Jun

4

Disney seems to have the "princess" market captured. But it has difficulty getting boys to be ardent fans.

Do they hate men? It would seem so with their last two blockbuster movies, Frozen and Maleficent.

(Spoiler alert: skip this paragraph if you've seen it or want to experience whether it is man-hater fantasy for yourself): Maleficent turns the old "sleeping beauty" on its head and castigates men in doing so. As a young fairy, Maleficent meets the future king, then an orphan, and has a budding romance. They must soon part ways, sealed with the future king's words, "True Love's kiss" on departure. When the bounty of the whole kingdom is put on Maleficent's head as she grows, the boyfriend betrays his love and cuts her wings off to become king. Maleficent in turn puts a curse on his new born daughter, Aurora. The daughter is put under the care of incompetent fairies to hide her from Maleficent, (apparently any lady that follows a man is a fool) but all knowing Maleficent ends up taking care of the girl. Maleficent soon regrets putting the curse on such a innocent loving girl. Therefore a prince is brought in to kiss a comatose Aurora to no avail. Maleficent proclaims there is no cure for the curse because there is no such thing as "True Love's kiss". That is until Maleficent kisses her (apparently women alone can have true love), then Aurora reawakens. Aurora returns Maleficent wings and the kingdom is soon inherited by Aurora.

Movies in general, but especially Disney movies, have made their fortune on feeding the fantasy of changing how the world is into how it should be. Maleficent is no different, except how it is is a world run by ruthless men incapable of love. Only women are capable of love. Are the progressive so sure they are right that the world only needs empowered women in the future that they are willing to show boys they are only capable of hate and crimes against humanity?

When over 60% of the college Bachelors degrees are granted to women and an even higher percentage of Master degrees are women, one begins to question how much "empowerment" society can take. Young girls are cutting into the "math and science gap". But the boys' "reading and language" gap is remaining and growing. Will we miss educated men in the workforce? Do we really need diversity, or just certain diversity?

The old Disney has taken some heat for racism. Yet Walt had enough business sense to keep blatant hate out of his world and theme parks. But will the new Disney survive when the ever changing cycle changes once again and we see discrimination for what it is: stereotypical hate.

Stefan Jovanovich writes:

Anonymous is right, but I think he omits a part of what Walt called "the wonderful world of entertainment" - games. I have not seen any data on the gender gap for players of video games; but Eddy assures me that it remains a world that is almost wholly male.

While waiting in the lobby of UNC's ambulatory care hospital yesterday for my number to be called, I watched a young boy and his older sister and their mother (the kids were, I would guess, 4 and 6) deal with the problem of a piece of trash. The waiting area had receptacles for both recycling and garbage. The trash was, in the view of the mother and sister, recyclable so the boy was instructed to put it in the green waste. He put it in the garbage. He did not do it out of contrariness or confusion. He saw both receptacles and even hesitated before making his choice. He chose the garbage because the recycling container just had an opening; the garbage had a lid with a handle that had to be lifted. The genetic impulse to do something was too hard to resist. To their credit the women did not complain or lecture; I think they understood what was going on as the boy returned to where they were sitting and resumed standing in front of his chair and playing with his miniature trucks on the seat. After watching all this, I could not resist saying "You go, guy", knowing it would elicit the appropriate response from my wife - a fairly gentle punch to side of my upper left arm.

P.S. I take the statistics about the gender of Master's degrees as confirmation of what my wife told me when we met in law school at Berkeley 41 years ago and enrollment was going from being 97% male to a more equal ratio. "Now that they have 'let the women in' law, as a profession, will go from being an elite profession to being what people do when they can't figure out how else to preserve/achieve higher social status after finishing college."


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