Analysis of Disney films: Teaching Children how good and bad people are different in their languages

Cartoon media including Walt Disney movies and after-school cartoons on television is a major entertainment for children worldwide. According to a report by the Nielson Company in 2009, children aged 2-5 watch more than 32 hours of television each week. In addition to the aspect of entertainment, many researchers have discussed the role of the media in the socialization of children, especially in attitudes and behaviors. For example, Gerbner (1980) studied the effect of images on television on the victimization and perception of social realty.1 Fouts (2006) also reported that children are exposed to “evil” references that teach children to demonize people in bad behaviors.2
As another specific example of the influence above

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Results of the analysis clearly prove that the differences in language usage among characters in classic Disney films are consistently observed. In general, MUSE speakers are heroes/heroines, good characters, and potential lovers in many cases while non-standard English or dialect speakers tend to be villains, minor characters, or characters with peculiar appearance and personality. Interestingly, the same tendency was observed in both old (1937) and new (1998) movies suggesting that the character profiling with language has not been changed for several decades.