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The ten sources I have cited gives me insight and information on how to better my final project. The scholarly sources I used taught me background information about Disney and how big of an influence it has on young viewers, boys and girls alike. A journal article called ”Disney’s Female Gender Roles: The Change of Modern Culture” states, “Throughout its history, the roles of men and women pictured in their films have mirrored the cultural perspective and beliefs of social norms and expectations on gender roles and identity” (Barber 9). I was also able to obtain information on how specific gender norms can affect one’s view and how certain Disney movies lead people to expect certain behaviours from one’s identity. A journal article titled “Gender Politics in the Projection of ‘Disney’ Villains,” explains the following: “This is also substantiated by the movie plots where the female villains almost never appear desirable or beautiful in the eyes of the opposite sex. This associates villainy in females with unattractiveness and undesirability...” (Sattar and Sharmin 54). These sources taught me about the impact Disney villains and their image have on young people. This pertains to the children’s book I am making which addresses the portrayal of female villain, Ursula, regarding behaviour and body image in Disney’s The Little Mermaid in-order to reverse the effects the movie’s impression of Ursula has on many children.

The primary sources I used helped me with understanding and visualizing the context of the film better in-order to detect areas of the story that could be related to the influence fairy tales in the media have. I also cited two other books that incorporated a reinterpretation of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. These books include the breaking down of gender norms and can give me good examples of how to formulate my children’s book which aspires to do the same. The secondary sources I used provides articles as well as reviews about the film and the characters, regarding how they are perceived based on their gender
and age. They focus more on Ursula and her role as an older woman, completely confident and empowered by her sexuality but question, why are these traits seen in the villain, not in the hero? These sources also provide statistics about the inclusion of females in Disney films throughout history and talks about Disney’s “Renaissance” era. The information I have learned from these sources will aid me in the planning and understanding of my final project however, I plan for further research as I have more to know about the production of children’s books and what children find interesting in fairy tale books. It would also be beneficial if I were able to hear a first-hand opinion on how children perceive Ursula today or if young people see Ursula in a different way than what critics describe. Finally, I would like to learn about the influence Disney’s portrayal of gender norms have on adults and how it carries out from childhood to adulthood.

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Barber, Mckenzie. “Disney’s Female Gender Roles: The Change of Modern Culture.” Sycamore Scholars. http://scholars.indstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10484/12132/Barber_McKenzie_2015_HT.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed 7 February 2021.

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Sharmin, Tania and Sattar, Sanyat. “Gender Politics in the Projection of ‘Disney’ Villains.” Journal of Literature and Art Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, 2018, pp. 53-57, doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2018.01.006. Accessed 7 February 2021.

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Adessa, Mia T., et al. “Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-Length AnimatedFilms”. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, pp. Vol. 15, no. 6, 2003, pp. 20-31, DOI: 10.1300/ J086v15n04_02. Accessed 7 February 2021.

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Adessa, Mia T., et al. “Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual     Orientation in Disney Feature-Length AnimatedFilms”. Journal of    Feminist Family Therapy, pp. Vol. 15, no. 6, 2003, pp. 20-31, DOI: 10.1300/ J086v15n04_02. Accessed 7 February 2021.

Barber, Mckenzie. “Disney’s Female Gender Roles: The Change of Modern Culture.” Sycamore Scholars. http://scholars.indstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10484/12132/Barber_McKenzie_2015_HT.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed 7 February 2021.

Cusumano, Katherine. “Why Ursula Is So Important In The Little Mermaid.” Bustle Digital Group: The Fastest-Growing Publisher In Modern Media, 16 Feb. 2016, bustle.com/articles/142296-why-we-have-to-change-the-way-we-think-about-ursula-from-the-little-mermaid. Accessed 7 February 2021.

Guo, Jeff. “Researchers have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies.” The Washington Post: Democracy Dies in Darkness, 25 Jan. 2016, washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/. Accessed 7 February 2021.

Hochstuhl, Christopher R. “Poor Unfortunate Gender Stereotypes: Gender Transgression and Masculinity in the Music of Female Disney Villains.” The Avid Listener, 27 July. 2020, theavidlistenerblog.com/2020/07/27/poor-unfortunate-gender-stereotypes-gender-transgression-and-masculinity-in-the-music-of-female-disney-villains/. Accessed 7 February 2021.

