Identity Conformity in Disney??

After reading Brett's comments on one of my previous blogs about the true and false self I was inspired to further think and write about possible answers to her questions. When considering the endless classics by Walt Disney, one can not help to notice the portrayal of very specific characters with individual identities that are used as role models for populations of children. How do these "role models" affect children today, do the movies and stories help or hurt the children on average? This seems a topic up for debate. On one hand the identities portrayed are all admirable in their own way; Cinderella is a hard worker, Milan is a brave warrior, Pocahontas a peacemaker, Belle a caring and devoted daughter, Snow White a loving and caring friend, and they all have a happily ever after ending. They are admirable characteristics and do all lead to a happy ending, so what child would not want to strive to be like them? Well on the other hand these are specific identities thought by society to be desirable, but are they subliminally promoting conformity? It is possible. It seems children should be encouraged to find themselves and develop their own personalities based on their environments and experiences growing up. Would this not create a more unique and diverse society, rather than one full of conformers.

Also, in addition to this point, in Aladdin, Aladdin tries to steal princess Jasmine's heart and in doing so pretends to be people he is not in order to win her heart. At one point in the movie he pretends to be a prince, and the Jeannie tells him just to be himself, that he would have better luck. We see Aladdin using multiple theories of the social self. He uses Mead's interactional self by pretending to act a certain way that he thinks Princess Jasmine wants. We also see Reisman's conforming self, because he tries to conform with the identity of what was considered worthy of a princess to marry. A question may arise when we consider Hochschild's emotional self. Is Aladdin portraying a false self or is he just trying to act a certain way in a very specific situation in order to achieve a goal? Does this constitute as a false self and give him reason to then judge himself as acting wrongly? Perhaps his true emotional self is so drawn to princess Jasmine that he will undoubtedly do anything to get her attention, which would imply that his true self was doing the action of portraying a false self. This seems a bit confusing but yet it seems very possible that a true self may have goals and desires that in order to devise ways to achieve these they must temporarily adapt false selves but solely for the purpose of satisfying the true self. So overall, Aladdin reveals that he is really a peasant essentially to Jasmine, and she does fall in love with him. The movie then does portray the importance of being yourself to children and how in the end it is the right way to behave. But yet, at the same time these false selves that Aladdin assumes seem just extensions of his true feelings for Jasmine, which do not change.

Overall it is important to be yourself which Disney supports, but what if they are providing the selves for you to conform to?