Interesting Aspects of My Paradigm Shift

Interesting Aspects of My Paradigm Shift

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of my shift is that–unlike most shifts that move in a forward, relatively linear direction–my shift is actually a move backwards as a result of the end of WWII and the Baby Boom. I’m choosing to analyze this shift through the changes in body type dichotomy between male and female characters in Disney princess films. Not only did the size difference increase between male and female characters as the shift progressed, but also the implied power difference between characters of different genders. One of the most striking instances of this is the way in which imagery of Princess Snow White changed over time. The original 1937 film featured a small, yet still realistically proportioned heroine who was not drastically or exaggeratedly smaller than her prince, and was in fact much taller than the seven male dwarves. However, images from the early 2000s feature a significantly slimmer and smaller Snow White with a sexualized hourglass figure.

The impact of these images is incredibly important because the gender dichotomy established by the body types of Disney Princess and their male counterparts is incredibly significant in the formation of the society’s perceptions of gender and power. Humans are an incredibly visually oriented species, and the images of men and women that we see in our formative years in childhood dramatically impact our perceptions of gender and power. Children who see images of tiny, physically weak, and unrealistically proportioned female heroines next to massive, strong, and equally unrealistically proportioned male characters internalize this imagery and form sexist concepts of gender and power that stay with them throughout much of their lives. Teaching children about gender sets the standard for gender roles and gender power dynamics for the emerging generation. These perceptions and concepts work with other elements of oppression and bias to create a sexist culture that impacts both women and men.

Dominant Culture Before and After WWII

Dominant Culture Before and After WWII

I had initially planned to discuss the cultural shift that led to the change in gender representation of Disney princesses and their male counterparts from the pre-WWII era to the post-WWII era, as well as the cultural shift that occurred between Disney’s “Renaissance” in the 1980s and the present day. However, I realized that discussing two separate shifts would not allow me to research each individual shift fully and completely, so I intend to focus on the earlier shift that occurred as a result of the Second World War.

Before and during the war, in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, women experienced a great deal of equality in terms of respect, value in society, etc. These decades were by no means characterized by egalitarian society, but neither is the present day. This greater degree of equality was brought on by the revolutionary thinking of the progressive era and the roaring 20s that ultimately enabled women to vote, wear relatively non-restrictive clothing, keep their hair short, etc. The ideas about gender that arose in the 20s were reinforced by the Great Depression in the 30s and WWII in the 40s, both of which required women to step up as active participants in American society. Women were seen as vital to the function of American society during these times, as no one would have survived the Depression and the war effort would not have been as victorious as it was without the help of American women. The dominant social and cultural structures, like the government and the media, saw–at least to a certain extent–the strength and capability of women. The media during this time represented women as complex human beings, rather than sexual objects that existed for the purpose of serving men. For example, Katherine Hepburn and Anna May Wong starred as strong and intelligent female leads, and Snow White was depicted with a reasonably realistic body type.

After the war ended, there was a push to produce as many babies as possible to replenish the American population. Because of traditional expectations placed on mothers, women were forced back into the home and seen for their ability to reproduce, rather than their ability to contribute to society in other ways as they had in the previous few decades. This shift backwards persisted throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s, despite counter culture movements that sought to uproot convention. The 80s saw another push towards tradition as a reaction to the fear and uncertainty created by the progressive movements of the 70s. Because society was mainly concerned with women’s bodies and their ability to reproduce, the media during this time focused on women’s conventional physical beauty, and this male-dominated industry set standards for who the ideal woman was and what she looked like.

While the notions about gender as defined after the war persisted throughout most of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, there were still advances being made by resistance groups, like second-wave feminists and counter-culturalists (hippies). However, even progressive movements like the Black Power movement and the counter-cultural movement saw women for their ability to reproduce and further the cause in that way. While many women were effectively re-entering the workforce throughout the late 60s, 70s, and 80s, they faced extreme resistance and struggled to regain the status that women had achieved in the 30s and 40s. Even today, women face a great deal of resistance in the workplace.

