Translation, gender in Disney’s live-action productions: a translation studies perspective on the representation of gender stereotypes in Pinocchio, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast

Abstract

This study investigates how gender representation is rewritten in Disney’s live-action adaptations of Beauty and the Beast (Condon 2017), Aladdin (Ritchie 2019), and Pinocchio (Zemeckis 2022), through the lens of Translation Studies. It draws on Lefevere’s theory of translation as rewriting, Butler’s theory of gender performativity, and Bassnett’s model of features, and is integrated within a qualitative, comparative, and interdisciplinary framework. The analysis attempts to address how ideological forces such as patronage and poetics, influence Disney’s adaptations, and how they reflect and reshape contemporary gender norms. The methodology of this research focuses on the taxonomies developed to map narrative and character features across the source texts, animations and live-action remakes, providing a diachronic view of the shifts in gender representation. Secondary focus is given to the subtitles, highlighting the roles of interlingual, intralingual, and intersemiotic translation strategies in shaping gender discourse. Findings reveal Disney’s clear attempt at progressiveness in gender representation – such as increased female agency or queer representation – although often resulting in superficial additions and, paradoxically, reinforcing patriarchal and heteronormative ideologies. Furthermore, linguistic analysis of subtitles and translation strategies further reveal ideological manipulation and superficiality of progress. By combining theories from Translation Studies, Adaptation Studies, Feminist and Queer Theory, and Semiotics and Narratology, this study highlights the role of translation as a vehicle of cultural and ideological transmission within children’s media. In conclusion, Disney’s adaptations are shaped as much by market and cultural expectations as by narrative fidelity, positioning translation as a central process in reinforcing gender ideologies and representation.