Grumpy’s too happy!
Disney characters mask misery of working-class life say academics
THEY are the children’s film characters loved by generations of fans, rich or poor, across the world.
But the Seven Dwarfs, Bert the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins and others have been criticised for sending out the wrong message about poverty.
Good-natured Bert, played by Dick Van Dyke, is too happy and carefree given the hardships of working-class life in Edwardian London, US researchers claim.
And the Seven Dwarfs – even Grumpy – would not be singing cheerfully at the prospect of working all day in a mine.
Other Disney movies, including Aladdin, The Lion King and 101 Dalmatians were also criticised for making poverty appear benign and climbing the class ladder seem an easy thing to do.
Researchers from Duke University in North Carolina looked at 32 films, many of them from Disney, that were rated G – the American equivalent of U – and had grossed more than $100million (£68million) worldwide. They put the characters
‘The films suggest inequality is benign’
into classes based on their job. At the top are upper class characters – royalty, chief executives and celebrities.
The working class have jobs like soldiers, sailors, miners and sweeps. The lowest category is the jobless poor.
Their analysis showed that in most cases the main character is wealthy and the majority of the cast are either upper or upper-middle class, meaning that poorer sectors are under-represented.
The depictions of working-class people is also unrealistic, the researchers said, as nearly all ‘perceive their jobs as invigorating, fun’. In Mary Poppins, Bert sings that ‘ as a sweep you’re as lucky as can be’.
The study says: ‘Bert, like other characters, frames working- class jobs as devoid of difficulties.’
Many children’s films, it adds, ‘suggest that social class inequality is benign, as those at the bottom of the class ladder suffer little, lead relatively stable lives, and experience many advantages’. Unlike in real life, upper-class lifestyles are often the ones depicted as under more threat. Disney’s Aladdin is taken to task because of a scene in which Princess Jasmine and the impoverished title character compare their dif- ferent backgrounds and conclude they both have hard lives.
Working- class lives in children’s movies are often portrayed as so fun and cosy that rich people will voluntarily go down the class ladder to join them, the researchers say. Poor people are portrayed as happier too – in The Sound Of Music, humble former nun Maria teaches her upper class employer how to love his children.
The study concludes that, overall, children’s films make poverty and class distinctions seem like a case of the lower orders getting their ‘just deserts’. It says the films make class divisions seem ‘legitimate by erasing, downplaying, and sanitising their effects – by portraying poverty and inequality as benign’.
It adds that this ‘erases, downplays or sanitises poverty and class inequality, implying that poverty and inequality are not particularly problematic as few people suffer from them’.