The resistance groups faced resistance from the dominant culture, which reacted by preventing legal and constitutional protections of women (e.g. the Equal Rights Amendment) from being put into place. The media hit back with even more poor representations of women, as in Princesses Ariel and Jasmine, whose bodies were incredibly unrealistically small, and who spoke significantly less than Snow White or even Cinderella.

Paradigm Shift Ideas

Paradigm Shift Ideas

The first of my ideas for my paradigm shift essay is an analysis of social changes in terms of gender roles and how women and people of minority status are portrayed in the media. I intend to do so by analyzing the similarities and differences between the 1946 movie La Belle et la Bete, the 1991 animated Disney classic Beauty and the Beast, and the 2017 live action Disney film of the same name. These different movies tell variations of the same fairy tale, and therefore are relatively easy to analyze as markers for three different time periods with different cultural beliefs throughout an overarching paradigm shift. The differences between the movies are not a paradigm shift in and of themselves; rather, the social changes in beliefs about gender roles and people of minority status that occurred between 1946 and 2017 represent a paradigm shift that affected portrayals of these topics and groups in mainstream media. For example, the 1946 film featured a mainly white male cast and featured elements of Stockholm syndrome and blatant sexism. The 2017 film is nearly the same story about a smart and daring young woman, who also happens to be beautiful, but it attempts to tell the story without hinting at Stockholm syndrome, and it includes several characters of color and Disney’s first LGBTQIA+ character, LeFou.

In staying with the Disney theme, my second idea would be to analyze the underlying paradigm shift that has contributed to the evolution of both male and female body types in their animated princess films. Dualism is the idea that if one group is represented by one characteristic, the opposite group must be represented by the opposite characteristic; for example, if men are strong, large, powerful, and domineering, women must be delicate, small, frail, and submissive. In movies from Disney’s “Renaissance” era (the 80s and early 90s) female characters like Princess Ariel and Princess Jasmine are characterized by frail bodies and minuscule waists, while some of their male counterparts, Ariel’s father King Triton and Aladdin’s Genie, are characterized by just the opposite: massively broad, tall, and muscular bodies. This dualism represents the ideas that society had during this time in our history. The 80s were a relatively conservative era that sought to place restrictions on the right to marry, the right to reproduce or choose not too, etc; this time period was a reaction to the vast social changes that occurred in the late 1960s and the majority of the 1970s.

The dichotomy that this era in Disney created between the ideal female body and the ideal male body did not always exist to this extent, and does not exist to that degree today. In the 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the female protagonist had relatively average body proportions for the time in the U.S., as did her prince. There was no exaggerated dichotomy between them; they were simply people. While the movie is still sexist, heterosexist, and features no characters of color, it is a much more fair representation of “ideal” men and women. The 1930s were a progressive time in which women actually held a lot of power; they worked, they married if and when they wanted, and they experienced a great deal of freedom due to the necessity for women to contribute more to society during and after the Great Depression. Men and women were inching towards equality during this time, so there was no need to create a body type dichotomy to reinforce social ideals about what men and women should be like. It wasn’t until after WWII that women lost many of the rights they had gained.

Recent Disney princess films, including the wildly popular Frozen, return to the relative body size ratio between male and female characters. Anna and Elsa are slim and still relatively unrealistic in terms of their body proportions, they are not significantly smaller than their male counterparts, including Hans and Kristoff. The 2010s have been a progressive era as well as the 30s and 70s–these past several years have been a reaction to the blatant sexism of the early 2000s–the era of pink everything, sexualization of anything, and backwards beliefs about the roles that women should play in society. Other films that represent our return to a greater degree of equality, as seen through body type dualism, include The Princess and the Frog and Brave.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Outline

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Outline

Introduction

  • Hook: On January 9th, 2017, the then President Elect of the United States tweeted that Meryl Streep, winner of three Academy Awards and nine Golden Globes, was “one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood.” He proceeded to continue to express his distrust of the “dishonest media.
  • Introduce Civic Artifact #2:
    • Her Golden Globes acceptance speech
    • Kairos, ethos, and an understanding of her different audiences
      • Civic message that American citizens, the world, and, most importantly, the media must actively hold the current presidential administration accountable for its actions
  • Introduce Civic Artifact #3:
    • T-shirt from the brand Reformation with the slogan “Save the Earth it’s the only planet with Meryl”
    • Kairos, ethos, and an understanding of different audience to promote and enhance Ms. Streep’s message
  • Thesis: These civic artifacts mirror one another in their rhetorical strategies to present a unified call to political action in the present polarized and tense social and political environment.

