Disney Princess Stereotypes

The movie “The Princess and the Frog” is not your typical “boy saves girl” movie. Instead, this Disney movie presents us with a strong female lead who doesn’t need a man to achieve her goals. In many previous Disney movies, it is demonstrated that a girl needs a man in order to get her happily ever after. Without a prince, she is nothing. In “The Princess and the Frog” the gender roles are presented to us as equal, even reverse at times.

In Mary Pipher’s passage, Saplings in The Storm, Pipher claims that young big-hearted girls are changing as they age. She claims that the nature and source of these problems come from the fairy tales, which capture the essence of change, and approval of others. The elements of language that she uses are tone and rhetorical devices. This passage is made in order to appeal to the audience about the situation and to get them interested in the situation. As adolescent girls grow up they start to lose their inner kid that was once inside them.

The minds of children are like sponges, absorbing everything they hear, touch, and see. They are consciously taught ideas in school and participate in subconscious learning of moral behaviors and attitudes outside of the classroom. Disney is undeniably a large part of most children’s subconscious learning. Regardless of the movie, children are internalizing stereotypes of what princesses and princes do and what they look like. Before 2009, the stereotypical princess was a character being of lighter skin, dependent on men, and being of privileged descent. Finally in 2009, Disney introduced its first African American princess, trying to meet critics’ demands. Although Disney’s Princess and the Frog creates greater diversity among Disney Princess,

Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and many other Disney movies all have one thing in common, they feature a female lead who need a male figure to save them. However, things started to change after the release of Mulan 1988. It changed from only having those female leads who always needed to rely on someone, to females who were able to show off their more masculine side. In the article “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Pixar/Disney,” Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden explored the idea that Pixar movies were starting to show male characters who weren 't afraid to show their emotions and feminine attributes, to promote the “New Man” model. The picture depicted above is another example of characters in Mulan who have these characteristics. Gillam and Wooden effectively convey their argument through the use of compare and contrast, examples of homosociality, and their own personal experience/ ideas.

Dwarfs in 1937, Disney has grown to become a worldwide phenomenon today. But over the years, various parent groups, scholars and film critics have accused Disney for creating shallow, stereotypical princesses whose ultimate aim was to find her 'prince charming ' and live happily ever after.

In Walt Disney, the role of female protagonists have gradually developed from weakness, innocence and dependence to be courage, bravery, and intelligence as time passes by. For example, Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora stories which are released on 19th century play their roles as pitiful women who are badly treated by villains. The only thing they could do is waiting for a miracle of true love from a charming prince to get them out of the trouble. Furthermore, they all immediately have love at first sight with a charming prince without any hesitation. However, a character of Disney female protagonists from the 20th century to the 21st century are changed dramatically according to the movement for women’s rights, equality, and democracy. The female character of Disney stories in these eras manifest more braveness, leadership, and independence which represents the concept of feminism. For example, Belle from Beauty and the Beast changes the Beast into a charming prince by a miracle of her true love. Mulan disguises herself as a man to go to war instead of her elderly father and proves herself that she is as brave as a man. Pocahontas protects her tribe from invaders along with protecting her beloved who is stigmatized as one of the invaders by using the compromising tactic. Queen Elza governs her kingdom impartially.

Walt Disney has been making girls think that in order to be beautiful you have to be the perfect shape and size. (Shortridge). Some people believe that the Disney Princesses are great role models for children because Mulan teaches us to never give up on the strengths we have just because we are girls, Belle teaches us to never judge a book by its cover, and Pocahontas shows us real princesses are strong leaders. On the other hand, some individuals feel that Disney Princesses are bad role models because of their unrealistic body appearance, telling girls every marriage ends with a happily ever after when you get married at a young age, and saying every girl needs a man in order to be happy. Both sides have valid points but in reality everyone

Princesses’ in Disney movies are tied down to a recurring theme: the princess that must be saved from the evil woman by the charming prince. A significant contrast to the usually weak and easily persuaded figure of the father. Even though the women are portrayed as weak, nobody stops to think how strong they have to be to carry the responsibility of an entire household on her shoulder, while the men always seem to be traveling or ill. Fairytales are based on a patriarchal way of thinking and as time passes by, it’s proven to be detrimental to society