Murrow, Vita and Bereciartu, Julia. Power to the Princess: 15 Favourite Fairytales Retold with Girl Power. Good Reads. 2018.

O’Neil, Louise. The Surface Breaks: a reimagining of The Little Mermaid. Google Books. Juvenile Fiction. 2018.

Sharmin, Tania and Sattar, Sanyat. “Gender Politics in the Projection of ‘Disney’ Villains.” Journal of Literature and Art Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, 2018, pp. 53-57, doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2018.01.006. Accessed 7 February 2021.

The Little Mermaid. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, Buena Vista pictures, 1989. https://www.amazon.com/Little-Mermaid-Rene-Auberjonois/dp/B07MG5JJHJ

“Ursula Through the eyes of Disney”. Fairy Tales Through the Eyes of Disney: Ursula Performs Femininity. (n.d.).https://people.southwestern.edu/~bednarb/su_netWorks/projects/ramos/ursula.html. Accessed 7 February 2021.

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Cusumano, Katherine. “Why Ursula Is So Important In The Little Mermaid.” Bustle Digital Group: The Fastest-Growing Publisher In Modern Media, 16 Feb. 2016, bustle.com/articles/142296-why-we-have-to-change-the-way-we-think-about-ursula-from-the-little-mermaid. Accessed 7 February 2021.

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Ariel would willingly give up her siren's song in exchange for the chance to walk on land. In , the terms of her deal with the villainous Ursula are clear from the outset. Ursula weaves an enchantment that gives Ariel what she's long fantasized about, and there isn't even a catch: It's a bargain. Ursula tells Ariel that she has three days as a mute human to receive the kiss of Prince Eric, at which point she'll become permanently human, and her voice will be returned. If she fails, she'll return to the ocean and become Ursula's own property. The Little Mermaid plays out over these three days, in which Ursula and her eel compatriots Flotsam and Jetsam attempt to thwart Ariel's quest for love. It's based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the same name, but nearly 200 years after it debuted, and nearly 30 years after the film premiered, there's still one thing that will change the way you think about The Little Mermaid .

There's a rarefied canon of female supervillains among the Disney animated slate: the evil queen Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty; Cruella de Ville of 101 Dalmations; the Queen of Hearts who reigns in Alice in Wonderland; and Ursula, the tentacled sea witch of The Little Mermaid. Most of them are portrayed as psychotic, a woman slighted, but only Ursula among them actually legitimizes the power she wields over King Triton's subjects. Like an Iago of the sea, she whispers venomous thoughts into the weak, convincing those who don't quite align with gender norms under the sea that they need her help to conform to their environs. All this went over my six-year-old head upon first viewing The Little Mermaid; but as the role of the female villain, the unlikable woman, in pop culture occupies an increasing territory of thinkpieces and criticism, Ursula's gender seems more relevant today than ever. Ursula knows what Ariel only learns by the film's end: Her voice is more important than her body. Her ability to express herself will bring her more power than her ability to conform to societal pressures.

Ursula is the archetypal "baddie" in The Little Mermaid, yet her bad-ness always has recourse to legal activity. It's contractual evil, and it's entirely constructed through words written and spoken. Fully aware of the terms of their agreement, Ariel signs the contract - while surrounded by the collected souls of those who didn't fulfill their end of the bargain. Those words For all eternity, emblazoned in flourishing cursive across the bottom of the contract, center women in The Little Mermaid. It's a highly specific agreement that pertains only to Ursula and Ariel. Their handwriting marks the surface of the agreement and binds them together. Even King Triton can't interfere in this agreement, which Ursula lords over him as the pathos of the film escalates. " The contract's legal, binding, and completely unbreakable - even for you," she points out. King Triton operates within a specific patriarchal norm, in which the fact of his man-ness gives him particular power over his subjects, his daughter included. Ursula exists on the margins of the mer-people society, but her power supersedes that society's structure because her victims are complicit in it. They're really the victims of their own signatures.

Ursula contrasts with Ariel's demure propriety - when her father tells her to obey his word, he successfully silences her - with her unabashed sexuality. (As a BuzzFeed reporter noted of Ariel's relationship with her father, "Had Ursula not been waiting disruptively in the background, there would be no negotiation of his terms.") "It's she who holds her tongue who gets her man," Ursula sings in "Poor Unfortunate Souls." She doesn't offer this as advice, though; Ursula refuses to be silenced. Even further, she expands her voice by stealing the songs of those who think their bodies more important than their mode of expression. When Ariel signs away her voice, she unwittingly signs away her power. Ursula transforms into a beautiful human rival to the mute Ariel in an effort to win Prince Eric away from the mer-princess, and it's her siren song that attracts him even more than her good looks. The woman who doesn't keep her silence threatens to come out on top.

