From: Jessica P
Romantic Socialization for young boys and girls is heavily influenced by the media. Little girls grow up watching princess movies and soon develop the idea that a man will come into their life and take them away to live happily ever after. Showing girls these fairy tale love stories at such a young age have more of a negative effect on them later in life than one tends to realize.
In my picture, I have a young girl kissing a toad hoping for her prince to transform and rescue her. The movie The Frog Story has altered girls’ beliefs not only creating a false hope for an animal to turn human but, the fact that the story makes girls believe that they cannot survive without a man. The media makes it seem that in order for women to be happy and successful in life they need to be taken care of by a man. The girl has her eyes closed while kissing the toad to signify that she is blinded to everything going on around her. She is not focused on herself or her goals anymore, she just wishes for her prince to appear and take care of her. The child is wearing white clothes to show her innocence and purity. She doesn’t know any better than for a man to save her from her own life because that’s what she has seen in the movies. The door in the background is open to show that the girl has endless opportunities waiting for her, but she has her back turned to it. Having her back turned to the open door symbolizes that she is more worried about the toad turning into her prince than she is worried about her own self. This is known as the “glass slipper effect”. The “glass slipper effect” states that women who idealize men as romantic heroes that will come and rescue them are less involved in creating their own destiny (The Social Psychology of Gender). The toad looks bigger than the girl’s head to show the significance of the man himself over the woman. Women who believe men are their protectors believe the man is in fact more important than the woman herself. The toad itself is held in the air over the girl to express its power over her because she believes he will make her life better.
Works cited:
Rudman, Laurie A., and Peter Glick. The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. New York: Guilford, 2008. 221. Print.
2 comments:
Through media, young girls start out watching Disney movies where there's a princess waiting to be rescued by her Prince Charming. I know from growing up and also nannying young girls, we've always dreamed about our "perfect prince". Even though I've grown up into a woman and that's not the case anymore, I see an growing problem with the future generation. I asked the girls I nanny for what they would like to be when they grow up and their responses were "a princess". The problem with the "Glass Slipper Effect" is young girls think that's what relationships will be like in the future and their emphasis on attracting boys during their adolescence, instead of getting good grades to achieve higher education to start a career. Childhood fantasies implicitly tell girls that men will provide for them, which in return will make women substantially less ambitious of their own goals and dreams. I really liked the open door and how it shows how girls have opportunities just like boys do, but sadly put them on hold or suppress them in hopes of meeting their "Prince Charming".
Through looking at this photo, the first thing that I thought of was that a little girl was so desperate to get a man that she was willing to kiss a frog to do it. Of course, this is a reference to a princess story and I know where it is coming from, but then it made me think, “wow, is this seriously a princess story that we want our little girls to be looking up to?” Through the media, and mostly through Disney (as it is a monopoly of media that children are exposed to) young girls are taught that in order to be happy she must find a “Prince Charming” who will give her a “happily ever after.” In this photograph, it shows just how important finding that prince charming is to the little girl. My first impression was very similar to how the photograph was originally explained; however, there were some things that differed. The first main point that I saw was the background, there is a door that is half closed with the little girl facing away from it. To me it seemed almost as if the door was in motion, being slammed shut, as the little girl made the decision to “kiss the frog” – as in to give up her own prospects to obtain her prince. This door is being shut on all of the opportunities the girl once had, before she decided to make her happiness become dependant of someone else. This idea of putting a man above her own happiness, and needing a man to make her happy is shown through the little girl holding the frog above herself. She is literally placing it above herself, and her own needs to find personal individual happiness. I did not however, initially notice the size of the frog as it was described by the artist, though I think that it is important to note that the frog is larger than the little girls head, portraying its dominance over her. The last main point that I noticed within this photograph was to pale color of the little girls clothing. In the photo, the clothes look like they are a pale pink color, to show not only the innocence of the child, but also how naive she is. She does not know any better than to think this way because it is the only thing that she has been taught. This is where the pale pink color comes into play, because it almost seems as if her innocence has been tainted by gender roles and stereotypes, taking away her ability to truly be “pure” and go against them. The only thing that I think that could have been added to improve this photo would be tighter framing. If there were truly nothing else visible except for the girl and the door, I think it would have added to the significance of the photo by showing their importance. With a slightly different angle and a tighter crop, the artist would have been able to eliminate the extra wall space, the moderately distracting thermostat, the door in the far background in the upper right, and the extra lines of the baseboard. Overall I think this picture was successful in demonstrating the significance of female’s dependence on finding a man to be happy with her life, and also significantly includes the media reference to Disney to show how it can affect and taint the thoughts of our youth.
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