Disney has been everyone’s childhood. Stories of pure magic, fantasy, and adventure have captivated audiences from all walks of life. Every little girl has dreamed at least once of being a Disney princess or heroine, wishing for the ability to talk to animals, poofy dresses, and massive castles.
More often than not, these Disney characters are the first people young girls look up to. However, we eventually have to ask: should they? Disney has been criticized and praised over the years for its leading ladies over topics such as empowerment, feminism, and representation. In honor of women everywhere, let us take a look at the history and the values of these female protagonists who have shaped our childhoods.
During the thirties, America was still recovering from the Great Depression and some after-effects of the First World War. Traditional gender roles did not change much despite suffrage rights being granted in WWI. They were still confined to domesticated roles like housekeepers and child bearers. Snow White, our first princess, follows all of these ideals: she cooks and cleans, and her entire personality centers on being timid and kind. She has to be saved by the prince and seven dwarves. By today’s feminist standards, the benchmark that the film holds for a woman should not be one that little girls limit themselves to.
These restrictive standards carried on throughout the 1930s, World War II, and even until the 1980s. After the war, the world tried its hardest to go back to how it was before (i.e. highly patriarchal ideals of yore), with conformity and “The American Dream” being encouraged for both genders. Movies such as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Sleeping Beauty were what defined the fifties. Though all of these films have become timeless classics, each one has been criticized for one-dimensional characters and a distinct lack of female action and dialogue. Cinderella’s story of abuse is overshadowed as a man who recognizes her by her shoe size becomes her husband. Aurora gets a total of 18 minutes of screentime. All the women in these films have very similar and generic characterizations of simply being timid, kind, and soft-spoken—similar to female protagonists in the thirties and forties.
Fast-forward to the 90s: the decade that saw the start of third-wave feminism, with many groups questioning or reimagining traditional gender roles. The idea of “girl power” emerged, as pop culture and society rejected The American Dream and girls were no longer expected to be passive and second to men.
This is also known to be Disney’s most popular and successful era: the Renaissance, where much more radical change was seen in the way Disney’s characters were written. The female protagonists in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, and Mulan also appeared very different compared to their predecessors. Themes of independence and freedom and women acting in restrictive situations for themselves became the norm for films following this era.
We see the transition to more unorthodox “princesses,” such as Pocahontas and Mulan, as cultural minorities started being represented in Disney studios. Though Pocahontas as a film has been widely criticized for the misrepresentation of Native Americans, Pocahontas herself is a strong-willed heroine who would do anything for her tribe. Mulan is a war hero who struggles with the pressures of Chinese society then.
Finally, we arrive at the Revival Era: 2009 to the present. This era started off with the Princess and the Frog. With CGI becoming an integral part of the film-making process, we were given Tangled, Brave, Frozen, Moana, Raya and the Last Dragon, and of course, Encanto. The 2010s have seen the loudest female voices (with less rigid gender roles) and the shift of feminism from mostly white women to a wider representation, especially for cultural minorities. Films from this era have strayed away from the usual fairytale love stories and tackled richer themes, such as family, one’s belonging or purpose, and even the cycle of generational trauma.
Tiana was the first Disney princess in 98 years to represent the African-American community, have a job, and dream in the business world. Rapunzel, while still a fairytale princess, was given an actual arc and personality—with her intent to leave her tower never being for a prince but out of her own curiosity. Of course, we all know the “you can’t marry a man you just met” line from Frozen and how the movie subverted our expectations by becoming a story about sisterly love rather than romance. Moana literally saves the world, Raya saves her tribe, Merida saves her mother, and Mirabel saves her family and casita.
None of the aforementioned heroines have had a love interest at all, and we are able to see true diversity in these films, covering Polynesian, Southeast Asian, and Latin American cultures and traditions.
Disney has had its flaws when it came to designing these eventual role models for young children. However, their steady progress into better integrating actual female experiences and ideals makes up for this. From being restricted to homemakers and cooks, to secondary workers in wars, to being anybody you wanted to be, the limits for women have been pushed off the edge. Society shifted and advanced, and so did expectations for women in films and art, leading to better-developed characters and, subsequently, messages and impact. As Cinderella once said, “Just because it’s what’s done, doesn’t mean it’s what should be done.”
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