Ursula is the fallen one at the beginning of The Little Mermaid, but she tumbles further by its end. Prince Eric spears her on the bow of his ship, a gruesome end for a truly insidious character. This is a Disney princess movie, after all - the baddie can't get away with it. But Ariel's triumph only underlines what was so subversive about Ursula the villainess when she debuted in 1989 - it's only when Ariel reclaims her voice that she's able to triumph. Even 30 years later, popular culture struggles to find a place for the unlikable woman (part of the appeal of The Good Wife and Jessica Jones is their persistent anti-heroines), yet Disney placed her front-and-center in its 1989 masterpiece. The Little Mermaid's female protagonist and antagonist engage in a battle of the wits that prioritizes communication. It's the woman who refuses to be silenced, rather than the one who mutely accepts her blows, that will win the man - and the power.
Images: Walt Disney Studios; Giphy (2)

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Why We Have To Change The Way We Think About Ursula From 'The Little Mermaid'

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Ariel would willingly give up her siren's song in exchange for the chance to walk on land. In The Little Mermaid, the terms of her deal with the villainous Ursula are clear from the outset. Ursula weaves an enchantment that gives Ariel what she's...

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The Little Mermaid. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, Buena Vista pictures, 1989.

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Mermaid-Rene-Auberjonois/dp/B07MG5JJHJ

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Ariel, the fun-loving and mischievous mermaid, is enchanted with all things human. Disregarding her father's order to stay away from the world above the sea, she strikes a bargain with a devious sea witch to trade her beautiful voice for legs. But can she also win a prince's heart?

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O’Neil, Louise. The Surface Breaks: a reimagining of The Little Mermaid. Google Books. Juvenile Fiction. 2018.

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The Surface Breaks: a reimagining of The Little Mermaid

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Deep beneath the sea off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of being human... but at what terrible price? Hans Christian Andersen's dark original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans.

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Guo, Jeff. “Researchers have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies.” The Washington Post: Democracy Dies in Darkness, 25 Jan. 2016, washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/. Accessed 7 February 2021.

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To modern eyes, the classic trio of Disney princess films - released in 1937, 1950 and 1959 - can seem painfully retrograde. Why are characters so obsessed with Snow White's looks? Why doesn't Cinderella have any talents or hobbies? And why doesn't Sleeping Beauty do anything besides get drugged and await rescue?

A generational gap divides Disney's princess franchise. After 1959's "Sleeping Beauty," it took 30 years for the studio to produce another animated princess feature. The intervening decades saw dramatic change. Walt Disney died. Betty Friedan published "The Feminine Mystique." The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington.

In 1989, when Disney finally released "The Little Mermaid," critics praised this modern new heroine. Unlike her predecessors, "Ariel is fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously," Roger Ebert wrote. The New York Times called her "a spunky daredevil."

And yet, in one respect, "The Little Mermaid" represented a backward step in the princess genre. For a film centered on a young woman, there's an awful lot of talking by men. In fact, this was the first Disney princess movie in which the men significantly outspoke the women.

And it started a trend. The plot of "The Little Mermaid," of course, involves Ariel literally losing her voice - but in the five Disney princess movies that followed, the women speak even less. On average in those films, men have three times as many lines as women.

The data come from linguists Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer, who have been working on a project to analyze all the dialogue from the Disney princess franchise. Because so many young girls watch these movies - often on constant repeat - it's worth examining what the films are teaching about gender roles.

"We don't believe that little girls naturally play a certain way or speak a certain way," says Fought, a professor of linguistics at Pitzer College. "They're not born liking a pink dress. At some point we teach them. So a big question is where girls get their ideas about being girls."

The Disney princess research is still in its preliminary stages, but a few weeks ago, Fought and Eisenhauer gave a preview during the nation's largest conference of linguists. Their goal is to use data to shed light on how the male and female characters in these films talk differently. They started by counting how often the characters spoke. That's when they hit upon a surprising irony.

