioned to fit a gender box according to our biological sex. Boys are
wrapped in blue blanket and girls in pink. Family and friends bring balloons saying “it’s a
girl!” or “it’s a boy!” and their future rooms are already painted accordingly. When boys
cry they are told not to be a girl and toughen up and girls are raised into thinking they cant
become president. Everyone is influenced by society, especially a young child. One of the
ways society is greatly influenced is through media. Television plays a very essential role
in a form of entertainment and information. Kids are dressing up as their favorite
characters from their favorite movies: girls as princesses and boys as their favorite
superhero. The gender roles are further pushed with these TV shows and movies. Men are
very masculine and women are feminine but it is clear that men are superior and the better
sex. Looking back at some of my favorite childhood movies, it became more evident how
the genders were separated and made unequal but somehow it was portrayed as normal or
“the way it’s supposed to be.”
The classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out in 1938, before the second wave
of feminism. It was the world’s first full-length animated feature. The movie is a story
about a queen dressing up her stepdaughter Snow White in rags and forcing her to become
a maid in her castle, because she is jealous of her beauty. The queen filled with envious
rage orders a woodsman to kill Snow White in the forest. The woodsman couldn’t go
through with it and returned to the queen with a pig’s heart, claiming it belonged to Snow
White as proof. Snow White collapses with exhaustion on the forest floor and wakes up
and finds an empty cottage. Her and the animals clean the cottage and when the seven
dwarfs return Snow White strikes a deal and offers her domestic services in return for
room and board. The queen disguised goes to visit the cottage with a poisonous apple.
Snow White bites the apple and falls into death-like sleep spell that can only be broken
when she is kissed by her first true love. The movie ends with the prince kissing her back
to life and carrying her off to eternal happiness.
Growing up I remember watching Snow White and loving it, it was sad that her step
