Child maltreatment in Disney animated feature films: 1937–2006

Abstract

The 45 fully animated, theatrical release feature films produced by Disney between 1937 and 2006 were analyzed for child maltreatment content. All child and adolescent characters were counted and coded for age, role type and incidents of child maltreatment, following US National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS) criteria. A total of 561 incidents of child maltreatment were identified among the 1369 child characters in the films. A total of 26 of the 42 (62%) main child characters were maltreated at least once. Findings are discussed in the context of previous research. Implications of the findings for understanding potential effects on film viewers’ understandings of issues around child maltreatment are outlined.

Notes

1 Sedlak and Broadhurst (1996) list the types of maltreatment recorded in the NIS. Physical abuse: Hitting with hand, stick, a strap or other object; punching; kicking; throwing; burning; stabbing or choking a child. Sexual abuse: Intrusion (oral, anal, or genital penetration or anal or genital digital or other penetration); molestation with genital contact without penetration; other unspecified acts and inappropriate supervision of child's voluntary sexual activities. Emotional abuse: Close confinement (tortuous restriction of movement), verbal or emotional assault (habitual patterns of belittling, denigrating, scapegoating, etc.). Other (overtly punitive, exploitive or abusive treatment). Neglect: Refusal of health care; delay in health care; abandonment; expulsion, other custody issues; inadequate supervision; other physical neglect; permitted chronic truancy; failure to enroll/other truancy; inattention to special education need; inadequate nurturance/affection; chronic/extreme spouse abuse; permitted drug/alcohol abuse; permitted other maladaptive behavior; refusal of psychological care; delay in psychological care; and other emotional neglect.

2 The means of the three inter-coder pair coefficients for the 20 types of maltreatment were closely clustered (.88065, .88105, .88474). This is a positive indicator that the three pairs can be averaged to provide a meaningful three-way coefficient. The lowest of the separate coder pair coefficients for the 20 maltreatment variables is .655, which is within an acceptable range. Each of the three coder pair coefficients for each of the 20 variables is significant at the .01 level of significance.

The three-way mean Kappa coefficients were calculated. Physical abuse: hitting (1) – .760, hitting (2) – .772, punching – 1.00, throwing – 1.00, other physical – .701; emotional abuse: close confinement – .957, verbal assault (1) – .968, verbal assault (2) – .878, other emotional abuse (1) – .871, other emotional abuse (2) – .862; neglect: expulsion – .777, inadequate supervision (1) – .824, inadequate supervision (2) – 1.00, inadequate nurturance/affection – .777, permitted other maladaptive behavior – .865, other neglect – 1.00, other maltreatment (1) – .918, other maltreatment (2) – .960, other maltreatment (3) – .792, other maltreatment (4) – 1.00. The 1.00 coefficients are due to a small count (1 or 2 out of 227) and full agreement. The lower three-way mean coefficients are due to higher cell counts and greater likelihood of disagreement by random chance.

These levels of agreement were achieved through detailed training, a highly specific coding scheme, and a predefined count of children in the films – i.e., all coders were presented with all images of children to be coded for maltreatment.