In the classic three Disney princess films, women speak as much as, or more than the men. "Snow White" is about 50-50. "Cinderella" is 60-40. And in "Sleeping Beauty," women deliver a whopping 71 percent of the dialogue. Though these were films created over 50 years ago, they give ample opportunity for women to have their voices heard.

By contrast, all of the princess movies from 1989-1999 - Disney's "Renaissance" era - are startlingly male-dominated. Men speak 68 percent of the time in "The Little Mermaid"; 71 percent of the time in "Beauty and the Beast"; 90 percent of the time in "Aladdin"; 76 percent of the time in "Pocahontas"; and 77 percent of the time in "Mulan" (Mulan herself was counted as a woman, even when she was impersonating a man).

Part of the problem is that these newer films are mostly populated by men. Aside from the heroine, the films offer few examples of women being powerful, respected, useful or comedic.

"There's one isolated princess trying to get someone to marry her, but there are no women doing any other things," Fought says. "There are no women leading the townspeople to go against the Beast, no women bonding in the tavern together singing drinking songs, women giving each other directions, or women inventing things. Everybody who's doing anything else, other than finding a husband in the movie, pretty much, is a male."

The older princess films had fewer speaking roles in total, and more gender balance. But "The Little Mermaid" pioneered a new style of Disney movie, modeled after Broadway musicals, with their large ensemble casts. As the number of characters grew, so did the gender inequality.

"My best guess is that it's carelessness, because we're so trained to think that male is the norm," says Eisenhauer, a graduate student at North Carolina State. "So when you want to add a shopkeeper, that shopkeeper is a man. Or you add a guard, that guard is a man. I think that's just really ingrained in our culture."

The chatty sidekick is another good example of a role that goes to men by default. This is a staple character in more recent Disney films, and he - yes, he - often gets some of the best lines. There's Flounder, Sebastian, Lumiere, Cogsworth, Iago, Genie and Mushu. Why can't any of them be women? Mrs. Potts, the teakettle from "Beauty and the Beast," is the only example of a female sidekick, and she's overshadowed by the other castle staff.

After "Mulan" (1998), Disney took a 10-year break before releasing its next series of princess films. These newer films are better at giving lines to men and women equally. In "Tangled," women have 52 percent of the lines, and in "Brave," a film about a mother-daughter relationship, they had 74 percent.

"Frozen" breaks with that trend, though. Despite being a story about two sister princesses, men claim 59 percent of the lines in that film.

It's of course incomplete to judge a film just by the number of words that women say. What the characters say is equally important. So far, Fought and Eisenhauer's analysis has focused on compliments. They have categorized every bit of praise in every Disney princess film to see how the way that women are talked about has changed over time.

Here is where the trend is positive. The classic Disney princess films were focused on looks. More than half of the compliments that women received - 55 percent - had to do with their appearance. Only 11 percent had to do with their skills or accomplishments. (People could also be complimented for other reasons, like their possessions or their personality.)

Some psychologists counsel parents not to compliment children, especially young girls, on their looks. Even positive comments may lead to body-image problems because they reinforce the idea that appearances are important. Furthermore, studies suggest that it's better to praise children for their efforts or accomplishments rather than their traits - better to say "you aced that test!" than "you are really smart!" - because children are more motivated when complimented on their efforts.

The "Renaissance"-era princess films, from the '90s, have a better record in this regard. About 38 percent of the compliments given to women had to do with their looks, while nearly a quarter of the compliments had to do with their abilities or deeds.

In the latest batch of films - "The Princess and the Frog," "Tangled," "Brave," and "Frozen" - the pattern is finally reversed. For the first time, women are more likely to be praised for their skills or achievements than for their looks. On average in these films, 40 percent of compliments directed at women involve their abilities or accomplishments, while only 22 percent involve physical appearances.

Part of this may have to do with the people at the helm of these more recent movies. "Frozen" and "Brave" were both conceived, written and directed by women or a team that included women. Brenda Chapman, who created "Brave," has said that she specifically wanted to smash the stereotype of the Disney princess movie. "Merida was created specifically to break that mold," Chapman told an online parenting website. "She was created to turn the regular Disney princess on its head."

"I think that Disney has responded very well to calls that, frankly, have been a long time coming," says Dawn England, a PhD student at Arizona State who has published research on how men and women behave in Disney princess movies. She says there needs to be more studies on how children process these films, to understand how these portrayals of gender affect young minds - though that's hard to do because the images are so widespread.

