How My Perspective on Disney Princesses Changed
2001, sitting at a tiny plastic Crayola table in the center of my living room, a 4-year-old me witnessed the Disney film The Little Mermaid, a pivotal moment in my young life. I was hooked, no pun intended. I wanted princess clothes, a princess castle, a princess body- I wanted to live and breathe and sleep, Disney Princess.™ Because I was young, I never stopped to consider that that was the point of it all; I could never truly be a princess, but for 10.99 my parents could buy me Cinderella Barbie and sate my desire for Princess-hood temporarily.
Hold on a moment, you say, Disney isn’t purely about the money; it’s about pixie dust, and glass slippers, and wishing on stars! The pantheon of Disney Princess doesn’t exist just to sell toys- it’s about female empowerment and finding yourself! To this, I say there’s very little empowerment in the earliest Disney Princesses- and the ‘empowerment’ featured in Disney Princess movies nowadays purely exists to appease audiences and sell dolls.
Cinderella, one of Disney’s most popular films, is a one hour and 16-minute long testament to what Disney considered ‘good womanhood’ to be. Along with fitting traditional beauty standards i.e. thin, white, long blonde hair, Cinderella was passive and polite, receiving magical intervention after prostrating herself on the ground and weeping ardently. A prince lifts her from her life of servitude into one of glamour and glory. Alexander Bruce, author of “The Role of the ‘princess’ in Walt Disney’s Animated Films” says that by “depicting the marital success of subservient, passive females” Disney is subconsciously teaching its audience that young girls are meant to “fulfill that passive role in society, not acting but instead waiting for a man to give them the perfect life.” Cinderella depicts this scenario perfectly- and it’s not just Cinderella; it’s Snow White, it’s Sleeping Beauty, it’s The Little Mermaid, it’s Beauty and the Beast, it’s basically all early Disney movies which millions of young girls watched and began forming their perspectives about womanhood around.
Let’s consider Disney’s method of selling. According to Will Burns of Forbes, “The company has created business groups each focusing on a different franchise — e.g. “Frozen,” “Star Wars,” and “Marvel.” These business groups are responsible for extending the movies into merchandising and experiential opportunities to maximize revenue.” Disney sells by telling stories- so what happens when people start to criticize those stories that lay the foundation for your primary marketing strategy?
What I didn’t know about that moment that I watched The Little Mermaid for the first time was that my parents had been reticent to show me any kind of Disney media as a result of the wave of criticism for the way Disney depicted female characters. The criticism still rages on- multitudes of commentary videos on youtube explaining how Belle has Stockholm syndrome and Sleeping Beauty was about somnophilia, articles upon articles discuss Disney’s depiction of ‘evil’ as ugly and ‘good’ as beautiful. With all the media harping on the passive, gentle female in Disney films, I imagine it was nearly impossible for Disney not to take notice. In fact, as shown in the recent films Moana, Brave, Tangled, Frozen, and Disney Princess Live-Action remakes, it was very clear that they did.
These new movies portray two different types of women; the kind that are fleshed out, real women (Moana, Brave) and the kind that are the typical Disney fare, but with one or two lines about self-sufficiency and independence. In the live-action Beauty and the Beast remake, Belle remains essentially the same character she was in the animated film- but now she remarks openly about how the beast kidnapped her and how self-aware she is of her situation so parents don’t have to feel bad about buying the new singing Belle barbie. Frozen features a girl who wants to marry a prince after knowing him one night- to which Elsa, the main character sneers, “you can’t get married to a man you just met.” Mom, buy me the Elsa costume, she’s a feminist.
It’s not my opinion that one shouldn’t enjoy a Disney feature film or not be a feminist, nor is it the point. The point is that Disney’s employment of ‘fake wokeness’ to create ‘independent women’ is grounded in marketing, not genuine interest in crafting believable, investing characters. Disney wants to engage children, while simultaneously soothing concerned parents that their characters are kid-friendly role models, safe for viewing and purchase. If Disney truly wanted to empower women and girls, they would create princesses that are a reflection of the girls watching instead of ill-defined puppets that spout feminist rhetoric for no other purpose than to show that they are, in fact, a strong independent woman.
