Cartoons

The other day, I was at the doctor waiting for a vaccination when an unsightly image caught my eye. On the cabinets in the pediatric section of the doctors office, I saw two stickers. One was of Mickey Mouse, wearing his normal clothes and looking pretty normal. In contrast, to the right of Mickey I saw Minnie and I was a little disgusted to be quite honest. The sticker was of the picture above, where Minnie Mouse is coyly leaning back as her skirts seem to lift in the breeze. Her eyes are pointed upwards as if she is looking up at someone taller than her and it is reasonable for one to assume that their person is a man.

This image bothered me because of how an innocent child cartoon character can present the message that women are supposed to be docile and be okay with being sexual objects. Although I would not initially consider Minnie Mouse to be a character that portrays detrimental messages to young children, this image made me begin to rethink my first verdict. Because of the way that this image of Minnie allows her skirts to stay lifted and looks right up at whoever is looking from outside of the frame shows that she knows that someone is looking up her skirt and she is okay with that. To me, it seems like she is promoting the idea that women should be submissive and valued mainly for their sexuality.

Even though Minnie Mouse does not exactly epitomize this submissive, over sexualized ideal as much as other characters directed toward young girls (such as certain Disney princesses), I was disturbed that a seemingly wholesome character could degrade women. What is worse is that most people never notice that her character does so. I hope that in the distant future when I decide to have children, I will not have to worry about my daughters learning degrading messages from seemingly innocent cartoons. Until progress is made, I believe that parents should make sure that there daughters always feel empowered and try to limit the detrimental attitudes that their children learn from cartoons and other media directed toward kids.