The studio, at least, has been making visible efforts to inject feminism into its movies. "There's a long way to go, but there's been an undeniable shift toward these more androgynous princesses," England says.

Belle, from 1991's "Beauty and the Beast" for instance, was designed as a feminist role model. Disney executives brought in Linda Woolverton, the first woman to write the script for an animated Disney film. Woolverton modeled Belle on Katharine Hepburn in "Little Women" - "both strong, active women who loved to read," she told the L.A. Times in 1992.

Disney is clearly proud of its efforts to modernize the princess movie genre, but it has a lot of work to do. "If you watch the behind-the-scenes documentaries, there's so much explicit discourse on what the princess is going to be like, and always it's a feminist discourse in some way," Eisenhauer says. "They want her to be powerful. But the discourse never, ever, seems to have gone beyond the princess."

Fought and Eisenhauer's research reminds us that it's not just how the princesses are portrayed. It's also important to consider the kinds of worlds these princesses inhabit, who rules these worlds, who has the power - and even who gets to open their mouths. In a large number of cases, the princesses are outspoken by men in their own movies.

"The Renaissance-era movies starting with 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Beauty and the Beast' were talked about as being not your average frilly princess films," Fought says. "They have 'active women who get things done.'"

"That's fine, but are these movies really so great for little girls to watch? When you start to look at this stuff, you have to question that a little bit."

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Analysis | Researchers have found a major problem with 'The Little Mermaid' and other Disney movies

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Why we should think twice before letting kids watch some Disney movies.

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Murrow, Vita and Bereciartu, Julia. Power to the Princess: 15 Favourite Fairytales Retold with Girl Power. Good Reads. 2018.

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Power to the Princess book. Read 101 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. What if princesses didn't always marry Prince Charming and l...

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“Ursula Through the eyes of Disney”. Fairy Tales Through the Eyes of Disney: Ursula Performs Femininity. (n.d.). https://people.southwestern.edu/~bednarb/su_netWorks/projects/ramos/ursula.html. Accessed 7 February 2021.

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During the conversation concerning what Ursula can do for Ariel's desire to be human, Ursula sings Poor Unfortunate Souls, a song that explains how she has helped a number of poor souls "to be thinner" and "to get the girl." It may be substantial to note that this song, and others in the movie, were written by a male, who may have very well written them from a male's standpoint. Ursula, from the feminist perspective represents a character that exposes the realities behind society's expectations of women and as well as a more truthful relationship between men and women. She serves as an ideology critique but her character is that of a greedy, insensitive and evil witch that tricks Ariel. For this reason, despite her aggressiveness and control, her wickedness and cruelty overpower any sort of respect she could ever acquire. Ariel tells her, "If I become human, I'll never be with my father or sisters again," and Ursula replies, "But you'll have your man. Life's full of tough choice, isn't it?" Ursula explains to Ariel that when it comes down to sacrificing one thing to gain another, it is worth giving up if it guarantees "you'll have your man." "Of course, within Disney's patriarchal ideology, any woman with power has to be represented as a castrating bitch" (Sells 181). Ursula's image also draws a parallel with the evil females in other Disney movies, becoming a metonymic sign since the evil females usually share the same physical features as well. In the same way their behavior is unlike that of the heroines', their physical features are also nothing like the princesses'. Ursula is big, hideous and even has some masculine features. Over and over again the females with strength are inherently evil, and those with beauty triumph over. As metonymic signs, unattractive female characters are directly associated with wickedness and related traits, always representing what the heroine does not.

Ursula, the only female with a voice and with power, is killed in the end, while the subjective female, Ariel, lives happily ever after in view of the fact that the voice of a woman matters little in the movie. Through her beauty and "body language" Ariel is able to win Prince Eric's affection instantaneously. Because the battle between good and evil is a central focus in most fairy tales and Disney movies, it is important to analyze what Ursula's character has to offer. For Ariel, Ursula is the female that encompasses evil, but ironically, teaches her a thing or two about human sexuality in order to conquer Prince Eric's love. During her performance of Poor Unfortunate Souls Ursula does not only tell Ariel that she is doing the right thing by giving up her voice in exchange for legs, she acts out what it is to be a female and shows Ariel how to get her man.

