1.
The Walt Disney Company’s cultural products have been a great influence on popular culture since the 1930s and an inspiration for generations all over the world ever since. For many, including myself, the Princes, Princesses and fantastical creatures of Disney’s animated fairy tales have become symbols of their youth. Seeing the films gives rise to a feeling of nostalgia, they become a memento of one’s childhood world. But what kind of world is this? What kind of realities do Disney’s fantastical representations construct? In my thesis, I will analyze a specific element of Disney films: gender roles constructed through the representation of femininity in their animated features. I will study how this representation changes over time: has Disney’s highly criticized construction of gender roles changed over time, and if so, what realities do contemporary Disney discourses construct? This study shows how femininity is represented in Walt Disney‘s animated features, how this representation changes over time and what kind of effects this has on the identity formation of young girls.