Gender is something that is brought to the attention of people well before people are even brought into the world. Take for instance, when a woman finds out that she is pregnant and is about to have a child. The first question that that women is asked is “What are you having?” In doing this we are automatically emphasizing the importance of being able to identify whether or not to buy “boy” things or “girl” things. As a society we deem it important for each sex to practice a set of “norms” of how to behave via that sex. As a man, you are supposed to be dominant, strong, hardworking, provider, and the bread winner. As a woman, you are supposed to be submissive, weak, docile, and nurture. But where and when do these norms on how to behave

The characters in The Little Mermaid are stragetically designed in a way that conveniently adheres to stereotypical ideas of how males and females should behave, value, and appear according to their gender roles in a patriarchal society that demeans women. In order to do this, the main male characters, including King Triton and Prince Eric, must depict hypermasculinity to dramatically contrast from the creation of their fragile and inferior female counterparts. This is to also exhibit the men’s hypothetical ownership over these women, and using their displayed incompetence as justification of their assumed possession of Ariel. Ariel, the central female character, is depicted as beautiful, because she meets stereotypical standards of beauty

People of all ages throughout the years are very familiar with the concept of Disney movies. Some notable classics of Disney are “Beauty and the Beast” which was released in 1991 and “The Little Mermaid” which was released in 1989. Among the children, the Disney princesses left a good impression on them like Cinderella from “Cinderella”, Pocahontas from “Pocahontas”, and Mulan from “Mulan”. However, many believe that Disney movies serve as a good influence to young audiences but people should know that Disney also has its flaws. Disney have showed negative portrayals of Disney princesses in their films especially when it comes to their usual unattainable beauty ideal and portraying their princesses as inferior to men. There are also negative life lessons found in Disney films. Some examples are on how it’s a must for each girl to become like a princess; ugly people are evil and immoral and that

Disney princesses were Created by Andy Mooney, a worker of the Disney Consumer Products, in the late 1990s, it features a line-up of fictional female heroines. Since 1937, Walt Disney Studios has been creating fairytale movies that total fifty feature films. Many of these films, the most classic, are based in ancient stories featuring villains, princes and princesses. As society has changed in the seventy-three years Disney has been making movies, so have the animated films themselves.

To most little girls growing up wishing to become a princess and find their Prince Charming is nothing far from normal. From the very first Disney princess movies in the early 1900s young girls have naturally falling in love with the princess characters. However the morals of these movies are there to mask the negative impact that these movies are actually putting on young girls. For years these movies have been teaching girls to be sweet, emotional and a damsel in distress. That way their Prince Charmings will fall in love with them and save them when they are in danger, this trend is shown in multiple disney princess movies where the princesses are dependent on their prince. These ditsy and naïve princesses are not the role models that young

Despite the fact that The Little Mermaid is an iconic story with memorable characters and is beloved by millions of people, it is still evident that the premise is problematic, especially when its target audience is young, impressionable children (primarily females) who are themselves still trying to form their own identities. Her change from mermaid to human denotes a huge shift in who she is as a character, as she is literally being changed from one being to another, and in doing so she must do away with everything that made her who she was before she met the prince: a mermaid, a princess, a daughter, a sister, a beautiful singer, and more. This may have been considered collateral damage by both Andersen and Disney, but it does not excuse the reality of the impact of the message the story promotes. In the Disney film, Ariel considers what the cost of being human would be as she negotiates with the sea witch, "If I become a human, that means I 'll never be with my father or sisters again" (Clements and Musker), to which the Sea-Witch Ursula replies, "That 's right...But--you 'll have your man. Life 's full of tough choices, innit?" (Clements and Musker). This issue of surrendering feminine individuality in pursuit of the approval of men transcends both versions of the story, and plays into who the mermaid is, what she stands for, and what she thinks of her

In most Disney films, a male hero defeats the antagonist, thus stereotypically winning the dream woman’s heart. In contrast Disney put a twist on this film, creating the images of the strong and confident Elsa and the independent heroine Anna. Hereby, Disney attempted to make a statement against gender inequality, supporting equal opportunities and rights for men and woman. Although the idea of gender equality wasn’t so prevalent as the American Dream developed, it has become an inherent part of the concept for many American in recent