Yin Hsuan Pan
Professor Jacob Crawford
RHET 1302 - 010
27 September 2015
Justice of Gender Equality or Misinterpretation of Art? The world was drawn into frenzy of obsession when Disney released yet another animation in its princess movie collection – Frozen. Unlike traditional Disney princess movies, Frozen stresses the main female character’s will power and independence, which brought forth overwhelmingly positive feedback from the audience. Despite Disney’s effort, Phillip Cohen, the professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland who conducts researches on areas of gender and social change, voices his concern with the body proportions of each gender depicted in Disney movies (MPRC). In the article “The Trouble With Disney’s Teeny,…show more content… He argues that there are “radical differences between male and female bodies” in Disney animations (Cohen, 1). To solidify his claim, Cohen provides real world data of the body size differences between genders for the purpose of ridiculing the striking contrast between “absurdly small princesses and hulking male heroes” in Disney movies (Cohen, 1). Additionally, Cohen’s choices of words such as “radical” and “dramatic” further contribute to the degree of contrast between the body sizes Cohen is attempting to bring audiences’ concern to. The data and dictions Cohen selects to include in his article suggest that Disney Animation’s depictions of male and female characters are…show more content… After he proves that Disney in fact did present their animation unrealistically, he immediately shifts the focus to how it indicates gender inequality. The audience didn’t have time to recognize that animations are traditionally created in exaggerated manners, which has nothing to do with gender issues. Furthermore, Cohen uses a poor example when he attempts to ridicule Disney with visual aid of a scene in the movie Frozen where Princess Anna’s eyeball is wider than her wrist (Cohen, 2). In fact, animations generally place more emphasis on facial expressions (by animating a larger face) rather than body because this is how the audience can better grasp character’s emotions. Cohen’s misdirection of audience’s concern prevents him from having solid evidence, thus he could not justify his claims. Male and female’s physical difference in animation is simply an art form meant to allow audiences have a greater understanding of the