Gender Construction And Media Narratives: Representations Of Gender In Animated Movies

Abstract

Media, as an important and powerful social institution, contributes in the construction and reinforcement of perceptions and beliefs about gender. The media images of gender have been found stereotypical and discriminated while there have been many debates on the under representation and biased treatment of gender related issues. This research study particularly analyzed how media narratives play a part in the construction of gender identities in animated movies. The study focused to investigate how femininity and masculinity have been build up in movies, which sort of roles have been assigned to both genders and which identities have been emphasized in the animated movies of Time Warner and Walt Disney during the time period of 2008 to 2013. Gender schema and social learning theories gave implications to the research findings. Both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of fourteen animated movies was conducted. The study concluded that there is stereotypical representations of gender in movies. The women are under-represented and usually negatively portrayed while the men have shown with more societal powers.