Disney’s first productions were based around the rigid ideas of gender and sexuality that dominated the early twentieth century. (Balint) They set out patterns for behavior and how people should view their place in the society. Both boys and girls are taught to learn to obey. The male is taught to be active and rich, while the female is taught to be passive. The first film I will examine is Walt Disney’s 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was created from a structureist point of views.

According to structuralism, there are two levels of the world that we see: the visible and invisible. The visible universe is comprised of all the objects and activities we encounter, interact with and observe every day. If you are describing the structure of an entire novel in order to evaluate or interpret the meaning of the book, then this is not a structuralist act. Structuralism is when you analyze the structure and composition of many novels. This could be to find “the principles that govern them” such as the function of each character within the narrative. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs highlights the main features of the fairytale genre. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs contains many of genre’s most recognizable characteristics. As we know, the villain will die, or the good guy will win. This is one of the most common features in fairy tales. It is common to talk about the Disney-style perfect endings, when the prince kisses a princess after breaking the spell. According to structuralists, the binary opposites concept represents an important concept. It is used to describe how humans are most likely to perceive differences in reality as opposed to each other: “two opposing ideas that we can only understand when they are in opposition.” (Tyson, 213). We perceive light as being the opposite to dark, male and female, good and evil, or black and white. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has a binary opposition between the princess and the villain. The Snow White character has a sweet, innocent, domestic and passive nature, whereas the evil stepmother’s personality is narcissistic and evil. Then, there are two types motherhoods: an older type that is jealous and selfish in contrast with Snow White’s young, pure purity. The evil queen’s bad mother role is not an exaggeration. Snow White is the opposite. She becomes a mother-figure to the seven dwarves despite still being a girl. Snow White earns this position by cooking and cleaning for them, telling her to wash up and being generally passive. Snow White is rewarded with her ideal prince, while the queen who was causing all of this trouble dies. After analyzing the plot, we can find a religious message in the scene where Snow White consumes an apple before dying. It draws a comparison between Eve and Adam, who were banished from Eden after she ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Disney’s film is similar to the Christian message: women who are curious, knowledgeable, and powerful should be feared. (Savanna, web). Other fairy tales also reflect this, such as the evil mothers and female antagonists. Disney adheres to gender norms based on the patriarchal society’s dictates of how women should act, speak and think.

Walt Disney created the story during 1930s. At that time, women were largely confined to the domestic realm and stuck in gender roles. Disney’s princess is a passive heroine, partly due to social conventions. She’s naive since she gets fooled twice by stepmother. And though she can be both a little girl and princess, it is still expected that she obey what her parents tell her to do. The dwarfs will also ask her to do the cleaning and cooking. To be a perfect women, you must always look good and presentable. The queen is the key character in this story. She is obsessed with looking good in the mirrored image and becoming the best. The story portrays a beautiful woman, but also warns women to avoid obsessing over their looks. They are told to obey the rules of femininity, but the punishment for disobeying them is severe. The traditional stories of women have been marginalised in modern fairy tales. Modern fairytales have given the previously silent females in traditional stories a voice. This is a deconstructive approach that offers new perspectives to the changing ideologies of women and modern fairy tales. (Walsh, 5)