- Part 1, "Of Iconic Mice and a Global Corporation of Men"
- Part 2, "He's Rather Tasty"
“Can Your Friends Do This?”
All three featured Disney men depict a steadfast image of independence. None of the three have supportive or involved family networks. Hercules has been separated from his biological family of the gods and was raised by a peasant couple, whom he later leaves behind on journey to find his original parents and place in the world. Tarzan was orphaned in his infancy and adopted by a female gorilla, who, though she provided him with love, was not sufficient to dispel Tarzan’s experience of alienation. Aladdin’s family history is unknown, but his family’s absence is directly blamed for his criminal behaviour by the owner of a harem, who muses, “I’d blame parents, but he hasn’t got’em” (Clements and Musker, 1992).
Without the stabilizing, supportive influences of family members, the heroes turn to their friends for companionship. The friendship characters in these Disney films follow a pattern of characterization and role fulfillment. Firstly, none of the heroes’ friends are humans. This pattern has the potential to denigrate the friends to a status inferior to that of the hero. Hercules’ two sidekicks consist of Pegasus, a winged horse, and Phil, a satyr; Tarzan is befriended by a gorilla and an elephant. The “sub-human friend” phenomenon is most evident with Aladdin, whose following comprises a monkey, a supernatural genie, and a carpet – a tapestry with the gifts of movement and sentience, but without the capacity for speech.
The friends are not only degraded in terms of their species, but also in their personal qualities. The friends never share the virtues of the protagonist, but instead, fill roles of either comic relief or foils to the hero’s excellence. Each of these supporting characters is riddled with flaws; none can match the dignity and stoicism of the protagonist, but possess traits that render them weak or unfavourable in comparison.
Instead of relating to the hero on an equal personal level, the friends fulfill roles of servility to the hero. While serving few other functions throughout the narratives, the friends always come through in moments of crisis to break the hero out of jail or fight by his side in battle. Each set of friends is mistreated by the protagonist at a point in the story, causing them to reject him; however, they never fail to return to his side in his most desperate hour. This suggests not only that friends exist to serve, but also that they will continue to serve no matter how disrespectfully they are treated.
The most disturbing example of these friendships is that of Aladdin and the Genie. Genie is the only of the heroes’ friends to possess power and skills that surpass those of the hero, but Aladdin is clearly identified as the Genie’s master. Genie describes their relationship as one in which Aladdin is “the boss, the king, the shah” (Clements and Musker, 1992). Genie tells Aladdin, “you’ve never had a friend like me” (Clements and Musker, 1992). What makes the Genie a superior friend? He can give Aladdin anything that he wants – indeed, he exists to grant Aladdin’s wishes.
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| I don't get any respect. |
These supporting characters offer a very distorted concept of friendship to young boys in which relationships are defined in terms of power and subordination. Friends are not equals, but tools to be exploited for one’s own success; the best friends are those with the greatest services to offer. The Disney depiction of friendship does little to teach children how to form intimate, personal relationships, but more how to exploit one’s friends for personal gain, perpetuating the stereotype of men who dominate others with independence and emotional restraint (Nelson, 2010: 99).
Sources
Aladdin. Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Perf. Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, and Linda Larkin. 1992. Walt Disney. DVD.
Nelson, Adie. Gender in Canada. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.
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