Gendered Librarian Stereotypes in Two Disney Animated Films: A Semiotic Analysis

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-503-4_41How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Gender Representation; Librarians; Animated Films; Media Stereotypes

Abstract

Popular culture, specifically through Disney’s cartoons, is significant in framing the understanding of professional and gendered identities. One-way librarians, especially minor librarians, are represented through gendered stereotypes that encapsulate dominant cultural ideologies. A gendered portrayal of librarians in Monsters University (2013) and An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000) is the subject of this study. This study examines the symbolic creation of librarian figures and establishes whether such representations reinforce or subvert prevailing gender norms. The significance of this research lies in its examination of the scarce academic consideration of how animated media informs public perceptions of librarianship and femininity. It contributes to critical media literacy and library science by providing an ideological reading of professional identity, as portrayed in popular narratives. Based on a qualitative semiotic analysis drawn from Roland Barthes’s theoretical work, this study analyzes specific scenes of librarian characters. This study employs Barthes’s semiotic approach to analyze scenes from Monsters University (2013) and An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000), focusing on denotation, connotation, and myth. The findings demonstrate how even minor characters function as ideological tools that sustain binary gender myths. This research enriches media literacy and gender studies by spotlighting the persistent stereotyping of feminized knowledge authority in animated popular culture. Despite their differences, both characters exist along gendered archetypes that limit the representation of librarianship to polarized constructs of dominance or emotionalness. This research expands the discussion on gender in animated television by highlighting the work of even minor characters as ideological tools used to reinforce cultural discourses related to gender, knowledge, and power.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Muhammad Rifky Nurpratama
AU  - Zulfa Avidiansyah
AU  - Sindhy Sintya Mianani
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/19
TI  - Gendered Librarian Stereotypes in Two Disney Animated Films: A Semiotic Analysis
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Culture and Sustainable Development (ICOCAS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 341
EP  - 349
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-503-4_41
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-503-4_41
ID  - Nurpratama2025
ER  -