Anna Lam

Mrs. Motta

01/15/17

Happily Gay Ever After

Everyone loves a great fairy tale, where the Princess is altruistic and the oh-so effusive

Prince Charming saves the day. Within all thirteen of the last Disney movies that have been

produced, there is always a prince and a princess that are a paradigm of the happily ever after

ending. Disney is a prolific company and is always thinking of the next princess. In total, there

are thirteen princesses and Disney recently released Elena, the first Latin princess, and Tiana, the

first black princess. However, the first latin and black princesses success trivializes the LGBTQ

community.

Society makes no exceptions when it comes to discriminating members of the LGBTQ

community. Schools are primary environments for students socialize and develop into

individuals. However, approximately 30% of teen suicides are committed by LBGTQ teens who

feel unsafe at school (york.cuny.edu, 2010). For my best friend, Dylan Poole, growing up gay

was difficult but being in high school made matters worse. Today, Dylan identifies as female and

now goes by Evaline, she chose to come out as transgender in her senior year because she felt

excluded by her classmates and even her closest friends. When I was openly gay in Highschool,

I constantly felt attacked by my peers and it prevented me from going to school because I felt so

depressed. My peers would harass me and some of my closest friends refused to accept my

sexuality. At one point, I considered dropping out of High School to escape everyone. Evaline is

just one of millions of Americans who identify as transgender, if one human is subjected to

discrimination than the rest of the community are guaranteed to struggle for acceptance from
society on a daily basis. With the pressures of society, many youth LGBTQ members like

Evaline feel excluded and feel subjected to hide. Whether people realize it or not, they are a

threat to LGBTQ community and it is detrimental to society.

Male-Female relationships are praised by society, not accepted. LGBTQ members must

fight for this acceptance. Heterocentrism is the idea that same sex marriages are the only happy

endings that are consistently engendered in disney movies. Nine million Americans proudly

identify themselves as members of the LGBTQ community (williaminstitute.law, 2013). This

denotes that more children live with same-sex parents as well. Members of this community are

often patronized by society. Children often have to witness inhumane treatment against another

human being because they identify as LGBTQ. From elementary to high school, one out of every

4 students are targeted by bullies for their sexual orientation (bullyingstatistics.org, 2015).

Children will see this treatment and normalize it. We do not want our children to grow up

accepting the unjust treatment of others. If we allow children to inherit patronizing personas,

society will diminish and America will not be the peaceful country it claims to be. People will

turn against each other because of their differences and provoke possibilities of a civil war.

Disney teaches a majority of children about morals and doing whats right. Its been

found that fifty-two million kids watch disney channel anytime a movie is scheduled

(disneybythenumbers.com, 2006). This is important because children are very easily influenced

by the media. The millions of kids that watch, are likely to extrapolate from each movie that only

heterosexual relationships are acceptable. Although some may argue that promoting opposite-sex

relationships are harmless, it influences discriminative behavior in children. Heterosexual

relationships are not the only answer. Children are forced to inherit a stereotypical adolescent

personality because theyre dissuaded from anything LGBTQ related. For instance, within the
movie Aladdin, Princess Jasmine is in search for an eligible bachelor to marry and continue the

family legacy in power. Princess Jasmine does not want to get married. Even though, Aladdin is

the complete antithesis of a prince as he is a poor boy, the two get married and live Happily

Ever After. In the movie, Sleeping Beauty, Aurora is cursed by the evil Queen Maleficent. On

Auroras sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a deep

sleep that can only be reversed by true loves kiss. Before her sixteenth birthday, Aurora is kept

away from the Evil Queen and soon she meets Prince Phillip and falls in love. Eventually,

Aurora finds herself in a deep slumber, and requires rescuing from Prince Phillip as well as a true

loves first kiss. By associating true love to finding prince charming, children are forced to

internalize the idea that a princess will always find her prince charming. This idea usurps a

childs compassionate values by influencing them to believe that a boy and a girl can only find

happiness and love and that a girl needs a boy to protect her. This is not what we, as members of

society, want children to normalize. This will not only allow children that have same-sex parents

to feel accepted by society, but will also likely make children more open to LGBTQ

relationships. As a society, we all want the acceptance of others. Non-heterosexuals deserve this

right, and children should be taught this value.

It is important that future disney movies enumerate same-sex and LGBTQ friendly

characters in their productions in order to influence compassion amidst children and elicit

positive body imagery as well as influence prosocial behavior. Children are the future of the

world and to discern equality is equivocal to bettering society. By raising children to be more

susceptible, in the future society will prove to be more accepting of peoples differences.

It is important to note that, if vulnerable children are inundated with negative ideas of

same sex marriage, then this will exacerbate societys unjust criticism of non-heterosexual
partnerships. Most religions in society refuse to recognize LGBTQ relationships because their

religion only worships a relationship between a man and a woman. Many religious groups

perpetuate oppression, hateful anti-gay violence, and pain throughout society, Anti-gay religions

believe that gays are dangerous and that there is no need for society to accept them. However, the

bible expounds on how change is necessary for growth. They pour new wine into new

wineskins, and both are preserved. By analogizing society to wine, the bible is alluding to the

idea of the newness of society cant be confined by old societal norms. Non-heterosexual

ideologies should be accepted instead of denigrated because we are no longer living in a society

where homosexuality is considered bogus. Homosexuals and the LGBTQ community exist and

will continue to become a greater part of America. Although it may be seen by some that children

are too young to be exposed to LGBTQ relationships, we cant exclude the children that have

same-sex parents or LGBTQ family members. We shouldnt set an age limit on exposing

children to LGBTQ relationships, especially when people dont choose an age where they find

themselves either a part of the LGBTQ community or know someone within the community.

We do not want children who dont fit within societys imposed heterosexual norm to

suffocate their emerging identities. Children should not have to feel isolated and excluded by

their peers in school or society, nor should girls feel subjected to finding a prince charming to

rescue and love them. Children should not be dissuaded from accepting LGBTQ members

because of what they inherit through the media. Children deserve the right to feel accepted just

as much as anyone else does. Instead we should encourage their curiosity and expose them to

more LGBTQ ideologies within everyday media. In this society, we must ensure that children

inherit qualities to ensure they create a better future. By creating more LGBTQ friendly movies,
children will be more likely to be compassionate, confident, and great members of an accepting

society where they feel comfortable and safe.