Kairos

  • She takes advantage of the exigence and opportunity of her situation
    • Public setting, media attention, opportune time just before Trump’s inauguration
    • Similar to the way in which the brand Reformation utilized the window of time between Meryl Streep’s now famous speech and President Trump’s inauguration, as well as the Women’s March
  • Her use of dramatic timing for greater emotional appeal
    • Withholds until just the right moment that this man who made what she claims to be the worst performance of 2017 was in fact the then President Elect of the United States
    • Creates rhetorical tension

Ethos

  • Her fame and platform as a critically acclaimed Hollywood actress
    • Her fame, as opposed to infame or obscurity, almost automatically enables audiences to trust her familiar face and voice, forcing them to pay closer attention to her message and encouraging them to listen to her call to action to support the media and question the actions of the Presidential Administration.
  • Her credibility as an influential person in the media
    • Calls for the media and the press to hold the Presidential Administration accountable for its actions
    • Particular credibility because she is very influential in the media and is an expert in the field
  • Compare to ethos of Reformation
    • Mainly by building upon the established ethos of Ms. Streep herself with the brand’s own credibility as the premiere eco-friendly fashion house in the United States
    • Even more credibility to their environmental message, as they chose to make the shirts out of recycled fabric
    • Contrast: While both the shirt and the speech rely on the credibility of Meryl Streep as a famous and critically acclaimed actress, the shirt takes this element of ethos one step further by also relying on the credibility of the brand in terms of how much action they’ve already taken towards saving the earth: the only planet with Meryl.

Audience

  • Who?
    • Her audiences include the current presidential administration, the American people, and the media
    • She addresses the immediate audience of individuals lucky enough to be in the room with her at the Golden Globes, but she is also reaching the larger audience of people in America and throughout the world watching the awards ceremony on their screens
    • People with progressive ideologies who have a pre-existing distrust of the new administration
      • But also the administration itself and its supporters
      • To them she preaches a message of open-mindedness toward the media
      • Also calls for more culturally sensitive and Presidentially appropriate actions and behavior in the future.
  • What?
    • Calling upon the media personas within the room to tell the truth as well as they possibly can, but she is also calling upon the broader audience of citizens to listen to the media and pay close attention to what is about to happen in Washington, D.C.
  • Comparison to T-shirt
    • Audience of the Reformation t-shirt is really anyone who takes the time to read what the shirt says—anyone whom the wearer may encounter in their daily civic lives.
    • Ideology: those with similar ideologies to the wearer and the designer will likely have a positive reaction to this shirt and may even laugh, while the Trump administration and its supporters may scoff at this shirt, tweet about it, or simply ignore it
    • Furthermore, just as many people did not watch the Golden Globes or read the news stories about it the next day because they simply did not care, many people will not look at what the text says because they are simply going about their lives and do not want or need to look at the text of the shirt, so the civic messages of both the speech and shirt will be lost on them.

Summarize Comparison

  • Who did it better?
    • Reformation was ultimately more effective, but it relied heavily on her effective use of rhetoric and would not have been effective at all without her speech
  • Why?
    • Building upon existing effective use of rhetoric
    • Broader audience
      • Anyone can see a t-shirt, but most people don’t watch the golden globes and only heard about the controversy from the President’s Twitter

Conclusion

Ideally, these important civic messages will be lost on as few people as possible and reach as many people as possible because, whether one agrees or disagrees with the messages, all should at least take the time to consider and think about these ideas of supporting or not supporting the media as a whole, and saving the earth through environmentally minded action. Through the use of Kairos, ethos, and an understanding of different audiences, the Reformation t-shirt and Meryl Streep in her Golden Globes acceptance speech present ideas of political action that ultimately reach wide audiences and spark important discussion.