The female protagonists of Disney animations have developed from the petite, plain figured girl of Snow White to the busty ‘babe’ of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame’s” Esmeralda. They are some of the most licensed and marketed characters in the world. Monday night, students filled the Russell House to listen to Eileen Meehan, Chair in Media and Political Economy at Louisiana State University, discuss these characters and their transformation in relation to political economy and society.
After an introduction by Jill Morawski, Director of the Center of Humanities, which gave detailed accounts and quotes of Meehan’s works and writings, Meehan said, “God, I sound smart! Let’s hope I keep up the illusion!”
Meehan succeeded in this regard throughout her lecture, in which she combined collaborative research and personal analysis.
“She made it comprehensible. I hate it when people talk above me,” said Brittany Speisman ’07.
Meehan began with a brief history of the Disney Company through a primarily economic perspective. Meehan identified Disney’s innovative trademark strategies that allowed it to become the American staple it is today. The main strategy, the unprecedented licensing of characters, today shapes the development of these very same characters into products that sell.
Of course, Disney’s economic history runs parallel with its productions, bringing Meehan’s lecture to 1937 and the world’s first full-length animated feature film and Disney’s first major success, “Snow White.”
Meehan showed a clip from the beginning of the movie to illustrate the new, smooth animation and also pointed out Snow White’s roughly proportional, yet still fragile figure.
“There she is, the only woman with breasts!” Meehan said as the camera panned to the Evil Queen, a sharp contrast to the innocent heroine.
Aside from the fictional characters, Meehan also talked about the many women who worked on the creation of the film, but who were never credited, as Walt symbolized the entire creative genius and process.
This erasure of anonymous workers exemplifies the Disney economic strategies which allowed Disney to grow.
“By the mid-1950s Disney was an established practitioner of corporate synergy, a term that had yet to be coined,” Meehan said, a term she later defined as the “use of each operation to feed another operation.”
Meehan’s next segment demonstrated exactly how many operations Disney had and owned. Though presented in rhetoric resembling a long list, this segment gathered many shocked laughs and gasps from the audience as they realized just how much ownership and influence Disney has in many television channels, radio stations, book publishers etc.
“I love it how she mentioned humongous things so casually all in a list,” said Kathleen Day ’07.
Meehan moved on to “Modern Disney Gals” exemplified by Belle (“Beauty and the Best,” 1991), Pocahontas (“Pocahontas,” 1995), and Esmeralda (1996). Showing clips from each movie, Meehan compared Belle, “an updated Snow White,” to the busty, athletic, Barbie-doll-proportioned Pocahontas and Esmeralda.
Meehan identified an often-overlooked reason for this dramatic change in body-type. Pocahontas, the first Disney character to be licensed to Mattel, had to be made to fit the Barbie mold for marketing, and they animated character had to match the fashion doll.
These relationships between production and marketing contribute to the political economy of culture, the theme through which Meehan explored Disney and Disney’s women.
“It’s too bad Disney movies are so good, but I always knew there was something off,” Day said.
A question and answer session followed the lecture. Despite a shy start, audience members, predominantly from Professor of Psychology Jill Morawksi’s Psychology of Women class asked many questions.
Meehan’s lecture, titled “Disney’s Women: Towards a Political Economy of Femininity,” was a part of this semester’s Russell House Lecture Series, “Moving Images.”
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