Gender cues from the Lion King?
 

Okay y'all, I am in need of some help for a paper I'm writing in my Family Relationships and Gender Roles class at KSU. We are to watch the movie, The Lion King, and then write a 4 page paper about the gender cues that little kids are receiving from the movie. An example of this would be how strong and muscular the male characters are and how the females are more laid back and stay home to watch the babies.

If you've watched the movie lately, what kind of gender messages are you noticing? Have you seen your child respond to a certain aspect of the movie?

It's been a long time but a few I can think of are; Mufassa is the protector (physically) and expects Simba to be the protector of his female friend (Nuala?). The warthog and Meercat have very crude humor (fart jokes). Sorry, like I said it's been a really long time.

I watched that movie 8002 times when my daughter was younger. I can sing every song and practically recite the entire dialogue. :rolleyes:

I only want to point out...not all the female characters were portrayed as laid back stay at home moms. When Nalia met Simba again...she was out hunting for food. And the hyena, whose voice was Whoopie Goldberg's, was mean and also the smartest of the three.

Side note - there is a scene where Simba is on top of a mountain...when he flops down...a dust cloud rises...in the air...the dust spells out the word sex. Really. When that info came out...I watched specifically to see if it were true.

Lol, be sure to use that in your paper!

Julie, if you haven't seen the Lion King in a while, you should watch it again and look for these cues. Gosh, I think it would be fun to watch the movie, looking for this, and there is some great music. Don't want to say who's who, but the movie reinforces traditional human roles in the animals, even though the mama lion is the food provider, daddy teaches all important life lessons, and mom's role is more of a homemaker. There are undercurrents of homosexuality and evilness; again if you watch the movie this will be clear. Kids learn an awful lot from movies and fairytales, but I doubt if many mothers noticed kids responding differently after the movie, these things are subtle.


Oh I just read Bchgirl reply so forget mine. I only saw it once. However, I'm not sure many people see Whoopie as feminine.

I remember that I was annoyed that none of the girl lions could rule the pride. Yes, I am a hyper-sensitive feminist. :p The whole point of the story is that Simba's sister has to go find him because he's the only one who can rule. And then of course there are two scenes where the male baby is presented to the other animals and everyone is thrilled.

Yes, I know that prides usually feature a couple male lions and a few females, but considering it's a Disney movie with a warthog and a lion getting along, why do we still insist on the King of the Jungle? Why not the Queen?

What's wrong with your answer? You're right.

Now I can't remember "Whoopie's" name in the movie...gonna have to go google and see if it's a feminine name or not.

Shenzi. I just Wiki-ed it.:D

:eek:What?! I'm going to have to watch for that.

Thank you everyone for all of your responses. I knew I could count on YT to point me in the right direction. I need to set down and watch the movie again...and maybe again:rolleyes: and hopefully some of these things will start to stand out.

I can't remember how it went in the movie, but in a real lion pride, the females do the hunting.

Yeah really. There is more than that in there....I've forgotten...maybe you could goggle it. I remember some children's group was all up in arms over stuff that animators had snuck into the movie. It happened in more Disney movies than just the Lion King.

Look what I found! :eek::eek::eek:

Ha ha, that was kind of funny- someone had a LOT of spare time on their hands.:p I only got just a bit past the 3 min. mark but most of those seemed like a stretch.

Disney movies in general
 

I've noticed they always have a missing parent. No mommies or daddies ..they are killed off.. Snow White..no parents..Cinderella... father died..evil sep mother..Aladin..no mom...Bambi..mom gets killed...Mermaid...no mom...Nemo..no mom... Do you see a patern????:eek:

:thumbup: I'm totally not buying it! Our brains are programed in to making abstract visuals in to recognizable patterns and images, thats why we can see pictures in the clouds, or faces in our textured ceilings while lying awake at night. I didnt see any of those things before they was pointed out and even then it didnt look like the word "sex". Some one was really bored to go to the trouble of making this video, but i can say i did see one subliminal message in this video, "Subscribe to my videos" time: 7:11

I think you could find subliminal messages in anything if you tried hard enough

I agree. I saw a few of them AFTER they were pointed out but definitely not all of them! I emailed the link to my teacher, so I'm curious to see what she has to say about it.

The author of the U-tube I'm guessing is a 14-24 year old man, who really has a problem. A nude woman in the fire, complete with nipple, this guy needs a girlfriend. These are not subliminal messages. The word "sex" has three letters, but you can't reshape the letters as much as he's doing and think the animators did this intentionally, maybe once on the sand, but remember, there is no "Circle of Life" without sex. :D
His last message is:

Did he mean couch or crotch? I think this says a great deal about what's on this man's mind.

LOL.....Thats very true!

:D We must think alike! I noticed that and thought the exact same thing!:rolleyes:

Well how did the report go, hope you did well. To test a theory I took Bellepoupee picture of Logan's nose. http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/my-...an-s-nose.html

Here's the first picture of Logans nose enlarged without any editing. Some of you will probably see letters.
Attachment 265905


This next picture is what my husband saw while looking at Logan's nose,
Attachment 265906

and the third picture is what I saw while looking at Logan's nose.

Attachment 265907

Nancy you are too funny!:D I think you should be applying for grants to research this further. Who knows what our dog's noses are subliminally making us do!:eek:

OMG! You totally crack me up!!

LOL I love it!!! And what a cute nose! :D

LMAO!!! now i want some chocolate!!!!! IT WORKED!

HA! Too funny.

Oh oh, I hope we have pointed you in the wrong direction, gender cues and subliminal messages written in the sand, (or noses :D) are two different things. For example, you know how the evil uncle waves his wrist rather limply, some might say this suggests homosexuality, and given the fact that the uncle is evil, the movie might be giving a message that homosexuals are evil. The gender cues are what messages the movie is giving us, about how an appropriate male or female should act. A good boy acts this way, and a good girl acts that way. I'm surprised your teacher interpreted the fight scene that way, some may interpret it that Simba felt bad because the girl beat him, sending the message, that if a girl can beat you, you're less of a man.

I think your teacher is really looking more for the obvious than you realize, these are not obvious to children watching the movie, and that's why she may call them subliminal. When you are watching the movie you don't realize that it's saying something about gender roles, and reinforcing certain ideas about males and females.

I've got to say, I believe Disney movies have come a long way in making the female role of stories stronger. Girls can fight back now, and have a say in what happens to them, unlike old fairy tales where we were in a coma, just waiting for our prince to come.