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During the conversation concerning what Ursula can do for Ariel's desire to be human, Ursula sings Poor Unfortunate Souls, a song that explains how she has helped a number of poor souls "to be thinner" and "to get the girl."

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Hochstuhl, Christopher R. “Poor Unfortunate Gender Stereotypes: Gender Transgression and Masculinity in the Music of Female Disney Villains.” The Avid Listener, 27 July. 2020, theavidlistenerblog.com/2020/07/27/poor-unfortunate-gender-stereotypes-gender-transgression-and-masculinity-in-the-music-of-female-disney-villains/. Accessed 7 February 2021.

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In the spring of 2015, Dana Gorzelany-Mostak hosted a semi-formal writing competition in her Music Since 1900 course at Rider University. Students were free to explore a wide variety of musical topics and were instructed to model their essays on those found on The Avid Listener. Co-editor Felicia Miyakawa visited Gorzelany-Mostak's class via video chat and discussed the writing, development, and revision process that goes on behind the scenes at TAL. We're thrilled to feature the winning essay here, and we invite readers to send us their own classroom success stories! - Michael Fauver (W.W. Norton)

By: Christopher R. Hochstuhl (Princeton, NJ) //

Between Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 and Maleficent in 2014, Walt Disney Studios has released over 50 feature films. Many of Disney's characters have been popularized and merchandised, and among the most favored are the Disney princesses. The original Disney princesses (prior to the 2000s) are known for their child-like, helpless, and submissive nature, exemplifying a socially conventional ultra-feminine persona; the music that underscores the characters affirms these qualities.

In the world of Walt Disney, as in any other fairy tale, the "happily ever after" each princess wishes to attain is threatened by a frightful villain. The Evil Queen ( Snow White, 1937), Lady Tremaine ( Cinderella, 1950), Maleficent ( Sleeping Beauty, 1959), and Ursula ( The Little Mermaid, 1989) are some of the most notorious of the female villains to populate the Disney universe. The music associated with these characters tells us how villainous they are. What we learn from their music, however, is not just that they are evil, but that they transgress gender. Composers deploy musical signifiers connoting masculinity for these villains, and in doing so associate these women with masculine-gendered qualities of strength, vigor, and independence.

Heroes and heroines in Disney films embody exaggerated personality and physical traits associated with their gender; the music schema surrounding these characters is equally gender specific. As a quintessential example of Disney's ultra femininity, Snow White's child-like demeanor and pure white complexion are paralleled musically by her soft and trilling soprano voice.

In the opening of the song "I'm Wishing," Snow White sings over a chorus of violins, embellished by flute and harp, an instrument combination strongly associated with femininity. Further suggesting femininity, the accompaniment is light with the middle-upper range of the instruments dominating the music. Snow White sings with a sweet, heady soprano shaped by a quivering vibrato. The mixture of a soft operatic soprano voice, string-flute-harp orchestration, and overall light and warm timbre leads us to perceive the music as feminine. The music itself is literally soft, gentle, and fair, fitting for the "fairest of them all." These musical qualities are also present in the music of other early Disney princesses, such as Aurora and Cinderella.

Just as delicate grace and beauty are embedded in the feminine music of the princesses, Disney composers personify strength and independence in their male characters' music. For example, in Beauty and the Beast (1991), American composer Alan Menken utilizes specific musical signifiers of masculinity-pronounced rhythm and a brass-percussion dominant instrumentation-for the character of Gaston (a notoriously "manly" figure of the Disney universe). But when it comes to female villains, "masculine" and "feminine" characterization converges: their bodies may be female, but they are assigned music typically associated with male characters.
Self-absorbed Gaston reveals his ambitions for the town's prettiest girl, Belle (beginning at 3:05).
Ursula the sea witch is one of Disney's most musically active female villains; she is one of the few original Disney female villains who literally sings. Although Ursula is female, her body features masculine characteristics and is more an exaggerated caricature of performed femininity. Ursula possesses a stocky body-contrasting with the lithe form of Ariel-and wears exaggerated makeup (bright blue eye shadow and red lipstick). Her double chin and short silver hair complete a look decidedly opposite of delicate heroines. But Ursula carries her body in a feminine manner, gliding effortlessly through her cavern while graciously twirling her hands, arms, and tentacles. The dichotomy between Ursula's unrefined appearance and performed femininity suggests that Disney is portraying Ursula, "for those in the know," as a drag queen performing " camp" (a theatrical, exaggerated form of gender-play). In fact, although Pat Caroll supplies Ursula's voice in the film, Disney originally sought Bea Arthur, another low-voiced actress whose work is highly "drag-coded," for Ursula's voice. Further emphasizing Ursula as a drag reference, in DVD bonus material of the 2006 The Little Mermaid: Platinum Edition, audio commentary by John Musker, Ron Clements, and Alan Menkin (the animation directors and composer for The Little Mermaid) suggest Ursula was based on the popular drag queen Divine.

