A Semiotic Analysis of Female Empowerment in Don Hall and Carlos Lopez Estrada Disney Animation Movie Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate how the portrayal of female empowerment is represented in the latest animated movie Raya and the Last Dragon. It was directed by Don Hall and Carlos Lopez Estrada in 2021. This treatise involved the qualitative approach, using a screen capture technique that required eight scenes picked attentively to fit the issue of our research. Intending to fulfill the objective of examining the representation of women that entails identifying stereotype’s deconstruction, construction, or both, we decided to employ Roland Barthes’s model of denotation and connotation, Mise-en-scène, cinematography, and the color scheme theory. After a thorough and careful analysis, we come to the results that this Disney film depicts a positive transformation of females. They are shown as strong, powerful, leaders, independent, warriors, making decisions, solving problems, and having a voice to be listened to. Thus, the filmmakers provided this film with a positive stereotype of women that were no longer shown as weak, domestic, and inferiors, deconstructing the traditional one.