Disney ads and gender stereotyping

Gender stereotype is the set of general behaviors and attitudes that is given to men and women within societies and separates them from one another.  In the event that it has different definitions in different countries for men and women. Gender role has a significant play in advertising industry. As the ad bellow shows these norms and gender behaviors’ differences in America’s culture and Sweden.

The ad on the left, is the layout offered by Disney for girls in Sweden, and the layout on right is the Oriflame’s final decision (an advertising consulting agency with troops of independent salesperson that discussed whether or not the layout works for their society and costumers) for the Swedish society.

In The American edition, the girl model has a big grain, it is very bright, dynamic, and happy. The girl model is dressed like ferry, very dreamy; smooth violet and blue, also the cartoon character Cinderella who is seen on the product and in the background, emphasizes on fantasy quality of the product, followed by lots of glitter. In the other hand, the Swedish addition is very unmoving, girl model is standing very dense and crossing her arms firmly, with a quiet smile on her face (Oriflame thinks their girls need to smile like Mona Lisa), colors are not as glamorous as it was in the American Addition, no glitter. It is very playful, but sport. There is no stereotyping, which expresses that girls are princess if and only they use these products. It started to become neutralize. The usage of blue color also broke the gender stereotyping; as cold colors (blue to yellow in the color circle) belonged to males and warm color belonged to females). The girl is not dressed like a princess but like a regular kid, in jeans and shirt and not like a ferry. Basically, the ad is not lying to society or not advertising the gender stereotype here. Even though, car racing, in American society is males’ activity, in Swedish ad, a girl models in that theme, which represent there is no stereotyping within there society. She can act as strong as a boy, be tough, and dress in anyway she likes. Even though, Dabitch (a member of Alband.tv) said she was disagree on Oriflame’s decision about the layout of this ad, but I think this is a great start by European agency to break the gender stereotype between children and will have positive affect on society’s attitude towards gender role. As she mentioned “There's a silly amount of meetings discussing every detail of a layout where top execs from several different countries will offer their invaluable input such as on May 26, 2012 "we need more glamour, can you print glitter?" and "She needs to smile more" followed by "No, smiles don't sell in my country" followed by "In my country she needs to smile like Mona Lisa" and so on.

Read more at:
 http://adland.tv/content/ad-ban-week-gender-stereotypes-shower-gels-kids-banned-sweden#zpCCxBpvgyVdoLzA.99    “. But I think this ad is becoming neutralize and breaking limitation due to gender in public’s eyes.