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Annotated Bibliography

How is Disney affecting children?

Tatyana Brown
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
3/10/2015

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Annotated Bibliography
Bailey, Kennedy. Disney princesses have mixed effects on children universe.byu.edu. 20 Sept.
2013 Web. 10 Mar. 2015.
This article examines how exposure to Disney, particularly princess- related media,
effects young girls in terms of gender stereotyping, body image, pro-social behavior and
aggression. The researchers predicted that the more Disney princesses the girls were
exposed to the more likely they were to gender stereotype females, have higher levels
of pro-social behavior, worse body image, and lower aggression. Their research proved to
be true in all areas except body image. Girls who had more frequent exposure to Disney
princesses tended to have a much better body image. Despite these results, one of the
researchers still finds it best that the childrens Disney princess exposure be moderated.
This information is reliable in the fact that it comes from direct university research.
However, this article is particularly biased in the fact that the person conducting the
research has a child of her own and therefore may still have differing opinions from the
evidence provided as a result from the research. I will be using this source as an opener
for my paper. The point about Disney not destroying body image for girls is new to me
and should definitely be included in my paper as it provides a new insight that I have not
seen before.
Castillo, Paul, The negative effects of Disney on children sundial.csun.edu. 04 Dec 2006.
Web. 10 Mar 2015.
This article examines the affect that Disney has on female and male children that tends to
go unnoticed. The author particularly dissects Disneys Sleeping Beauty. The author
makes the point that in Sleeping Beauty, girls are subliminally taught that in order to

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succeed in the world they need to be demure, beautiful, and wait for a man to save them.
He also analyzes the fact that Disney boys are nearly always aggressive and have limited
roles. This gives young boys the idea that they have to be silent, withdrawn, and strong in
order to be successful. Another point is brought up about the consequences received by
the women of Disney who are powerful and try to take charge. Women in Disney who
take charge are either deemed villains or are the cause of the problems that everyone
suffers from them taking charge. This is a biased article in the sense that research was not
actually conducted, it is just the author stating his opinions on what he has gathered in his
personal experiences with watching movies. I will definitely be using this article in my
paper because the points the author makes are very interesting and a lot of research can
be put into them. This article brought up a point that I did not notice in other articles,
there is an extreme lack of depth to Disney male characters. This article sparked the
thought in my head to do some further research on this.
Stevens, Heidi. BALANCING ACT Brush with Disney can change a girl's priorities
chicagotribune.com. 02 June 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.
This article centers around the negative affects Disney women, animated princesses and
real life human characters, have on children, particularly young girls. The article is
written by an angry mother who is upset with the way Disney portrays women. She goes
as far to call them acerbic and contemptuous and petty (plus doe-eyed, empty-headed
and prince-reliant). The author focuses on the fact that Disney seems to teach young
girls their appearance is the most important part of their lives. She shows clear disdain at
them as well as Disney advertising them and their looks on everything everywhere from
clothing lines to lunchboxes. She makes a reference to Jon Stewart speaking about his

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words on his TV show alluding to the fact that parents expect Disney to raise their
children when they should actually do it themselves. This article is incredibly biased
against Disney because it is written by a mother who is anti-Disney in the most
passionate way. I will be using this article in my paper as the anti-Disney and negative
effects side.
Wohlwend, Karen E. Damsels in Discourse: Girls Consuming and Producing Identity Texts
through Disney Princess Play Reading Research Quarterly Vol. 44, No. 1 Jan. - Mar.,
2009 Web. 10 Mar. 2015
This peer reviewed journal discusses the methods, experiment, and results of young girls
that were involved in princess play and literary activities. The researcher found that the
girls often changed the Disney characters they were playing with to fit their own lives
and how they believed the character should be portrayed. For example, a girl by the name
of Zoe transformed Aurora from Sleeping Beauty from being a victim to being her own
rescuer. As far as this experiment went, it was as though the roles were reversed. The
female children were the ones often in charge directing the male children and there were
many more strong women characters that were not villains. This differs drastically from
stereotypical Disney movies. This article is not at all biased, it is solely from an
observational point of view and not objective. I will definitely use this article in my paper
because it is incredibly full of information. It is full of new and information that is not
repetitive that I did not know prior to looking through the article. This experiment is very
different from the others in the sense that the researcher observes the children making
their own stories with the Disney characters as opposed to simply observing their
reactions to watching Disney media.

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