Just as camp revels in gender play, Ursula's music hybridizes gender characteristics; it is a play on femininity by someone not truly feminine. Featuring a conflation of feminine and masculine characteristics, Ursula's ballad "Poor Unfortunate Souls" begins with a pronounced accordion upbeat rhythm later doubled by low brass/tuba. After a dialogue interlude, the music returns with an added timpani line reinforcing the rhythmic drive of the music; trumpets join the music playing a counter melody. Percussion and brass-instruments typically coded masculine-form the body of Ursula's ballad. There are no traditional female instruments, such as violins, flutes, or harps. Clarinets, accordion, and reed woodwinds replace these higher accompanying instruments in the orchestral texture. Such textural substitutions take the would-be feminine aspects of Ursula's music and twist their associated gender qualities.

The vocal tessitura (or average range) of Ursula's ballad completes the gender hybridization of her surrounding music. Ursula's tessitura sits exceptionally low, in a range similar to a male high tenor. Complementing the exceptionally low range of her voice, Ursula sings in a speech-based style of singing. Ursula's singing is quite a contrast from Snow White's operatic soprano or Ariel's bright and nasal belted voice. Instead, Ursula's voice parallels that of Disney's male characters in qualities of range and speech-like style.

Boston journalist Kathi Maio and scholars England, Descartes, and Collier-Meek have criticized the gender stereotypes of Disney heroes and heroines, but these authors have not criticized the gender-hybridized female villains of the Disney franchise. Embodying both masculine and feminine qualities, female Disney villains defy the limitations constraining traditional Disney heroines. Fairness, gentleness, and child-like helplessness are replaced by strength, intelligence, and a driven (though evil) personality.

The transgression of gender in the music of female Disney villains is inextricably linked to the rigidity of female role models in the Disney universe. In creating its female villains, Disney hybridizes gender traits of their music, as well as their personalities. The characters are marked as female, but their hybridized personas and masculine coded music are what foster the sense of strength that is missing from their heroine counterparts. Framed as evil, potential "positive" qualities are negated, thus preventing female Disney villains from serving as strong women role models. If the sonic traits that mark Ursula as wicked were removed, perhaps Ursula would not be too bad of a role model for young people.
For Discussion

1. Disney's Mulan (1998) explored the subject of gender identity and associations. Mulan is conscripted, under disguise as a young male, into the Chinese army in place of her elderly father. Listen to Mulan's decision scene in the film and note the orchestral and timbre changes as Mulan makes the decision to assume a male appearance and join the army. What gender cues in the music do you hear in the initial moments of despair? How do these cues change and develop as Mulan makes her decision, cuts her hair, and flees on horseback?

2. Music tropes associated with gender and personality traits are related to musical motives formerly established in opera. For example, in classical music, brass fanfares have historically served as signifiers of strength and power, while reeds have often signified the underworld or the pastoral. Strength, independence, and cunning wit are qualities belonging to female villains outside the world of Disney. Take, for example, the vengeance aria of the Queen of the Night from Mozart's The Magic Flute. What masculine qualities do you hear? What qualities do you hear that are feminine? How are these qualities hybridized to foster a sense of strength, independence, and in this case, tyrannical rage?

3. How might Disney Princess fairy tales change if princesses were imbued with masculine musical qualities, thus portraying qualities of reason, intelligence, independence, and strength? Does the genre of these stories-"fairy tales"-excuse them from criticism on the qualities of their heroines?

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Poor Unfortunate Gender Stereotypes: Gender Transgression and Masculinity in the Music of Female Disney Villains

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In the spring of 2015, Dana Gorzelany-Mostak hosted a semi-formal writing competition in her Music Since 1900 course at Rider University. Students were free to explore a wide variety of musical topics and were instructed to model their essays on those found on The Avid Listener.