Podcast Analysis: Extra Credit
Disney Films Affect Gender Roles - Podcast
The title of this podcast episode is called Does Hollywood Still Have a Disney Problem?, which can be found by clicking on the link. The podcast is part of a series called "Freakonomics" that describes the hidden sides of things. This is the 394th episode. I found this podcast by searching up podcast that talks about gender and Disney films. I picked this one because it touches on princess and gender, which is something that we explored in writing class this week when watching Beauty and the Beast. The speakers are Stephan Dubner.
The show begins by analyzing how society attempts to increase gender equality, but they tend to stop with just 20% success. Fixing this would help solve problems because would allow for collaboration and new ideas. They touch on the idea that women are influenced by princesses from Disney film causing them to be more girly and be more passive in life. Anya Dubner talks about her favorite Disney princess Belle. She admires Belle because she liked the Beast regardless of how he looked, but she also criticized how the film was unfair as it continued to have "the man being obsessed with her and it still revolves all around her being beautiful" (Dubner, 10:08). Anya comments on how Disney promotes an idea of hoping for an easy life. Her comment is supported as a study found that girls that watched more Disney films tend to become more submissive. They analyzed the disproportionate representation of women on television and explained it using the theory of economics. Films with men receive better views than if there were more women, but this isn't true. There is because of incorrect statistic causing belief based preferences. By confronting society about these incorrect statistic, it allowed companies in increase women in film and in companies. They end the podcast by talking about how Disney changed the way they portrayed princesses by giving more depth to the characters. This can be seen in Beauty and the Beast as they showed her family's back story and reasons why Belle stayed with the Beast.
The podcast was nicely set up with commentary between the two people. It was a nice collaboration, which is representative of what a podcast should be ask they riffed off each other. They started it with Geena Davis, a famous actress, saying her take on the topic. They then proceeded to add commentary on what she said and attempted to explain why Geena Davis said what she said in order to get back to the topic of the podcast. As they told a story, both Stephan and Anya Dubner listened and added commentary and clarification when necessary. They had soothing music in the background at some points of the podcast. Throughout the show, they had other people added into the podcast to give their opinions and they introduced them by asking them questions and allowing them to tell their story. With Geena Davis, she talked about her experience in the industry and how she had to formulate a whole scheme to present her ideas and Stephan Dubner's daughter talked about her childhood experience of admiring Disney princesses. They concluded the podcast by talking about the wins in the media for women as they are shown more in films and more diversity in the women portrayed, thus answering the question of the podcast.
Hi Vivian! What a coincidence that we listened to the same podcast. I quoted Stephan Dubner's daughter as well, I like her perspective about Belle, that people like her is because she is beautiful.